There’s one number B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad has cited over and over again on the campaign trail.
“Last year, 72,500 people left British Columbia, a record in British Columbia’s history,” Rustad told supporters and journalists at his campaign launch in Vancouver’s Crab Park.
“The only time we even came close to that was during the NDP in the 1990s, in 1998, where it was over 60,000 people that left this province.”
Rustad has used the number to criticize the B.C. NDP, saying people are fleeing the province in droves as they struggle with a lack of affordable housing options.
But is it true that a record number of people fled the West Coast for greener economic pastures last year?
Werner Antweiler, a professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, said while Rustad’s number isn’t inaccurate, it doesn’t fully represent B.C.’s population trend.
“When politicians are cherry-picking numbers, it’s usually an indication they are only looking at one side of the story. It is really important to look at the statistics and say — am I getting the full picture?”
According to Statistics Canada, 74,752 people left B.C. in 2023 to settle in another province or abroad. And just like Rustad has told voters, that represents one of the highest numbers since 1998.
But B.C. has also welcomed a record number of people in recent years.
In 2023, Statistics Canada counted 134,186 people who settled in B.C. from another province or another country. And B.C.’s population has grown steadily in recent years, sitting at around 5.6 million in 2023.
The data excludes the balance of 129,131 non-permanent residents who arrived or left B.C. in 2023, because only net data for permanent residents is available in Statistics Canada data sets before 2021.
Antweiler says data collected by Statistics Canada about interprovincial departures also doesn’t reflect people’s motivations for leaving.� He said Canada’s population is increasingly mobile, moving between provinces because of family circumstances, or to follow educational and professional opportunities.
“We have a small loss interprovincially — mostly to Alberta — but we also have significant new immigration coming into B.C. and that is more than compensating what we are losing to other provinces,” said Antweiler.
“Even when we are looking to other provinces, it’s net migration that matters. So we see some movement to Alberta, but also some Albertans coming to B.C.”
While many B.C. residents have left for Alberta, that trend is not unique. Alberta saw the biggest surge in interprovincial migration in 2023, with more than 55,000 people moving to that province.
An online debate has started over whether the cost of living is pushing people to leave the province, after B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad made comments on the issue. CBC’s Michelle Ghoussoub finds out if the theory is rooted in fact.
Antweiler said even as housing affordability continues to put a strain on families and individuals, net immigration numbers over a single year can’t paint a full picture of an economic trend in a province.
“We’re talking about the net migration of a few thousand people against a population of 5.6 million,” he said.
“So we are talking about minuscule tiers of movement here that are not indicative of any significant problem in any direction.
“The fact that people are coming to B.C. from abroad suggests B.C. remains an attractive place for people to move.”
CBC News presented these figures to the B.C. Conservative Party, which replied with a statement that pointed to the same Statistics Canada figures.
“Net emigration does not simply mean the net movement of people out of a region; rather, it represents the total number of individuals who have permanently left after accounting for those who have temporarily moved out and returned,” the statement said.
“The aforementioned showcases a higher actual departure than initially perceived due to policy impacts on the cost of living, public safety, and overall governance under the NDP.”
People thinking about leaving
Out on the campaign trail, Rustad has repeatedly cited two other statistics.
“Right now in British Columbia one in three people are thinking about leaving. One in two youth are thinking about leaving British Columbia. To me, that is just a tragedy,” Rustad told supporters at a rally in Surrey on Sept. 22. He repeated those numbers during the televised leaders’ debate on Oct. 8.
The source of those numbers is a 2024 study by the Angus Reid Institute, that found “one-in-three (36%) say departing B.C. is something they’re giving serious consideration to because of housing affordability.”
The study found “among those 18 to 34 years of age, both men and women, the number who say they may leave because of the cost of housing rises to half.”
Unlike the Statistics Canada data, the study does take into account residents’ motivations for thinking of leaving.
The study by Angus Reid also found B.C. NDP voters are themselves divided on whether the province has done enough to address concerns around housing affordability.
The study found a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.