When Canadians wanted to move during COVID, most chose B.C. | iNFOnews | Thompson-Okanagan's News Source
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When Canadians wanted to move during COVID, most chose B.C.

Image Credit: pixels.com/Artem Podrez

During the darkest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, travel was severely restricted in most areas of the country.

That meant the total number of people moving between provinces fell to 111,259 in the last half of 2020. That jumped to 202,989 in the first half of 2021, according to recently released data from Stats Canada.

The data shows a marked move from landlocked provinces to those on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.

B.C. led the way with a net gain of 34,277 people moving in from other provinces in the 2020/21 fiscal year (July 1 to June 30) but the four Maritime provinces also saw net interprovincial increases for the first time since 2009/10.

The big population net losses were felt in Ontario (-17,085), Alberta (-11,831), Manitoba (-9,685) and Saskatchewan (-9,410).

The data is not broken down by regions within the provinces but it does show what provinces the 36,579 British Columbians who moved out of B.C. went to along with where B.C.’s 70,856 new residents came from.

There were 31,232 Albertans who moved to B.C. during 2020/21 while 15,376 British Columbians went the other way, for a net gain for B.C. of 15,856.

Ontario was second to Alberta with 20,728 residents moving to B.C. versus 11,497 British Columbians going the other way, for a net gain for B.C. of 9,231.

That was not the case with Nova Scotians, with 644 more people moving from B.C. to Nova Scotia than the other way around.

There was a net loss for B.C. of eight people moving to and from Nova Scotia, the only other province or territory where B.C. showed a net loss.

B.C. had its other big net gains in exchanges with Manitoba (3,623), Saskatchewan (3,332) and Quebec (2,375).

The data can be seen here.

READ MORE: Canada's population growth takes pandemic hit


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