Can Canada handle an influx of "Trumpfugees"?

[A lot of Americans are considering a move north/EPA/HERB SWANSON]

Chand Nirankari and Ted Bogin were only half-serious when they launched Trumpfugees.Us a website devoted to helping Americans “find life away from Trump.”

“It was a very quick project, we just wanted to get something up (and) we figured if Trump didn’t win we’d turn it into an expat resource site,” Nirankari told Yahoo Canada Finance over the phone from New York the morning after the election. “But clearly there’s a need for it now.”

The website offers digestible breakdowns on different options for so-called “Trumpfugees” like Argentina, New Zealand, and, of course, Canada. But Nirankari says she spoke to Bogin after this week’s election and the pair decided to “flesh it out” over the coming weeks.

While the concept of Trumpfugees started as an absurd joke, there’s proving to be some legitimacy. Last week the US-based branch of job site Monster saw a 58 per cent spike, with 30,000 searches by Americans involving the keyword “Canada.” And as the election results rolled in on Tuesday evening, Canada’s immigration website crashed, overwhelmed by a rush of traffic seeking information on the move.

Economically speaking, an influx of immigrants from the U.S. could be positive for Canada, provided it’s highly skilled immigrants, explains Andreas Schotter, assistant professor of international business and global strategy at Western University’s Ivey Business School.

“Canada requires strong contributors of the age group between 25 and 55,” says Schotter. “Let them be here, welcome them… we already lost this opportunity once after 9/11.”

In his opinion, Canada should have streamlined its immigration rules surrounding the September 11 attacks and made it easier for firms to bring in talent from elsewhere when countries like the U.S., were tightening their immigration laws. The key, he says, is being selective.

“(Highly skilled immigrants) will be net positive contributors to the economy and improve the competitiveness of a lot of Canadian firms and create new jobs by being entrepreneurial,” says Schotter. Plus, highly skilled workers are higher income earners meaning they spend more money on higher level goods and services boosting the need for jobs in that sphere.

And immigrants are more likely to start a business. According to StatsCan, 19.6 per cent of immigrants are unincorporated self-employed persons compared to 16.1 per cent of their Canadian-born peers.

Naturally, there are some downsides to an influx of immigrants from the south, admits Schotter.

“It will have consequences in places like the GTA and the Golden Horseshoe because that’s most likely the area that will be crowded by immigrants, same for Vancouver… we don’t necessarily need more people in these areas,” he says. “But you have lots of space in between that we need to fill.”

Mind you, Schotter isn’t convinced there will even be a mass exodus. As anyone who’s looked into it (or crashed a website while trying to look into it) can attest, it can be a lengthy process.

Brian Portas, an immigration lawyer with Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, deals predominantly with people immigrating to Canada for work.

“A lot of Canadian immigration is geared towards people who have job offers already and I’m guessing some of those people don’t have those in place yet,” he says. Therefore, the immediate issue to moving to Canada will be to get a work permit.

But in order to hire a skilled worker from south of the border, a Canadian employer needs to advertise the position for a minimum period of time to Canadians. After they’ve illustrated that it’s difficult to find the right talent here, they need to complete a Labour Market Impact Assessment (LMIA) to demonstrate that there will be a neutral or positive effect on the Canadian market.

If the assessment gives the go ahead, there’s still the permanent resident process, which even under the express entry system – a point system which takes into account your work experience, skillset, etc… – can take a year in legwork and processing time.

“It’s not as easy as just submit (your) application and wait,” adds Portas.

But there’s a silver lining for anyone who does navigate the paper work and make the formal move to Canada.

“Canada is already great,” says Schotter. “So we don’t have to make it great again.”