High cost of housing has two in five new immigrants thinking of moving: poll

The most common preferred destination for those thinking of moving within Canadca is Alberta -- but 42 per cent said they'd leave the country altogether because of housing costs.

A new poll says that the high cost of housing has nearly 40 per cent of the country’s new immigrants thinking about moving to another province — or even out of the country altogether.

Respondents to the poll by the Angus Reid Institute were most likely to say that, if they did leave the province they are now in, they’d head for Alberta.

For the purposes of this survey a “new immigrant” is an individual who has been in Canada for 10 years or less.

“As more immigrants seek the Canadian dream from abroad, many who have arrived in recent years have discovered less of a dream and more of a nightmare,” the pollster wrote.

But it’s not just new immigrants that are ready to move to find a better deal on housing. The survey found that, among all Canadians, 28 per cent are giving serious consideration to leaving their province because of high housing costs.

Among those who say they they’re thinking of moving out of their current province of residence, 15 per cent said they’d head to the U.S. while 28 per cent said they’d move to a country other than the U.S.

The pollster found that 45 per cent of those thinking of changing addresses would move elsewhere in Canada and, of those, 18 per cent said they’re thinking about moving to Alberta, 10 per cent said they’d go to Atlantic Canada, 6 per cent to B.C., 4 per cent to Ontario; and 2 per cent said Saskatchewan or Quebec would be a better spot.

The Angus Reid Institute’s online survey was self-commissioned and completed from June 14-20. The pollster said 4,204 adults participated in the survey and that the survey’s demographics mirrored those of Canada’s adult population. Because of the poll’s methodology, a margin of error cannot be calculated.