Go West: Canadians preferred to move to B.C. during COVID-19

• B.C. sees net gain of over 34,000 people coming from other provinces
• Most of the gains from Alberta and Ontario
• Highest inflow from other provinces since 1993/94
• Local moving company says it’s busy regardless of COVID-19

British Columbia saw a net gain of over 34,000 people as residents from elsewhere in Canada chose to settle in this province.

And that means it’s been a relentless year for moving companies around Kelowna, like Bekins Moving & Storage.

“I think there’s an increase of people either moving in or out, but there is definitely an increase of people moving in,” General Manager, Dawn Miller told Kelowna10.

“In the last year we’ve been incredibly busy. We’ve seen a great increase. But to qualify, we’re pretty much steady busy all year long,” Miller added. “In this industry we typically see a peak season in the summer months, but we’ve typically seen that peak season stretch through to all 12 months.”

According to their annual demographic estimates report, Statistics Canada said the nation’s population, as well as B.C.’s, continued to grow despite the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I don’t really think that COVID-19 plays a role in the moving,” Miller said.

“I think at the beginning of COVID there was a great pause and then when people realized ‘wait a minute legal agreements are still legal agreements and we still have to move’, then they were like ‘okay how can we get this done’.

“We have been incredibly busy through the last couple of years regardless of COVID-19 actually.”

The Stats Canada report showed the net gain in people into B.C. in the period July 1, 2020, to July 1, 2021, was greater than any other province in the nation.

“In our technology world today, people can pretty much work from anywhere, so people are choosing to move into the Okanagan,” Miller said.

“As much as we know that it’s very expensive to live here, it’s cheaper to live here than it is in the Vancouver metro area.”

Interprovincial migration into B.C. far outweighed outflows for a net gain of 34,277, which was much more than the other parts of the country that also saw a positive move: Nova Scotia (+9,949) and New Brunswick (+3,887).

There were several provinces that experienced net losses as their residents chose to go elsewhere in Canada during the 12-month period: Ontario (-17,085), Manitoba (-9,685), Saskatchewan (-9,410) and Alberta (-11,831).

For the 2020/2021 period, B.C.’s gain of over 34,000 people from migratory exchanges with the rest of Canada was the highest number since 1993/1994 (37,871). Most of the gains seen in British Columbia came from exchanges with Alberta and Ontario.

Smallest national growth rate since 1945

While the overall national population grew by 208,904 – for a growth rate of +0.5 per cent – Stats Canada noted that was the smallest figure since 1945, and the slowest rate of growth since 1916, two periods when Canada was at war.

By comparison, the population grew by 536,146 (+1.4%) between 2018 and 2019, before the pandemic.

The main factors that dented the national growth rate was reduced international migration due to border restrictions put in place due to the pandemic and deaths caused by COVID-19.

However, even with the slowdown in international migration, people coming from other countries to settle in Canada still accounted for 74.9 per cent of Canada’s growth in 2020/2021. That’s down from 83.2% in 2019/2020.

Most provinces and territories saw considerable losses of non-permanent residents, including 7,031 who left B.C.

Ontario had the highest net loss in this category with 18,168.