Neil Waugh has something worth reading in the Edmonton Sun today:
“I think that new Albertans, people who have moved here in the last 10 years, will be a factor in this election,” Taft said. “My impression in talking to them is that they are prepared to vote for a new government.”
If you believe Kevin, there’s this subversive army of newcomers out there. Quietly waiting until election day, when they will rise up, pull on their Toronto Maple Leafs hockey jackets and march to the polls. And vote Liberal. Just because that’s what they’ve been conditioned to do back wherever they brought the U-Haul from.
But there’s more where that came from.
“People from other provinces coming here vote governments out every once in a while,” Taft continued. “Just on principle.”
Taft has a point, but the economist in me prefers to focus on what we do know. We know that people vote with their feet and will move to regions where the total well-being package is the greatest. Case in point: for the first time since 1994, Alberta showed a definite net outflow of interprovincial migrants (mostly to Saskatchewan) at the end of 2007.
the main engine of Alberta’s demographic growth—interprovincial migration—has lost some of its importance. Alberta, which has led the provinces in population growth for the last few years, has started to lose more people to other regions than it has received.
Over the third quarter, Alberta recorded a net interprovincial migration outflow estimated at 3,300 people. The last time the province recorded a net outflow to other jurisdictions occurred in the fourth quarter of 1994.
Thanks to strong natural growth and net international migration, Alberta’s population is still increasing. However, its increase of 0.37% was the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2004.
This is a vital and important event in Alberta’s demographic trends, because the reversal indicates that natural births and international migration now driving population growth in Alberta. Housing affordability, lack of infrastructure and rapid inflation have eroded the Alberta dream many seek, and they are finding a quality of life improvement elsewhere.
Nevertheless, it would be interesting to examine the voting preferences of interprovincial migrants. The largest exchange of interprovincial migrants happens between B.C. and Alberta. Suppose Alberta is hemorrhaging PC-voting senior citizens who want to retire in Kelowna, while they gain long-haired nudist hippies from Tofino.
