TORONTO, Canada - Usually, you hear stories of people fleeing to America, not the other way around. As life in the U.S. worsens, prospects in Canada seem all the brighter. The Americans are the latest economic refugees, and they're heading to Canada.The jittery state of the U.S. economy is driving an increasing number of its citizens to seek better prospects north of the border.
Canadian officials say the number of Americans applying for temporary work visas doubled between 2008 and 2010. - Immigration lawyers in Toronto and the border city of Windsor, right across from job-starved Detroit, say they're seeing a dramatic growth in clients seeking to come to Canada to work, or even as permanent residents.
The number of U.S. citizens working in Canada is, at least by global migration standards, relatively small with some 30,000 at the beginning of last year.- Still, Americans make up the second-largest group of temporary workers in Canada, behind only Filipinos, most of whom work as nannies.
- Canada was one of the few to escape the 2008 financial meltdown relatively unscathed, a turn of events largely attributed to Ottawa's long-standing refusal to deregulate the banking sector.
While in U.S., President Barack Obama is expected to make a speech Thursday night that calls for immediate stimulus spending to create jobs and improve infrastructure.But those reforms will be difficult to make. Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, have resisted any efforts to boost the economy through additional spending.
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