The East/West economic divide, labour market mobility, and internal youth migration.

The terrain within Canada is changing in relation to the economic and political landscape with the rise of Western Canada and the relative decline of the Eastern Canada. Essentially there's a shift in the projection of power within Canada that's going to continue to have profound impact on the country's political culture. This blog post is going to examine a couple of the implications of this development in relation to young people, internal migration, and labour market prospects.

One of the issues lying beneath the surface of the shifting power balance is the rising frequency of the migration of young people from Eastern Canada to Western Canada. Just an anecdotally I've had any number of friends move to British Columbia and Alberta over the past couple years for work and given the continuing stagnation of the economy in Ontario, Quebec, and in parts of the Maritimes this trend will continue into the foreseeable future.

Driving the western shift of talent is the increasing fiscal divide characterized by the increasing reliance on commodity exports, the rise of the petrodollar,  an uneven monetary policy, the changing nature of the redistributive federalist project between have and have-not provinces, and the lasting impact of the financial crisis on the decline of the manufacturing sector. 

Underpinning internal migration is the deteriorating labour market in Eastern Canada is fueling the movement of young people from Maritimes, Quebec, and Ontario to the Western provinces. With the dollar at parity with the American greenback the manufacturing sector in Ontario hasn't been able to recover much from the medium and long-term declines that it has experienced. Generally, when there's an increase in the unemployment rate in Canada there's a jump in the number of people migrating to other provinces.

There doesn't appear to be any public policy developments on the horizon that might stem the out-flow of talent from the East to the West (and South, because many young people now look to the U.S. for opportunities). With Dalton McGuinty adamant in his irrational resolve to implement neoliberal austerity measures in the face of a weak labour market and economy we're going to be seeing more young people fleeing West for secure opportunities for their futures.

Simply put, this isn't a good time to be a young person in Ontario with the rise in precarious employment, stagnating or declining wages, rising income inequality, the elimination of mandatory retirement, boomers stealing jobs from youth, and regressive action from government to address youth unemployment. Beyond Ontario, the economic picture doesn't look good for Quebec or the Maritime provinces (with the exception of Newfoundland) due to a combination of an aging population, escalating job losses, and difficult economic conditions.

For some more reading on this subject, take a look at the following: Statscan's "Interprovincial mobility and earnings" and "Labour Market, Business Activity, and Population Growth and Mobility in Canadian CMAs" reports; also, this recent Toronto Star article provides a good overview of recent trends.