It is a longstanding tradition of American politics: at some stage in the electoral cycle, prominent citizens from the world of art and entertainment declare that if their preferred candidate is not victorious, they will move to Canada.
In the last presidential campaign, the threat – or promise – started to surface during early in the primaries. And this time, as Donald Trump pledged to build a wall along the Mexican border and temporarily ban Muslims from the country, it seemed some might actually follow through.
“I know a lot of people have been threatening to do this, but I really will,” Girls’ Lena Dunham told a New York audience in 2016. “I know a lovely place in Vancouver and I can get my work done from there.”
The actor Raven-Symoné said she had her ticket already and was prepared to “move to Canada with my entire family” if any Republican candidate became president.
The sentiment seemingly continued unabated on election night, sending online searches on moving to Canada rocketing. Canadian officials even got into the game, hinting that distressed Americans were partly to blame for crashing the country’s main immigration site.
Media on both sides of the border featured profiles of Americans who had left behind the fraught, divisive political climate of their home country, while others detailed the lengthy, complicated process involved in making the move.
But one year after Trump took power, has there been a surge of Americans – celebrities or otherwise – moving to Canada?
Figures from the Canadian government suggest an uptick in interest. In 2016, Canada received 7,745 applications for permanent residency from Americans, a 13% increase over 2015. As Trump took office in 2017, the number remained stable, with 7,446 applications received in the first 11 months of the year.
Among celebrities, the follow-through was less certain. Days after Trump was elected, Dunham said she would not be heading to Vancouver. “It’s easy to joke about moving to Canada,” she wrote on social media. “It’s harder to live, fully and painfully aware of the injustice surrounding us, to cherish and fear your country all at once. But I’m willing to try.”
The comedian Chelsea Handler, who had said she was ready to move to Canada if she couldn’t live in Spain, said she had been encouraged to stay in the US. “Yesterday, my staff reminded me that platforms and voices like mine are needed more than ever; leaving the country is quitting,” she tweeted after Trump was elected.
Raven-Symoné’s promise to move north prompted a six-minute TV segment featuring her travelling to British Columbia, dressed as a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer and throwing axes with a flannel-clad man in an attempt to get a taste for life in Canada. But the segment ended with her preparing to head back to the US.
Others simply never addressed their promise. After telling Vanity Fair that she would escape to Canada’s east coast province of Nova Scotia if Trump became president, the actress Chloë Sevigny said nothing more. A publicist for Sevigny said she did not have any other information on the topic.
Similarly, Barbra Streisand, who said she would move to Australia or Canada, and Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston, who pledged he would “definitely move” north if Trump won, have not brought up the idea of moving since the election. Their publicists did not reply to a request for comment.
The singer Ne-Yo and rapper Snoop Dogg both said they were Canada-bound, with Ne-Yo telling TMZ he planned to become neighbours with Drake while Snoop Dogg hit up his fellow rapper for a “hookup on some property” in Toronto on social media. Nothing more was ever mentioned by either of them and requests for comment went unanswered by their representatives.
During the election, actor Neve Campbell – who was born and raised in southern Ontario – said she found the thought of a Trump presidency terrifying. When asked by the Huffington Post what she would do if he won, her answer was clear: “Move back to Canada.”
After Trump was elected, Campbell noted on Instagram that she was “still very proud to have the honor of living in America”. Her publicist did not reply to a request for comment.
Still, some groups have been flocking to Canada in substantial numbers in the wake of Trump taking power. In the first 11 months of 2017, the number of applications by Americans to study in Canada swelled by 29%, to 3,057, compared with the 2,363 received in all of 2016.
The largest increase, however, was among asylum seekers living in the US. Driven by fears of what a Trump presidency would mean for refugees, they began braving freezing temperatures, fields of waist-deep snow and icy rivers to cross into Canada at remote, unguarded locations along the border shortly after Trump was elected.
Eight months into Trump’s term, their numbers swelled to a high of about 250 people a day. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they intercepted 18,615 migrants along the US border in 2017, compared with 2,464 in 2016.
