The “Move To Canada” article referenced in the above tweet includes:
Canada and the prospect of Americans moving there appears to have drawn so much online interest that it knocked out the country’s immigration website.
Internet searches for “move to Canada” and “immigrate to Canada” spiked Tuesday night as election returns favoured Republican President-elect Donald Trump. “Canada immigration” was also a top trending Google search and “Canada” was a leading U.S. trend on Twitter, with more than 1 million tweets.
While much of the chatter was clearly tongue-in-cheek, the website for Citizenship and Immigration Canada was down at the time. Agency officials could not be immediately reached for comment to confirm the cause of the site outage.
The site appeared to be working sporadically by Wednesday morning.
My Canadian Pre-Law Forum Blog, in addition to being a resource for pre-law students, has become a huge source of information for non-Canadian lawyers and law graduates who wish to become lawyers in Canada. Canada is a stable and mature democracy with a strong and predictable legal system. Therefore, many people wish to move to Canada to live under the rule of law (British common law in all provinces except Quebec – at that). Lawyers see Canada as a good place to continue their legal careers. The truth is that Canada is a world leader is law, regulations and (and also) high taxes! (But at least, your high taxes did get you decent public health care.)
Amazingly (who could have known?), on November 9, 2016 – the day after the Trump victory (or should we say the Democrats defeat), the number of hits to this blog – specifically the part that deals with the non-Canadian lawyers practising law in Canada – increased ten fold! A ten fold increase because of the U.S. election! Think of it!
In many cases, a desired move to Canada is motivated by a desire to “Renounce U.S. Citizenship“. That said, the practical reality of “renouncing U.S. citizenship” is coupled by:
– the practical necessity of having a second citizenship. It does take time to become a Canadian citizen
– the possibility of being subjected to the “US Expatriation Tax”. Yes, incredibly the “Land Of The Free” will seek to impose punitive confiscation “taxation” on the assets of many Americans who wish to renounce U.S. citizenship. For an example to see how Draconian this can be see the following example so how the U.S. expatriation tax is calculated on those who renounce U.S. citizenship. Those who were dual U.S./Canadian citizens from birth may be exempted from the Expatriation tax.
Of course, U.S. lawyers wanting to move to Canada must qualify under Canada’s immigration laws and must navigate the NCA process that requires foreign lawyers to be admitted to the Bar in Canada.
John Richardson – Toronto, Canada
Pre-Law Forum Toronto - Becoming a lawyer in Canada 