Second thoughts about moving to Canada? Posted 4:21:00 PM by Fresh Prince of Berkeley (link)

According to a Reuters article, Americans are having second thoughts about moving to Canada.

Canadians can put away those extra welcome mats -- it seems Americans unhappy about the result of last November's presidential election have decided to stay at home after all.

In the days after President Bush won a second term, the number of U.S. citizens visiting Canada's main immigration Web site shot up sixfold, prompting speculation that unhappy Democrats would flock north.

But official statistics show the number of Americans actually applying to live permanently in Canada fell in the six months after the election.

On the face of it this is not good news -- Canada is one of the few major nations seeking to attract immigrants -- but Immigration Minister Joe Volpe was philosophical.

"We'll take talent from wherever it is resident in the world. I was absolutely elated to see the number of hits and then my staff said 'You know what? A hit on the Internet is after all just a hit'," he told Reuters on Thursday.

"I guess I'm happy Republicans and Democrats have found a way to live together in peace and in harmony," he said.

Canada generally tilts more to the social and political left than the United States.

Data from the main Canadian processing center in Buffalo, NY shows that in the six months up to the U.S. election there were 16,266 applications from people seeking to live in Canada, a figure that fell to 14,666 for the half year after the vote.
A spokeswoman for Canada's federal immigration ministry declined to speculate on the reasons for the drop.

The reason why is probably because these people came to their sense and realized that this country re-elected a pretty "liberal" President considering his spending, immigration, and foreign polciies, in some senses more liberal than Bill Clinton. Just take a look at a two quotes that signify the major themes of their presidencies:

"The era of big Government is over."
-President Bill Clinton, 1996 State of the Union Address

"We have a responsibility that, when somebody hurts, government has got to move."
-President George W. Bush, Labor Day Speech (unfortunately couldn't find the speech online in it's entirety) September 1, 2003

Yes, George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and the neoconservative wing of the GOP is changing the party before our very eyes and, in some regards, making it become more liberal than the Democratic party that Clinton transformed in the 1990's. I'm sure the Americans who had been considering leaving the country would've seen a huge difference in Canada or Europe.