A recent piece in the Washington Post made the observation that, over the past decade, the conservative right in the United States has invoked a sense of nostalgia for the America of the 1950s, creating a desire to return to an America that never was.
According to the Post, that movement has embodied a sentiment that uses a lingering contempt for the social movements of the 1960s and more recent advancements in freedoms for women, the LGBTQ+ communities, and People of Colour to stoke fear and anger. And that has given rise to things like the 2016 election of Donald Trump, the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, and ever-more-extreme policies.
The situation has caused some Americans to make the painful decision to leave their home country and emigrate to nations that more closely embody their values.
Statistics from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada show a steady increase in the number of people from the U.S. who were granted permanent residence in Canada each year since 2015. In 2023, 10,640 U.S. citizens were admitted to Canada as permanent residents, and that number has already been exceeded in 2024.
Many of those expatriates have settled in B.C.– specifically on Vancouver Island.
Heather Pilon left the U.S. in 2006 and moved to South Korea.
“I was in Colorado (in 1999 and I remember the terror of Columbine (school shooting). I thought, ‘This will never happen again’ but I was obviously wrong,” said Pilon.
She, her husband and their two children left Korea for Canada a few years ago, settling in Nanaimo.
“My family was very disappointed. My sister wanted me to come back to Pennsylvania where my parents and my four siblings all live,” said Pilon. “But how can you live somewhere where you can’t send your children to school and be sure of their safety? People in the U.S. have almost accepted that as a part of life, and I think it’s atrocious.”
Pilon's decision to leave the U.S was validated on a visit home two years ago. Her father, who “has a house full of guns,” and her sister both berated and belittled her sons (aged 10 and 12) when the boys refused to go off with her father to shoot his AR15s.
Her family, all supporters of former president Donald Trump, have contributed to Pilon’s choice to stay in Canada.
“Their talking points come from the limbic system of fear. It’s like a frantic thing where the reptilian part of the brain sees nothing but danger. It’s not like that in Canada.”
That has certainly been the experience of another two expatriates, Joseph Quinn Mitchell (Quinn) and his partner Larry Reston, who now call Langford home.
Both were born and raised in Florida and resided there until 2020, building successful businesses as home builders and entrepreneurs.
The couple, who have been together for 46 years, were happy with their life in Florida. They would build a house for seven months, act as their own realtors to sell it and then travel around the world for the next five or six months. They did that more than 20 times.
But the rise of the political right and events like the overturning of Roe vs. Wade that fundamentally changed women’s rights over their bodies gave them pause as did some memorable incidents.
Quinn described hiking on a remote trail in Great Smoky Mountains National Park when they encountered a lone hiker coming down the trail toward them.
“We pulled our gators up over our faces as a precaution (against COVID) and he walked right up to me and said, ‘I don’t appreciate you pulling up that mask’. Then he pulled up his shirt and showed us the pistol strapped to his chest. It was an eye-opener.”
That wasn't the only thing that prompted the couple to leave their homeland, as the evolving political climate in the U.S. played a part in influencing their decision to leave.
“It will be the death of democracy in the U.S.A.,” said Quinn. “(Trump's) already said that he will be a dictator on day one, that ‘You’ll never have to vote again’ … We’re hoping that everything is going to be peaceful but we’re not soothsayers. We’re not political refugees, but it did play into our decision-making.”
And if the couple needed any substantiation of the wisdom of their choice to emigrate, a recent trip back to Florida served the purpose.
“We’d stopped for gas in Idaho and all of a sudden 50 motorcycles pulled in and surrounded us. They were all wearing vests saying ‘Warriors of Jesus’ and were all packing pistols. Some of them had rifles strapped to their motorcycles,” recalled Quinn. “Here we are, two gay guys in the middle of nowhere, and we’re surrounded by the Warriors of Jesus. We’d just spent our first year in the peace and tranquility of Canada and we were not prepared for that.”
Their life in Victoria, says Quinn, has been wonderful.
“The people are so friendly,” said Quinn. “We’ve made more friends here in a year than we did in our entire lives in Florida. People are not judgmental.
“In the end, we figure we have another 20 years of life. That’s 240 months and we had to decide how we wanted to spend that time, and it wasn’t looking over your shoulder and living in fear.”
