Montreal

For years Canada has complained of a ‘brain drain’ of its best and brightest, lured by higher salaries and better career prospects in the United States. But, according to the country's Liberal government, the latest statistics indicate that it might be experiencing more ‘gain’ than ‘drain’.

An article in the May issue of Education Quarterly Review, a publication of the Canadian federal body Statistics Canada, says the country gained four university graduates from abroad for every one it lost to the United States. Furthermore, Canada received as many immigrants with a master's degree or doctorate as it lost university graduates at all levels to the United States.

The analysis confirms the widely held perception that the loss of highly skilled workers to the United States accelerated during the 1990s. But so too did the influx of such individuals from abroad: about one-third of the increase in employment among computer engineers, programmers and systems analysts during the decade consisted of immigrants, many coming from developing countries.

During the 1990s, between 22,000 and 35,000 people a year are estimated to have emigrated from Canada to the United States, either temporarily or permanently. They were more likely to be graduates and have higher incomes than the Canadian population as a whole. Analysis of income tax data showed that individuals earning more than Can$150,000 (US$100,000) a year were seven times as likely to leave as the average taxpayer.

Most of those who left were in the 23–44 age group. Many worked in hospitals, education and high-technology industries such as engineering and computer services, precisely the ‘knowledge-intensive’ sectors that the federal government has emphasized as important to the Canadian economy.

But from the mid-1980s to 1997, the most recent year for which statistics are available, permanent immigration to Canada increased 15-fold among computer scientists, 10-fold among engineers, eightfold among natural scientists and fourfold among managerial workers. In 1997, more than 20,000 immigrants intended to work as computer scientists, engineers and natural scientists.

Canadian business leaders have often complained about the lack of recruits for the country's hi-tech industries. Thomas d'Aquino, chief executive officer of the Business Council on National Issues, says the study does not show that Canada has no problem. “If we didn't have a brain gain from immigration, we'd be in really serious trouble,” he says.