Canada’s Talent Story Is Stronger Than the “Brain Drain” Narrative
An audit of Charles Lammam’s claims, the missing ledger behind them, and what the Canada–U.S. record actually shows
Canada’s talent story is stronger than the current brain drain narrative allows.¹
Charles Lammam’s recent Hub piece argues that Canada is exporting its highest earners to the United States and losing the very people it most needs. The concern is real. The conclusion is darker than the record can carry.¹ ²
The United States is the sun in the global economic system. Talent, money, and growth firms revolve around it from many countries. Canada sits in that system too. The real question is this: how strong is Canada’s own gravity? What does it attract, keep, and build, and what might it keep for longer?⁴
Canada is seeing real outward movement, and some of it is selective. Still, the article leans on an inference as though it were a head count. It leans on an education proxy as though it were citizenship. It leans on outward movement as though immigration, return migration, second-step migration, and the much narrower bilateral permanent-resident exchange with the United States can be set aside.² ³ ⁴
This paper makes five points.
Lammam starts from a real concern. His conclusion is much darker and broader than the fact based record can carry.
Canada is a magnet for talent. That is a strength, not a weakness.
Emigration is only part of the story. Canada’s exchange with the United States is less one-way than the darker reading suggests.
The harder job comes later. Canada is stronger at attraction than at retention, utilization, and keeping firms once deeper U.S. capital comes into view.
A PauliChecks redaction audit removes what is overstated, restores what is omitted, and asks what conclusion the fuller record can actually support.
The dark reading
Lammam’s theory is that:
net U.S. emigration is high
the people leaving are younger and more educated than the population as a whole
the U.S. remains the main destination
Canada is “exporting its highest earners to the United States”
“Canadian founders” are moving south, raising more capital there, and increasingly locating their companies abroad
Canada is losing the people it most needs.⁷ ¹⁰ ¹⁴
Only some of that is true. It is too narrowly interpreted. And things are missing.
A broader reading
Canada is one of the better-performing countries in this economic universe.
Canada remains a major destination for talent.⁸
Canada performs well on key attraction measures.⁵
Canada retains international students relatively well by peer-country standards.⁹
Canada has a clear temporary-to-permanent pathway that many people use.⁸
Canada’s exchange with the United States is less one-way than the dark reading suggests.¹⁰
Part of the outward flow is made up of immigrants Canada first attracts and later loses.¹¹
The United States pulls founders and scale-stage firms from many countries, not only from Canada.⁶ ¹³
Lammam’s national-failure story is based on the penultimate bullet. In context, it gives way to a country that is good at attracting talent, reasonably good at keeping a lot of it, and sitting on an enviable opportunity for even greater retention.
The evidence
Canada has strong gravity too.
Canada draws talent at large scale. It keeps a meaningful share of international students. It turns many temporary residents into permanent residents. Those are reflections of Canadian gravity.⁸ ⁹
Canada also trains talent well. Its strongest universities still rank globally. That strengthens Canada’s pull on overseas students and early-career talent before some of that talent later feels the stronger pull of the larger U.S. market.¹⁵
A more balanced Canada-U.S. exchange than the dark reading suggests.
This is not an exodus.
On the Canadian-born permanent-resident measure, the Canada-U.S. gap is much smaller than the one-way drain story implies.
Using 2022 and 2023 only, the United States admits about 11,600 Canadian-born permanent residents a year, while Canada admits about 9,650 U.S.-born permanent residents.
The gap is real. It is far from an exodus. Temporary skilled movement likely tilts more southward, so this is a correction to the one-way drain story, not a claim of full balance.¹⁰
Caption: Canada–U.S. permanent-resident flows, 2022–2023. The United States admits about 11,600 Canadian-born permanent residents a year, while Canada admits about 9,650 U.S.-born permanent residents. This is not full mobility, yet it is far from an exodus.
Temporary skilled movement is harder to measure cleanly and likely tilts more southward. That is one reason the permanent-resident figures should be read as a correction to the one-way drain story, not as a claim of full balance.¹⁰
Some of the outward flow is immigrants Canada first attracts and then loses.
That group is a meaningful share of the outward flow.
Foreign-born people in Canada move on to the United States at higher rates than the Canadian-born. In the 2016 comparison used by Statistics Canada, the rate is 8.2 per 10,000 for the foreign-born and 4.8 per 10,000 for the Canadian-born.
This is partly a retention issue after attraction.¹¹
The people most likely to move are also the least bound by any one country’s gravity.
The retention work makes that clear.
The overall immigrant population is largely stable over the long run. The concern sits in a narrower group. Departure risk peaks in the early years after arrival and rises further for the most educated and most skilled.
Doctorates and high-skill workers move on at above-average rates. These are often the people most drawn to larger rewards and least tied to one labour market.¹²
Canada’s weaker point comes after attraction.
This is a clear opportunity.
Canada can give actual Canadians, and talent Canada attracts and develops, better ways to access deep capital from here, so fewer firms need to move south to satisfy scale-stage financing needs.¹³ ¹⁶
The federal government is already moving on one part of this problem. Budget 2025’s new Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative puts $1 billion into growth-stage capital through three streams. That is a real step toward deeper Canadian scale-stage finance.
It still solves only one part of the problem. It is a capital instrument, not a full retention strategy. It does not by itself prevent relocation, close the earlier seed-stage gap, or overcome the wider pull of larger U.S. markets and capital pools.
The evidence points to underuse of talent and a weaker ability to keep firms once they are ready to scale. In 2021, 27 percent of recent immigrants with a university degree are overeducated for their job.
On the startup side, the strongest signal comes from venture-backed firms seeking scale, where deeper U.S. capital still exerts a stronger pull.¹³ ¹⁶
The United States pulls from many countries.
That is our system reality.
Research on startup relocation and unicorn movement shows the same pattern across the wider field. Canada is one country in the U.S. orbit, not the whole universe.⁶ ¹³
“Brain drain” misses the wider gravitational field, and the outsized pull some individuals feel. The better frame is relative pull, and weak attachment to any one gravity when it conflicts with individual purpose.
The redaction
The darker case is built on three things that look firmer than they are: a model treated like a headcount, a proxy treated like nationality, and a partial ledger treated like the whole story.¹⁴ ¹⁷
Redaction 1 is the headcount claim.
The Bank of Canada paper does not count actual top earners who built careers in Canada and then left.
It does something else.
It starts from the fact that Canada has fewer people at the very top of the income ladder than the United States. Then it asks how much selective out-migration could help explain that difference. That is an inference drawn from the income pattern. It is not a head count of named or observed top earners who spent years in Canada and then relocated.¹⁴
Redaction 2 is the nationality claim.
There is a real signal here.
The Leaders Fund study tracks Canada-linked talent by education, not by citizenship. Citizenship is not the criterion at all. Yet Lammam uses the chart with language that invites readers to think of Canadian educated founders as Canadian citizens. That is a claim that the study’s methodology does not support. ¹³ ¹⁷
A company qualifies if more than half of the founding team, or the CEO, was educated in Canada.
Citizenship is not the criterion.
A CEO or founding team can be American, Chinese, Canadian, or any other nationality, so long as the education test is met. There may be overlap with Canadian citizenship. Yet that is not what the study measures.
This is not a clean count of Canadians leaving.
Some high-potential founders and firms do move south. This evidence still comes from a bounded slice of the economy: venture-backed firms looking for scale. That slice matters, because it is where many of the most scalable jobs and returns sit.
It still does not tell us that Canada broadly loses entrepreneurship as such.¹³ ¹⁷
Redaction 3 is the partial ledger.
Lammam’s article tells only one side of the story.
It puts the spotlight on outward movement. It gives much less weight to immigration into Canada, to immigrants who first come here and later move on, to the narrower bilateral permanent-resident picture, and to the wider U.S. pull on many countries.
It also leaves open a separate question: whether immigration offsets losses at the very top. Public data speak more clearly to credentials and occupations than to top earners.⁸ ¹⁰ ¹¹ ¹⁸
That leaves the article with a partial ledger. It shows that some valuable people leave. It does not show, on the same terms, who comes in, who stays, who moves on later, or what balance remains after the full exchange is counted.
What remains.
After adjusting for these redactions, a real concern still remains. It is this:
Canada attracts talent well, retains it unevenly, and needs to get better at keeping more of the people, firms, and scale it already helps create.
That is the full size of the conclusion a factual record can carry.
The opportunity.
Greater retention is the opportunity.
use talent better
recognize credentials faster
match education to work sooner
keep more firms here once they are ready to grow
deepen Canadian scale-stage capital
build financing pathways that let firms reach deep capital without relocating
focus on the early years after arrival, because that is when departure risk is highest for the most skilled groups¹² ¹⁶
measure founder citizenship, residency, Canada-linked education, and relocation separately
Canada already attracts the talent. And the federal government is already moving further in this direction.
Budget 2025 puts $1.7 billion behind an International Talent Attraction Strategy, including $1 billion over 13 years for an accelerated research-chairs initiative to recruit exceptional international researchers, and $1 billion into the new Venture and Growth Capital Catalyst Initiative for growth-stage capital.
That helps on attraction and on capital.
The harder job is what follows: retention, use of talent, and access to financing strong enough to keep more firms here when they are ready to scale. So retention needs to sit inside the policy agenda, not beside it.
The stronger strategy ties all three together: attraction, retention, and access to deep capital from here.
I rest my case
Lammam starts from a real concern. Still, he overstates, narrows, and omits.
He leans on an inference as though it were an actual head count. He leans on an education proxy as though it were citizenship. He leans on people leaving Canada as though those coming in can be ignored.
What remains is what’s useful.
Canada already has real gravity. It attracts talent, builds it, and keeps a great deal of it.
Canada also retains it unevenly. It loses some of the most mobile people, and some of the firms most sensitive to scale-stage capital.
Ottawa is already moving on attraction, research talent, and growth capital.
That still leaves the harder part unfinished: retention, better use of talent already here, and better ways for firms to reach deep capital without relocating.
Canada can seize opportunity here with action targeted to:
keeping more of the most mobile people
keeping more firms here once they are ready to scale
deepening Canadian and allied capital pathways for scaling
measuring the problem more directly, so founder citizenship, residency, Canadian education, and relocation are not blurred into one category
Canada is not failing at talent. And with targeted action, it can keep more of that value, for longer.
Footnotes
Charles Lammam — Canadians are leaving the country at record levels. Can anyone solve this pressing problem?
https://thehub.ca/2026/04/03/can-anyone-solve-canadas-brain-drain-problem/Statistics Canada — Portrait of Canadian emigration
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2026013-eng.htmBank of Canada — The Distributional Origins of the Canada-US GDP and Labour Productivity Gaps
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/swp2024-49.pdf
Leaders Fund — Where have all the Canadian startups gone?
https://www.leaders.vc/research/canadianstartupsStatistics Canada — Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/article/00006-eng.htm
Statistics Canada — Recent trends in migration flows from the United States to Canada
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025003/article/00002-eng.htm
OECD — International Migration Outlook 2025
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/international-migration-outlook-2025_ae26c893-en/full-report.html
Weik et al. — Venture capital and the international relocation of startups
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733324000805OECD — International Migration Outlook 2025
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/international-migration-outlook-2025_ae26c893-en/full-report.htmlWeik et al. — Venture capital and the international relocation of startups
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733324000805The Hub — Canadians are leaving the country at record levels. Can anyone solve this pressing problem?
https://thehub.ca/2026/04/03/can-anyone-solve-canadas-brain-drain-problem/Statistics Canada — Two-step immigration selection: a review
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2020009-eng.htmOECD — International Migration Outlook 2022
https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/international-migration-outlook-2022_30fe16d2-en.htmlStatistics Canada — Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/article/00006-eng.htmStatistics Canada — Recent trends in immigration from Canada to the United States
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2025007/article/00006-eng.htmInstitute for Canadian Citizenship / Conference Board of Canada — The Leaky Bucket 2025: Retention Trends in Highly Skilled Immigrants and In-Demand Occupations
https://forcitizenship.ca/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Leaky-Bucket-2025-Nov.-17.pdfLeaders Fund — Where have all the Canadian startups gone?
https://www.leaders.vc/research/canadianstartupsBank of Canada — The Distributional Origins of the Canada-US GDP and Labour Productivity Gaps
https://www.bankofcanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/swp2024-49.pdfQS — World University Rankings 2026
https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings?countries=ca®ion=North+AmericaStatistics Canada — Trends in education-occupation mismatch among recent immigrants
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/36-28-0001/2024005/article/00002-eng.htmLeaders Fund methodology, as publicly described in coverage and methodology audits, defines the startup cohort by Canadian education of senior leaders, not by citizenship or birthplace. The landing page itself uses broader shorthand than the underlying filter.
https://www.leaders.vc/research/canadianstartupsAvailable public data support offset more clearly at the credential and occupational level than at the top-income tier itself. The high-income segment remains unmeasured in a like-for-like public way.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-626-x/11-626-x2020009-eng.htm
StatsCan reports confirm that 27 percent overeducation rate for recent university-educated immigrants in 2021. It actually dropped from 31 percent back in 2016. The House immigration committee has heard repeated calls for faster foreign credential recognition for years. We attract the talent fine. Matching it to real jobs quickly is still where Ottawa lags.
Thank you for the report, I also wonder if the Canadians returning after a period in the US or somewhere else are counted when they return. Does this represent a significant number? Are they coming back to take more responsibilities or are they back for retirement?
I've seen several articles discussing the plight of immigrants who despair because their credentials are not recognized quickly (if ever) in Canada and decide to leave a few years later. One of those cases was an architect from India who could not get a job in Canada for lack of "Canadian" experience, had to work instead as a technical draftman and finally moved after a few years to the Middle East where he could get a job. Recent changes to immigration in Quebec have put a significant number of foreign skilled workers already working in the Province in jeopardy when their path to landed immigrant or citizenship was cut in the middle of the process due to some political decision on restricting immigration in the Province. This is a political hot potato that impacts talent retention and there are no solutions found yet.
The lack of capital to support mid-size companies that want to grow is certainly an issue. It seems like many of them decide not to go the IPO route and are looking for private and government capital to achieve their goals. We have large pension funds in Canada that may not be investing in Canadian companies for many reasons and may in fact invest in US private funds that are scooping these companies looking for Capital. I have suggested that the large funds could jointly create a Canadian private fund that would seek these opportunities.