Earlier this fall a small -- but important -- story was overshadowed by the coverage that dominated headlines in the aftermath of former Prime Minister Trudeau's death. While Canada was mourning, the U.S. Senate voted 96 to 1 in favour of dramatically increasing the annual number of H1B work visas (from 60,000 to 200,000 annually) issued to foreign technology workers. An H1B visa allows hi-tech workers to work legally in the U.S. for up to six years, with a renewal of the visa every three years. We'll return to this later.

This development is just one more fact that points to the real problem - not a mythical one as Jean Chretien asserts - of Canada's brain drain. However, in this case, the PM's ignorance is not bliss: it is sad. Meanwhile, a growing body of evidence from credible institutions, cannot be ignored.
Back in 1998, the C.D. Howe Institute released a groundbreaking paper entitled Canadian Human Capital Transfers: The United States and Beyond. Over a 16-year period (1980 to 1996) in selected knowledge-based occupations (read: high salaried, big taxpayers), for every one worker that immigrated to Canada from the U.S., six workers went the other way from Canada to the U.S. These occupations included engineers, computer scientists, natural scientists, nurses and physicians. The very key areas where Canadian employers are experiencing acute skill shortages today.

On the other side of the debate, the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) produced a study a year later asserting that "the alleged brain drain is unjustifiably being used to promote a tax cut agenda." Ironically, instead of disproving the C.D. Howe study and bolstering Mr. Chretien's musings, CAUT's figures for 1996 alone showed that emigration to the U.S. in the same occupation categories (engineers, etc.) was now up to a factor of 8.2. to 1. CAUT's numbers betrayed their conclusion: the brain was actually getting worse.

To be fair, anti-brain drain proponents point to StatsCan numbers that indicate net inflows of immigrants versus net outflows are negligible, muting brain drain concerns. But such academic simplicity ignores a variety of qualitative concerns. Workers leaving Canada for the U.S. are leaving for solid employment offerings: the same can not be said for those entering Canada from abroad. Moreover, professional and academic credentials from abroad are not necessarily applicable to Canadian employment opportunities.

And in 1999, the evidence continued to mount. The World Competitiveness report ranked Canada 36th out of 47 countries in our ability to retain well-educated people. Hot on the heels of this finding came a report from New York-based Standard & Poors DRI warning that rising incomes in the U.S. could precipitate a greater exodus of Canadians stateside. Even the federal government got in on the action. A joint study by HRDC and Industry Canada pointed to the severity of the brain drain. Entitled International Migration of Skilled Workers: Facts and Figures, it painted a dark picture of the brain drain that has occurred due to enhanced labour mobility under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Again, this migration of workers represents the 'crème de la crème' of our workforce. Engineers, scientists, pharmacists, and aerospace professionals, not to mention a glut of Ph.D. graduates, are all flocking to the U.S. faster than Canada geese escaping a harsh Canadian winter.

Then the C.D. Howe Institute followed up its 1998 study with new research entitled Putting the Brain Drain in Context. This balanced effort noted that while our hi-tech job growth is impressive, it is concentrated around production whereas the U.S. and its hi-tech job growth spans the spectrum from production to the higher-value added areas of research, sales and management. Equally troubling is the fact that the work environment of those who are left in Canada is diminished because research and management positions rely on a critical mass - a combinational chemsitry effect - of talent to collaboratively share ideas and further their collective knowledge. When such an environment is disrupted, innovation is the first casualty.

But now the brain drain has hit home. A good friend of mine is now working in Minnesota under a NAFTA work visa. His wife and children will join right after Christmas on an H1B visa, thanks to that U.S. Senate vote mentioned earlier. Just two more Canadians who had combined earnings over $110,000 (read: paid a lot of taxes) lost to the states.

It is painfully obvious that another brain drain exists, starting with the Prime Minister. For Christmas, someone should send him a copy of Jeffrey Simpson's new book entitled Star-Spangled Canadians in which 250 ex-patriot Canadians, now living in the U.S. are profiled. They left for different reasons but a common answer is given as to the reason many of them won't come back -- high taxes.

Ignoring these facts won't make them disappear. But while Jean Chretien ignores the brain drain, our best and brightest are disappearing.