As the U.S. election entered its home stretch with general voting day, Google traffic was lit up with Americans checking into how they might move north.
On November 3, Google saw a sharp uptick in searches for “move to Canada,” “Canada immigration,” and “moving to Canada,” from American users.
Traffic peaked for the search terms at around 10 p.m., as voting showed a race too tight to call between incumbent President Donald Trump and Democrat Nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden.
Tuesday morning, as the race seemed to slowly shift based on absentee ballots towards Biden, the searches tapered off.
The frantic Googling mirrors a similar trend that occurred in 2016, when Trump was first elected to office.
In November four years ago, trend maps showed an even higher interest in “moving to Canada” search terms. The Canadian Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website also crashed as it was flooded by frantic Americans.
It remains to be seen if a conclusive Biden win will cause a new spike in immigration interest.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and large case numbers in both countries, the U.S.-Canada border remains closed to non-essential traffic.
