Though I
haven’t delved too far into the Canadian literature on this topic, my recent read,
‘The Big Sort’ by Bill Bishop, leads me to think that there are some Canadian
equivalencies to this American phenomenon.
He identified that ‘Americans could move to places that reinforced their
identities, where they could find comfort among others like themselves. These weren’t political choices, but had
political consequences.’[1] The question becomes: does this happen in
Canada and if is so does it happen only within cities or across provincial
lines?
Canada is
like the United States in that both countries were formed by various waves of
migration that settled further and further west. An important difference finds itself in the
fact that the Canadian migrations took place along a narrow band defined by two
railroads with few people venturing into the fields between them. The political identities of these places,
I’ve seen argued by David Smith and others (though I wish I could find the
‘other’ articles), did not exist before the boundaries were created but came
after; the only initial difference between Alberta and Saskatchewan was a
line. Since then, these places have
differed considerably in economic, social and political aspects.
Now, as thousands
move west, the question returns to the top: are Canadians moving to specific
neighbourhoods or provinces for purely economic or also social reasons. After all, Charles Tiebout’s seminal 1954
article ‘A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures’ argued that economic reasons
would be the main reasons people would select one sub-federal jurisdiction over
another.
These
Canadian-movers, at least the ones I have met, have moved to new provinces for
almost exclusively economic reasons: there are no jobs back home so they head
West. Still, do their values influence their choice of location? Or at the very least influence where they
live in a city? “The Big Sort has been a national manifestation of the
economist’s theory – a post-materialist Tiebout migration based on these
non-economic goods, as people have sought out places that best fit their ways
of life, their values, and their politics.’[2]
I would
argue, with no data to back me up, that the Big Sort is happening to a smaller
degree in Canada and it does not cross provincial lines. People are just as likely to move into
communities that are self-designated as a gathering place for their
ethnocultural communities as they are to divide around values such as ‘safe
streets and space’ or ‘vitality and culture’ which are my polished ways of
saying the suburbs and downtowns respectively.
But people
do not choose Saskatchewan over Alberta because they prefer Saskatchewan’s
culture. That day might come, but now
they choose the economic opportunity that brings them there first. At least, that is my initial thought. People who move to Alberta for the ‘blue
skies and free mountain air’ might truly be doing so because of the freedom it
represents; naturally, socially and economically. And people might to B.C. for
its attitude and take the cost of living as the price to pay.
The main
argument emanating from Bishop’s understanding of the Big Sort is that it has
had a perverse effect on democratic debate and therefore elections in the US.
That is something we haven’t seen as much in Canada as there is still a high
degree of volatility in the Canadian electorate, Canadians are truly less
attached to their parties than they are in the US and a lot of the overwhelming
majorities in certain ridings stem from such a long-time ago that they couldn’t
be chalked up to these moves. And 2011’s
Liberal collapse shows that even the strongest local majorities are not set in
stone.
