Housing, Crime & Mental Health: Why Canadians Are Leaving Big Cities

Why young families are leaving cities and which policies could change that

Why are so many young Canadians leaving the country’s biggest cities, even as employers push workers back to the office? The answer goes far beyond remote work.

Mike Moffatt and Sabrina Maddeaux unpack the surprising reasons families continue to leave the GTA, Metro Vancouver, and Montreal at near-record rates, exploring how housing costs, crime, mental health, community, and urban planning are reshaping where Canadians choose to build their lives, and what policymakers still aren’t getting right.

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Below is an AI-generated transcript of the Missing Middle podcast, lightly edited.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Canadians are continuing to move out of the GTA, Metro Vancouver, and Montreal at near-record numbers. Now, a lot of people thought that return-to-office mandates would reverse this trend, but it’s barely made a dent. And it’s not older people cashing out of their expensive urban homes and moving to cottage country, either. Over two-thirds of the domestic population losses are under the age of 45. Today we look at why - from housing prices to mental health.

Mike, you’ve been known to make a lot of predictions. Some you’ve been right about and some, not so much. Now, one that you didn’t exactly nail is how much the end of the pandemic and the push to have workers return to the office would impact the exodus of families out of Canada’s largest cities. Can you walk us through what’s happening and why you were so wrong?

Mike Moffatt: I am happy to walk you through why I was wrong.

At some point, we’ve always had a net migration out of our big metros. So in the first decade of the 2000s, the metro areas of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver collectively tended to lose about 37,000 people to the rest of the country each year. So what that means is 37,000 more people would leave the GTA, Vancouver, or Montreal and move to Edmonton, Tillsonburg, or somewhere else in Canada, then move in the opposite direction - actually move to one of the big metros.

I want to be clear when we say Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver; I’m talking about their metro areas. So Toronto includes Oakville and Markham, Vancouver includes Surrey and Burnaby, and Montreal includes Laval, and so on. So it’s not just the core city.

Sabrina Maddeaux: And to be clear, this outmigration doesn’t mean that the GTA’s population was actually falling?

Mike Moffatt: Correct. There are still births, immigrations and so on. So this is just looking at domestic migration - the number of people moving out of one community in Canada to another community in Canada.

So if we fast-forward to the first half of the 2010s, this trend picked up. An increase from about 37,000 to 45,000. But it really took off around 2015. It doubled to about 70,000 people before the pandemic. And then during the pandemic, it doubled again because of work-from-home and some of those other things that we describe. It peaked at about 158,000. It’s cooled off since then, but it’s still near 130,000 a year.

So this is where I got it wrong, because I thought that once the pandemic was over and companies would try to get people back in the office - which they have with some success - we’d go back to being in that 60 to 70,000 range, or perhaps even lower, as people moved back into the GTA. I totally got that one wrong. We’re still way above where we were before the pandemic, and it doesn’t seem to be changing any time soon.

Sabrina Maddeaux: And it’s not just retirees selling their multimillion-dollar homes in, let’s say, Cabbage Town and moving to Muskoka.

Mike Moffatt: It’s not just retirees, though we do see some of that in the data. That is a real phenomenon that occurs, and you talk to realtors out in cottage country, and they’ll tell you that this is happening.

But over two-thirds of the net leavers are under the age of 45. So if we break it down by five-year age category, the most common leavers in Toronto and Vancouver are folks in their early 30s, and in Montreal, folks in their late 20s.

So this is early career professionals, which is kind of strange when you think about it. These are people who are starting their careers, and they’re choosing to move away from Canada’s most economically dynamic cities. And housing costs are obviously a big part of that story. But I’m a housing guy, so I tend to see everything as a housing problem. As the old saying goes, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

So I thought it might be helpful to discuss reasons besides housing costs why young families are moving to other communities. One is something that you’ve written about quite a bit, and it’s the perception of crime and disorder. We had an episode on this a while back. We’ll link to that in the show notes. But I’d love to get your view. How much do you think perceptions of crime and disorder are playing out, and people leaving the GTA and moving to other communities?

Sabrina Maddeaux: It’s a big one. I think affordability is still the key factor, but there are also social factors. And one of those is not just the perception but the reality of crime and disorder and chaos in our cities that has really increased over the last five to ten years.

I see it every day, and it’s not just in one neighbourhood or another neighbourhood. It’s really across the board at this point. You have the major things that you see on the news, like car thefts and break-ins, which are happening more and more frequently. Everyone knows multiple people this has happened to. But even when you take a streetcar to work or from work, as I do every day, more often than not there’s some sort of altercation.

The other week, there was open hard drug use on the streetcar I was coming home on. And a woman who then decided to pee on the streetcar floor multiple times. People yelling at other passengers or kicking things. Often I take the streetcar home and this is a regular occurrence, not a one-off. Often, someone is either having a severe mental health episode or clearly using hard drugs and owns the back third of the streetcar, and everyone else on that streetcar is so scared and uncomfortable that they’re crammed up like sardines, even though there should be more than enough space on the front two-thirds. And there’s really no enforcement, no solution to any of this.

And I hear a lot about women getting off the streetcar early because they’re scared. I mean, imagine being in that environment alone late at night, coming back from a shift, and then you throw kids into the equation. I don’t think really anyone ideally wants to raise a kid in an environment like that, and parents and prospective parents are rightfully scared. So all of this does contribute to people saying, “Hey, I’ve had enough. I’m going to move somewhere where I feel I can have more control and more safety as well.”

Mike Moffatt: I can see that. I’m someone who quite likes transit. But I know there have been times when I’ve been hesitant to take my daughter with me on transit because of some of the stuff I’ve seen, and in some cases, when she was younger, she’s seen. I think it’s one of the reasons why we moved to a walkable neighbourhood, so we actually didn’t have to use transit as much.

And there is a fair bit of research out of the U.S. on some of these topics that shows there is a linkage between migration decisions and crime. So there is evidence to show that the people do act in the way that you describe, but there’s some complexity here.

So a few notes: first, that if you’re a homeowner who’s the direct victim of a violent crime, you are far more likely to sell your home and move somewhere else than the general population, though it’s not necessarily that you’re moving out of the metro. You might just be changing neighbourhoods or moving out of, say, the City of Toronto to a smaller community still within the GTA. But that does happen. So there is a direct linkage between experience and migration patterns.

Now, secondly, if we look for non-victims, or at least ones that haven’t been directly affected by violent crime, they still may have witnessed it, but they weren’t directly victimized- we do find that it is the perception of crime that matters more for moving decisions than the actual crime numbers. But sometimes those are aligned, and sometimes they’re not. And you mentioned kids, and I mentioned experiences with my daughter.

The data shows us that families with young children are far more sensitive to perceptions of crime and where to live than people without younger children. But again, it seems to affect their choice of neighbourhoods and maybe which municipality to live in more than the choice of metro. So there is a linkage in the data, but it’s complicated.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Of course. And that makes sense to me as well, because ultimately people are tied to wanting to be near their social networks. They have jobs. And with the return-to-office, there’s only so far they can move without having to switch jobs. So they’re going to try to find the safest, most affordable area they can within that metro. But it’s becoming more and more difficult to do so. So I could see people starting to consider even bigger moves.

Mike Moffatt: I think you’re right. If we bring this to Canada, we don’t have as much direct research. So we’re looking at correlations and things like that. But I suspect there is a crime migration linkage. But it is hard to support with data.

There is a recent McDonald Laurier report on urban crime—once again we’ll link to that in the show notes—which shows that urban crime is on the rise. But interestingly, it highlights how violent crime is particularly high in Edmonton. And ironically, Edmonton is the metro area that Canadians are most likely to move to. Now, there’s that distinction between actual crime data and perceptions. But I don’t think anybody really perceives Edmonton as a particularly safe city. So it’s not all clear-cut. And I think at some level it probably shows that while the perception of crime and disorder is important, other factors play a role.

Now, there is a related topic that is a little bit cleaner when it comes to migration, and that’s mental health. We actually see families who are disproportionately moving to smaller communities. When researchers conduct surveys of these smaller communities and so on, they’re finding that in those communities, anxiety and depression levels are lower and reported mental health is higher. So this is mostly correlation, not causation, about this causing the move. But I do find it interesting that the data suggests that people are moving from communities that have higher levels of anxiety and depression to communities that have lower levels of anxiety and depression.

Sabrina Maddeaux: That totally makes sense. I don’t think people are actively saying, “I’m looking for a community where people are less anxious or less depressed,” or even would know how to find out that information. But what I could see that correlates with a smaller community where there are tighter social networks, more support, more social trust, less unpredictability and precarity in terms of having to get up and move, and will you be in the same home next year? Affordability may not be as much of a concern. So all those things add up to lessen the mental health strain. So that’s where I would see that being correlated more than people choosing to actually move somewhere because of the better mental health of the community. But I think that all the things that contribute to that better mental health are factors that draw them there.

Mike Moffatt: I would agree with all that. I think I might be the only person in the universe who might download an Excel sheet and go, “I want to move to a community with low levels of depression.” But I do think there is something to, at a subconscious level, where you visit one of these communities and go, “Oh, this is very nice. And everybody kind of seems happy. Maybe I’ll move here.”

And there’s this fascinating study from Statistics Canada from a couple of years ago, which we’ll also link to in the show notes. This study notes that the people who live in smaller communities report higher levels of life satisfaction and a sense of belonging to a community. So exactly what you said: it is that feeling of belonging.

Here’s where it gets really interesting, though. It’s not just the size of the community, but it’s actually the size of the metro. So if you are in the GTA and you move to a commuter suburb in the GTA, your reported levels of mental health and life satisfaction are the same as if you live in the city of Toronto.

So it kind of bleeds together. That, really, if you want those higher levels of life satisfaction, you have to move to a smaller community that’s kind of outside of a metro that is more self-contained.

Which makes sense from that connection thing because if you live in a smaller community where people actually work in the community, they’re probably a little bit more connected with each other rather than driving to Toronto to work. Love to get your take on that.

Sabrina Maddeaux: That makes sense to me. I mean, all the issues that used to be more concentrated in urban cores or downtown have spread out. So affordability is a big one, but also crime, people having to move outside of their communities, everything from congestion and commute times. So you do have to go further and further to escape those factors if you want to live in a place where those stressors aren’t impacting you or your neighbours as much, and you have stability.

I think stability and control are really big for people, especially when we’re in a world that is so uncertain. And the headlines change every 30 minutes, and it’s very stressful, which makes those factors even more important psychologically, I would think.

Mike Moffatt: I would completely agree with that. I think people are looking for that sense of control, that sense of community. I think you see, though, stories around carjackings in the GTA and many of those have been in smaller communities in the GTA. So I do think it’s important to look at that at the metro level and say, “If I really want the small town life, I’m going to have to move out to Goderich, or somewhere that’s not within a commuting distance of a place with an NHL team.”

Sabrina Maddeaux: There’s a lot at play. But at the end of the day, so much of it does come down to housing and affordability, doesn’t it?

Mike Moffatt: It really does.

So I really do think being a housing guy is important here, that it’s not just my imagination. And, particularly not just house prices and rents at a high level, but specifically prices and, to a lesser extent, rents of family-sized homes.

I’m increasingly becoming convinced that all the well-intentioned sprawl prevention policies governments have put in place in the last 20 years, like urban growth boundaries, have actually made sprawl worse, because we’ve gotten to the point where governments have made living at the edge of the GTA so expensive and challenging. So instead of staying within the Metro, they’re moving to Brantford or Saint Mary’s and driving into Toronto each day for work. So you get sprawl on steroids.

And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this really started to pick up at a time when we had the introduction of Green Belts and we started having tight urban growth boundaries. Correlation is not causation, but I think the timing here is suggestive of part of what’s going on. We’ve made it so difficult to create family-friendly homes in our metros that people are moving to these smaller communities.

I often hear urbanists cite Kitchener-Waterloo as a success case for preventing sprawl because they do a lot on infill and they do a lot of good things. They have tight urban growth boundaries and so on. But interestingly, the metro area actually saw net outmigration to the rest of Canada. And that’s actually really unusual for a non-Toronto metro like Ottawa, Oshawa, Saint Catharines, Niagara, Hamilton, Barrie, London, Woodstock. They’re all gaining families, but KW is losing them.

At some point, I think that policymakers have to understand that the best way to fight sprawl isn’t by arbitrarily drawing lines on a map and saying: “You can’t build past this point,” but by actually allowing family-sized homes to be built in their cities. I think they have to conclude at some point. Or am I just being naive here?

Sabrina Maddeaux: Unfortunately, I think it might take longer than we’d like and longer than logic would dictate. We are seeing that conversation happening more with, for example, the Greenbelt. But there’s still so much backlash, especially from older voters who turn out in bigger numbers, who show up at meetings and contact politicians who are comfortably housed and don’t understand the dynamics here.

And it’s not in their interest to understand the dynamics a lot of the time. So until younger people, especially, say, “Hey, this needs to change,” and they’re loud about it, and they turn out and vote and make it clear that these policies are connected to getting and staying elected, I think we might be waiting a while.

Mike Moffatt: And what I’m afraid of, because I also would put environmentalists in this pocket of which I’m one. I’m the guy who gave the Carney government an “F” on environmental policy. But overall, I think that these things have become more about symbols than policies, right? That we don’t actually see whether or not these policies have been effective at all.

But what it means to be a good environmentalist is that you support tight urban growth boundaries, and not say, “Does the data actually show that this is helpful? Or is it doing more harm than good?” And I’m afraid we’ve gotten to that point in policy where it’s all about virtue signalling and going, “These are the things you must support to stay in the environmental club. And if you don’t, then obviously you hate Mother Nature or you hate the planet.” And I just wish we could get to a point where we had more evidence-based policy.

Sabrina Maddeaux: And a willingness to reevaluate or admit you were wrong.

I do think this is a problem across the board. That a lot of largely well-intentioned activists in different spaces and advocacy groups are still functioning and pushing forward the same ideas that they had 5 to 20 years ago, which clearly don’t match up with reality. And there has to be a willingness to reevaluate those and also have honest conversations about tradeoffs if we’re going to end up in a place with policies that actually achieve the goals that I think we’re all trying to work towards.

Mike Moffatt: Absolutely. I could not agree more.

Sabrina Maddeaux: Thank you, everyone, for watching and listening. And to our producer Meredith Martin and editor Sean Foreman.

Mike Moffatt: And if you have any thoughts or questions about Goderich or other communities on Lake Huron that Letterkenny might be based on, please send us an email to [email protected].

Sabrina Maddeaux: And we’ll see you next time.

Additional Reading/Listening that Helped Inform the Episode:

Housing is a large part of the story. The OECD has examined this:

OECD Economic Surveys: Canada 2025

As has Statistics Canada:

Housing challenges related to affordability, adequacy, condition and discrimination, August 2 to September 15, 2024

Remote Work and Employment Dynamics under COVID-19: Evidence from Canada

Remote workers, who tend to be college-educated, also want to move to areas with a robust mix of local amenities.

Settling into a New Normal? Working from Home across Canada

Social ties and quality of life, including lower rates of depression:

Beyond urban and rural: Rethinking the social geography of Canada

Rates of depression and anxiety in urban and rural Canada

Why some people are choosing country life over the city

Though evidence is nuanced:

Rural life hardly healthier

Crime and disorder:

Urban Violent Crime Report, Volume 2: Comparing crime across Canadian cities

Characteristics of police-reported crime in rural areas in the Canadian provinces, 2023

McDonald-Laurier Report

Funded by the Neptis Foundation

Brought to you by the Missing Middle Initiative