Over the past 50 years the topic of inter-provincial migration has been a theme of both the political and economic conversations in this province. Sometimes it was broken down a bit further – looking at migration patterns between urban and rural.
Either way, it was a test of sorts on how things were going: people attracted to a community or province suggested that place had something positive going on. People leaving sent the opposite signal about opportunity.
Stats Canada has now added another dimension to the conversation: migration to and from First Nation reserves.
The federal agency looked at movement of First Nation people over the five years ending in 2021. It turns out 29,000 people moved to the reserve and 32,400 left for another community. That represents just over one-percent of the population so the flows are small.
In Saskatchewan, the movement away from reserve was higher than inflows. 1,300 more moved away, the largest shift in the country representing more than half of all the movement in Canada with 15- to 29-year-olds with a post-secondary degree most likely to leave.
