Comin' back up the road: Blip or trend?
While watching my beloved Edmonton Oilers completely implode in the first round of the playoffs, a TV advertisement came on over and over during the four game sweep. It was from Scotiabank and focused on how the bank can help young couples plan for that day in the future when they become a homeowner. After seeing the ad a dozen times or so I started to catch on to the theme.
It starts with a young couple in an obviously dense urban setting and then says something to the effect of helping them plan no matter where they end up and it pivots this young couple to a setting on the water that seemed to me an obvious reference to living on the ocean in Atlantic Canada. Essentially, here is one of the big banks promoting the idea of ditching the urban centre for the ultimate goal of living near the ocean in Atlantic Canada.
Of course Scotiabank (formerly known as the Bank of Nova Scotia) may still have some vestigial connection to the province where it was founded in 1831.
I have been a little skeptical of the idea that people will abandon the large urban centres in droves as a result of the pandemic and/or to save money on housing costs.
In fact, the data we have so far doesn’t seem to indicate there has been a flood of people moving to Atlantic Canada. As shown in the chart, the number moving here in the last three quarters of 2020 was less than the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
I read about people buying houses sight unseen, about Uhaul trucks piling up on the lot in Moncton because there are fewer people going the other way, etc. but the data would suggest there hasn’t been a big wave. Now it is possible Statistics Canada will revise these numbers - in the future as they do.
But what interests me is when the idea of moving from the big city to the small Atlantic Canada community becomes embedded in the narrative - in the Scotiabank TV spots, in Macleans magazine articles, in Instagram feeds.
We have talked for decades about young Atlantic Canadians ‘goin’ down the road’. You can even watch the 1970 movie of the same name now on Youtube.
This narrative has been reinforced in the national media. In the 1990s I saw survey data showing that when asked to describe Atlantic Canada, Torontonians mostly responded with lobsters and unemployment.
If the narrative shifts to “great place to live and build a career” - and if Scotiabank and others keep planting the seeds - maybe the tide could really turn.