[Winnipegger]

Manitoba has done comparatively well over the past decade or so in terms of net international migration. Our biggest issue, and I've said this many times, is retaining the existing population - we have some of the biggest numbers of interprovincial out-migration, and this is a massive problem. We certainly don't have a problem attracting migrants to our province, but we have a problem keeping people here.

If current population is a bucket, we have a pretty big hose pouring into the bucket (migration), but also a sizeable hole at the bottom of the bucket leaking people to other provinces.

If Manitoba didn't have such big out-migration problems, we'd probably have an extra 200,000 to 300,000 people living here.

People leave for all sorts of reasons, some of which we cannot control (weather, family, topography), but others we can have control over like wage growth (maybe), quality of post-secondary education, quality of public services, and infrastructure.

Also, there seems to be a sort of Newtonian rule going on with population growth in Manitoba; the faster we grow, it seems the faster people leave in the years that follow. I think our infrastructure (roads, hospitals, schools, universities, public transit) is kind of capped out in some areas which leaves people leaving for greener grass once they come to the realization after a few years. Just speculation, though. Hard to find anything other than speculation when it comes to interprovincial migration, unfortunately. It's not like we survey people on why they leave or anything.