Canadian Immigration Site Crashes

As gloom began to set in last night, the Canadian government issued the above pleasant tweet, which could considered trolling by Canadian standards. The tweet quickly went viral and shortly afterwards the official Canadian immigration site crashed. Via USA Today:

It may not come as a surprise that Google recorded a spike in the search topic immigration to Canada Tuesday night. Countless jokes about people fleeing the country over the election results have circulated on social media, and a local booster in Nova Scotia tried to lure critics of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. There’s even a dating site dedicated to hooking up Americans with their northern neighbors.

“The U.S. is concerned about extremists … Therefore (it) processes in a much more careful manner,” said Kyle Matthews, a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute who has worked with the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees. “In Canada’s case, this is a political promise in an election. Canada’s system for choosing who is eligible to move to Canada is also much more streamlined than the United States.

Would-be Canadian immigrants much have a solid reason for wanting to come to their northern neighbor. That together with the skills they bring gives them points on which they are judged. These can include: A skill that can be used in Canadian businesses, a job in Canada, relatives or friends who have nominated you for permanent residency, a position as an entrepreneur with a high net worth

I had been on the site before it crashed and received this terse message after filling out a brief questionnaire: “Your results: Based on your answers, it appears that you are not eligible to immigrate to Canada at this time.” I then found a Canadian article in which a gay US emigre complained that after 30 months, he’d not yet been approved to hold a job or even open a bank account despite having married a Canadian citizen.