Deja vu: Some Americans considering moving to Canada after Trump win

First at Five: Exit Plan? Donald Trump’s victory coincides with a spike in online searches asking 'How do I move to Canada?'.

While Donald Trump delivered his victory speech after being elected the 47th President of the United States on Tuesday night, Internet search engines showed a growing trend: Americans searching for terms like “move to Canada.”

"We have a feeling that we were hit in the stomach by a gut punch that we weren't expecting, and it came faster than expected,” said Tim Menk of Gabarus, N.S., who moved to Cape Breton from Vermont years ago.

Following Trump’s win, Menk now has a close family member who might want to follow his footsteps.

"We have a 31-year-old son,” Menk said. “The first thing this morning when he called up, we spoke about the idea of, 'How do I emigrate to Canada?’”

"A (more than) 400 per cent increase from a usual day”, said Halifax-based digital anthropologist Giles Crouch when asked about reports that “move to Canada” was the most-Googled term in America on Wednesday morning.

Crouch said along with the spike in searches, he also saw many memes making the rounds in the wake of Trump’s win.

"Some of the memes are pretty funny,” Crouch said. “People talking about the cold weather in Canada, and you're going to have to be prepared to be super cold and take your cold gear. And some of them are more serious, where people are asking more serious questions like, 'Where do I go? How do I get sponsored?'"

"In 2016, when the ‘Trump Bump’ happened, we saw a huge influx of visitation to our website,” said Destination Cape Breton CEO Terry Smith.

When Trump was first elected president eight years ago, the website “Cape Breton If Trump Wins” reportedly led to some Americans coming to the Island for a vacation. Smith said he wouldn’t mind if that history were to repeat itself.

"If Americans are looking to get away from whatever it is their reality is right now, we certainly would have our doors open to welcome them,” Smith said.

Moving to Canada is easier said than done, but Menk said his son has already spoken with staff at Citizenship and Immigration in Sydney, and he has work skills he feels could transfer to a new location.

"He's going to look at things on his side of the border and we'll look at things from here on whether there's anything we can do to help facilitate that,” Menk said.

According to journoresearch.org, another of the most-Googled terms in the United States on Wednesday was “Canada work visa,” which were projected to increase by as much as 566 per cent following Trump’s win.