COVER STORY

HOW TO STICK WITH YOUR CANADIAN DREAM

Manasvi Thakur immigrated to Canada in 2022.

By SHAGORIKA EASWAR

As we turn the page on 2025 and look ahead to a brand new beginning, many of us make a list of all that we wish to accomplish in the coming year.

Small goals and big. Everything from losing weight and getting fit, reading more and learning to knit, to buying a house or career change.

But what of those who come to Canada seeking a fresh start? A complete overhaul of life’s plans. How many newcomers achieve even a fraction of what they hoped for?

The Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC) has been studying trends in immigration and immigrant retention for some years.

The Leaky Bucket 2025: Retention Challenges in Highly Skilled Immigrants and In-Demand Occupations focused on immigrant onward migration.

“Canada wins when talented people choose to play for our team,” said Daniel Bernhard, CEO of ICC. “But this research shows that too many of the people we most need – engineers, healthcare professionals, scientists and senior managers – are packing up and leaving. They can only contribute to Canada’s success if we can keep them and their talents in the country.”

Key findings:

One in five immigrants leave Canada within 25 years of landing. Highly educated immigrants are leaving faster: those with doctorates are nearly twice as likely to leave as those with a bachelor’s degree.

High-skilled immigrants leave at twice the rate of low-skilled workers within the first five years.

The fastest-growing occupations which have the greatest labour needs face the weakest retention rates: business and finance managers, ICT professionals, engineers, and architecture managers show the highest departure rates.

Immigrants with low income growth are far more likely to leave: among doctorate-holders, those with stagnant incomes are nearly three times more likely than those whose incomes grow while in Canada.

Most immigrants leave Canada from the first province they landed in, without giving other provinces a try.

The report paints a troubling picture: Canada’s immigration system is doing a good job of attracting talent, but not keeping it. As immigration levels stabilize and the population ages, losing highly-skilled newcomers comes with real economic costs for all Canadians – slower growth, weaker innovation, and fewer workers in key sectors.

In Here to Stay, Understanding Immigrant Retention in Canada, another ICC study, Natasha Goel wrote that immigrant onward migration – immigrants leaving Canada – has increased steadily since the 1980s.

Housing affordability, inflation, cost of living, and similar macro-level economic factors are contributing to immigrants’ decision to leave.

They also studied what brings people to Canada and what motivates them to stay.

What motivated people to move to Canada. Standard of living (66%), job opportunities (38%), and safety and security (35%) were most selected.

What motivates people to stay in Canada. Better quality of life. Safety. Environment. Family and community. Opportunities.

Some leave, some stick it out. Patience is key. Manasvi Thakur with her husband Abhishek Sharma.

These align pretty closely with Manasvi Thakur’s plans for how life would unfold in Canada.

She immigrated in 2022, confident she’d adjust quickly.

“Instead, I found myself restarting from zero – a new country, no network, and a long stretch of uncertainty that no one really talks about.”

She reached out to share her story as a way to shed light on what happens to newcomers after they land in Canada.

“Once the paperwork is done, and real life begins.”

There’s the excitement of landing. The flurry of paperwork – SIN cards, health cards, bank documents, finding a place to live... and then, the real, actual hard landing.

As a mass media graduate, Thakur wanted to be a journalist. She did a small stint with Indian news agency ANI and was hoping to work with Thomson Reuters after completing her Masters at Amity University in Mumbai. When the media company didn’t come calling for hiring at their campus that year, Thakur turned her attention to other avenues at the advice of her friend.

She landed a job at Adfactors PR, the largest public relations agency in India, with her first interview, and has been in this field since 2018.

“The PR industry is a high pressure one. Anywhere. But in India, I felt there was no work-life balance. I’d start work at 9 in the morning and be there until 9 or 10 pm, and that’s not counting the two-hour commute each way. During COVID, when we worked from home, it was worse, because there was no end to my day. I was doing 14-hour shifts and making peanuts. I wanted work-life balance, a better standard of living and being able to afford the things I wanted.”

Abhishek Sharma, Thakur’s partner at the time – now her husband – had also just left his job in the merchant navy after the traumatic experience of having been unable to return in time before his father passed away.

He studied data analysis and did his MBA in HR to improve his career options in other fields. And Thakur suggested they look at moving to Canada to start a new life.

He was skeptical at first, but she turned to her father’s friend in Canada. The lady provided grounded, sane words of advice. Everyone’s journey is different, she said. Make up your mind about why you want to come to Canada. Is it important enough to want to weather a degree of upheaval?

After they spoke to an immigration agent, Sharma had a sense of giving Canada a shot.

Thakur also checked out online platforms where recent immigrants share their experience.

So she didn’t come “blind” like those who came here decades ago did.

There is a lot of information out there, Thakur admits readily. But it’s also very Instagram-friendly, very positive, all good and glowing.

People also tend to turn a blind eye to negative reports, says Thakur.

“We believe it’s something that happened to others, it will be different for us.”

Turns out, it wasn’t so different, after all.

They landed in November 2022, and were hit by a double whammy. The winter hiring freeze that slows down new hires even in normal years, and the conditions that prevailed during peak COVID.

Her husband failed to find openings in his field, data analysis, and joined Tim Hortons as a restaurant team member. Thakur was clear about the fact that with her education and experience, she wouldn’t switch lines. She was open to taking certification courses to upskill and did a few with LinkedIn and Google. She was willing to take up survival jobs until she got a break while sending out countless applications.

“By god’s grace and my husband’s support, I had the privilege to stick it out a little longer in order to pursue my dream. I continued freelancing for some clients in India and picked up proofreading assignments here, and that helped.”

She had heard it can take time. She knew things would be difficult. But knowing in theory is different from living the reality.

“It’s hard to survive on one salary, specially one from a survival job,” she says. “We had to go through that period, plan and replan our finances.”

When she finally got a call for an interview after four months, it took a while for it to sink in.

With her having landed a job, they reassessed Sharma’s options. He started the process to get his real estate certification and is hoping to complete it early this year.

Did they ever consider going back? Packing it in, thinking this is not working?

She did, says Thakur, candidly.

“When I landed my first job, I thought I’ve arrived. Cut to being laid off within months. My husband was still working survival jobs. My sister was arriving soon as an international student. We were going to go from a family of two to three, and dependent on his hourly wages. If he wasn’t well one day and didn’t make it to work, we had that much less. Our rental agreement was coming to an end and we had to move. Which meant rents for the first and last months, the cost of moving... we survived on cash advance from our credit cards.

“I got my first panic attack when I saw our savings vanishing. That’s when I thought maybe we should go back. I had always said if things didn’t work out, we’d return to India. That there’s no shame in taking two steps back – something might be waiting for us there – even if it means replanning, reassessing.”

Daniel Bernhard, CEO of ICC. “Canada wins when talented people choose to play for our team.”

Interestingly, this is where her husband told her that there were thousands of people who would give anything to have the opportunity to come to Canada. From being someone who was hesitant about the move, he’d become someone who didn’t want to give up on their dream without giving it their best shot.

He asked for three months.

“That’s the best thing about Canada,” Thakur says today. “He still hasn’t achieved what he set out to achieve, but he’s positive. He can see a future here. And I’ve become more patient! I don’t give in to life’s ups and downs so much. There are days when anyone can feel demotivated, feel like a failure for a bit. But never give up hope.

“I used logic. I could just as well have been laid off in India, and even with a job, I would have lacked the work-life balance I experienced here for a short while in my first job. I asked myself why I was losing hope so quickly. It had taken me four months to find my first job, I could wait and try for another three. Near the end of the three-month deadline, I landed my current job as Advisor, External Communications at Sobeys.”

While still very new in Canada, writing became a way for Thakur to process her experience. What started as a few posts online grew into a small LinkedIn series, #StillFiguringItOut, where she shared honest reflections on building a career, finding belonging, and learning how to start again. Every time she shared a piece of her story, someone would reach out to say, “me, too,” she says. That kept her going. The knowledge that she was not alone in her struggles.

She had stopped posting for a while because she felt she had nothing new to contribute. She also wanted to focus on her health after being diagnosed recently with diabetes. She has restarted again.

“I am open and honest about my experiences – the failures and challenges. I will not sugar-coat anything.

“I tell those who connect with me not to assess their journeys based on mine. Don’t compare. Some people say they weren’t prepared for the reality of life after landing. I don’t know what their research was, whom they spoke to or got feedback from, but I do know what they mean. Immigration agents paint a false, rosy picture. The first guy we spoke to in India said, ‘Aap chale jao (you go), you will have a job in 10-15 days. Others actually offer to get you jobs. Which is not true. People who have been taken in like this don’t want to share it.”

She talks about the “HR professional” who reached her through LinkedIn, promising to get her a job for a fee. When she asked probing questions, she learnt that he was asking for $3,500 to secure an interview with an MNC. She asked about her chances of getting the job and he said there was no surety – that he would train her for her first interview.

“I asked him how he planned to train me to speak about myself. And that was the last I heard from him. I believe that if you know what you are talking about, you can market yourself. If you’ve navigated the process of immigration and early challenges, you can speak for yourself.”

Rejection is a part of life, she says. “Accept that there will be struggles. Accept that you have flaws. But also accept that the journey will be beautiful. If you are struggling for yourself, no on can stop you. Don’t be ashamed of working survival jobs. What may be considered a ‘menial’ job back where you come from is not seen in that light here.

“Don’t fall into the trap of putting up a false front. Who are you showing off to? People who will not care if you fall off the face of the earth tomorrow? You are working to feed yourself and your family – take pride in that.”

Thakur points people to the services settlement agencies and other organizations offer.

“My husband reached out to an employment agency and they helped him curate his resumé, but that was about it. I got information from Canadian government websites for newcomers and also from Canoo, offered by ICC.”

The Here to Stay report listed what people are concerned about in Canada. Among them, affordable housing is of increasing concern for newcomers.

The report highlights options for policy makers to increase immigrant retention through targeted investments in specific domains. Programs that make life in Canada more meaningful, enjoyable, and rewarding for families can have a significant impact on immigrant retention via increases in future optimism as well as identity and belonging – the two strongest factors driving immigrant retention.

Asked to name a couple of things that would have helped her, changes she would like to see, Thakur names one that many newcomers do – the difficulty in accessing credit.

“How am I supposed to prove my credit history in Canada when I just landed? We stayed in an Airbnb for four months and paid cash because it’s difficult to get a rental apartment with no credit history. How to keep a roof over your head should be the least of your worries for a newcomer.”

She also says she would do one thing differently herself, and that’s reach out to more people.

“There are lots of networking opportunities available through government programs, but we need more. I relied more on LinkedIn and on people in my network. I used to try and set up coffee chats or even virtual chats, but it didn’t always work. Not because people don’t want to help, but because so many people are asking to meet, making time for everyone can be hard. So I would go to more events if I was doing it now, because I know having access to those people would have helped me more. Back when I was a newcomer, I was shy about my accent, unsure about fitting in.

“It’s hard to get out of your comfort zone. Because networking is done by people in senior positions back home. Junior employees can’t access that ‘club’ and so I didn’t know how to go about it. Today I know how important it is to market yourself. I’d have pitched myself, known how to position myself, had I gone to more.”

Thakur believes it’s important to share her journey because when she was looking for guidance, she couldn’t find too many people who were willing to help her get a foot in the door or even speak with her, point her in the right direction.

“I have faced that. I’m not saying I can help anyone get a job, but I am there to answer questions, share information I found helpful. My father said, ‘If you can help even one person, do it,’ and that’s what I try to do. Whoever reaches out to me, I accept their request to connect. I may not have exceptional advice, but my experience might be of help. Out of a conversation, something might emerge – something simple like putting X experience on top of an application for X position. It’s not that they are incapable of thinking of this themselves, but it may not strike them because so many are so stressed.

“I also point out that a designation, a title, holds no power. Someone with a director’s experience wants to put that on a resumé when applying for a senior management position, only to be told that they are over-qualified. ”

And Thakur underscores the importance of support. “When I’d applied for immigration, I wasn’t married, but I knew I would need mental and emotional support. Unlike in India, I had no family support system here in Canada. There was no way I could have done it without the support of my husband and my parents back home. They were my pillars, they urged me to stay strong and have patience.”

It’s clear that as birth rates decline, growing numbers of immigrants leave Canada, and immigrant admission levels contract, finding ways to retain the immigrants who are already in Canada is critical to the country’s prosperity and success.

“Reducing immigration while retention declines means we’ll just keep pouring water into the same leaky bucket,” continued Bernhard. “This is a story of profound self-defeat. When the most talented immigrants leave, our needs don’t leave with them.”

• The ICC’s Canoo app gives newcomers and their families free access to Canada’s most sought-after experiences as well as the tools they need to help call Canada home. Since 2010, Canoo has welcomed over 900,000 newcomer members. All recent permanent residents and new citizens can join Canoo by downloading the app for free. More about the app and the benefits for Canoo members at canoo.ca. The full report is here.