Americans weren’t joking when they said they’d move to Canada.
The Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website crashed for some users Tuesday night after several news outlets reported that presidential hopeful Donald Trump was leading in election results.
The CIC website provides information on how to immigrate to Canada and gain citizenship. Users came across 404 error messages and internal server errors, presumably due to a surge in traffic.
READ MORE: Will Americans actually move to Canada after the U.S. election?
The repeated outages were reported by users in the United States, Canada and across Asia. The federal agency hasn’t commented on why the website appears to be experiencing issues.
The Telegraph in the United Kingdom even reported increased searches for the word “emigrate” on Election Night.
READ MORE: 19 per cent of Americans would consider moving to Canada if Trump wins election
An Ipsos poll, conducted exclusively for Global News, found that 19 per cent of American respondents would “consider moving to Canada” if Trump were to win. The number was especially high among young respondents: 28 per cent aged 18 to 34 said they’d consider the move.
And if Hillary Clinton took the win, 15 per cent of respondents said they would consider moving north. This number was higher among men as 19 per cent admitted they’d rethink living in the U.S. with the Democrat at the helm.
READ MORE: American searches for jobs in Canada spike as US election nears
The number of U.S. residents searching for jobs in Canada has even gone up more than 50 per cent this year from last, Monster.com revealed last week.
In all of 2015, there were about 20,000 such queries on the popular employment search engine. By 2016, there were more than 30,000.
READ MORE: Here’s how Americans looking to escape Trump can immigrate to Canada
And don’t forget the #MovetoCanada threat that’s gained momentum over the past few weeks.
- With files from Andrew Russell and Tania Kohut, Global News
carmen.chai@globalnews.ca
Follow @Carmen_Chai