Blue States Looking North?

By Tom Zeller Jr.
Nov. 7, 2004

One might only guess that a few of the 58 million people that voted for President Bush were motivated by a love-it-or-leave-it view of the country. But it is statistically demonstrable that after John Kerry's defeat, some Democratic supporters gave that sentiment some real thought, too.

Canada's ministry of immigration and citizenship reported a record-shattering jump in the number of visits to its Web site - www.cic.gc.ca - on the day after last week's election. The average number of visitors to the site on any given day hovers around 65,000, according to Maria Iadinardi, a spokeswoman for the ministry. About 20,000 of those daily visits come from the United States.

But last Wednesday, the number of visits to the site more than doubled, to around 179,000, with 115,000 hits coming from Canada's neighbor to the south, although Ms. Iadinardi added that she has yet to detect any corresponding uptick in actual applications for asylum.

"That will take between four and six months to measure," she said.