Can you blame people for leaving town?

I was at a gathering recently for my aunt and uncle’s 50th wedding anniversary. The party also served as a farewell: My cousin and his family were moving the next day from the GTA to Alberta.

- EDWARD KEENAN

When the traditional rewards of living in the city are falling apart, including public transit, it's little wonder people look elsewhere to live, Edward Keenan writes.

They told us of the job opportunities, and of the six-bedroom house with ample parking and yard space they were able to afford on their southern Ontario budget.

You get used to such news, after a while.

Being a lifelong Torontonian has always involved a certain amount of saying goodbye to your friends. Going from downtown to Scarborough or Thornhill, or from Scarborough and Thornhill to Ajax and Vaughan, and then farther away: Chatham, Haliburton, Nova Scotia, B.C. Some are going back whence they came, some are leaving the only home they’ve ever had. Always they’re looking for more space, more affordable space, less traffic, less of a grind.

But suddenly there are more of those people leaving than ever.

As my colleague Diana Zlomislic reported over the weekend, there’s a stampede to Calgary (and other places in Canada) out of Toronto recently. Over the past two years, 220,000 people (net) have left the city for other Canadian locations — a rate more than five times what was considered the standard outmigration earlier this decade.