#SuperTuesday: Searches for 'How can I move to Canada?' spike
CBC News | Posted: March 2, 2016 2:06 PM | Last Updated: March 2, 2016
The number of Google searches for "how can I move to Canada" increased dramatically on Super Tuesday, as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump scored big wins in the race to the White House.
Simon Rogers, a data editor at Google, reported the observation on Twitter Tuesday night.
That 350 per cent spike was just the beginning, though. A journalist with Mashable saw an even greater increase just minutes later.
Another Twitter user noticed an error message appearing on the website of Citizenship and Immigration Canada suggesting greater than normal traffic.
Democrat Hillary Clinton won seven states while Republican Donald Trump won at least seven in Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses.
Threatening to leave the United States (or any jurisdiction, for that matter) at the prospect of an unwanted election result has been something of a tradition since 2000, and only grew more common with the advent of social media.
The meme resurfaced ahead of this year's U.S. election with the launch of the tongue-in-cheek "Cape Breton If Trump Wins" campaign, prompting CNN to send a crew to the East Coast island to shoot a segment.
Never one to miss out on a social media trend, Toronto Coun. Norm Kelly scored more than 34,000 retweets with this post.