Environmental Influences on Haitian migration to Canada and connections to social inequality : Evidence from Ottawa-Gatineau and Montreal.

This chapter examines the extent to which environmental factors and social inequality in Haiti interact to influence international migration from that country to Canada. With its long history of deforestation, land degradation, soil erosion, and surface water pollution, Haiti is often cited as an example of environmentally induced migration. Canada has been a significant destination for Haitian migrants for many decades, and there are large, well-established Haitian-Canadian communities in Ottawa-Gatineau and Montreal. We have worked with members of these communities on an exploratory study to document how environmental events and conditions in Haiti have directly or indirectly influenced their decisions to migrate to Canada. Using a participatory, qualitative, mixed-methods approach, we found that environmental degradation, urban ecological decline, and extreme events interact with social inequalities in Haiti to influence international migration to Canada in subtle yet observable ways.