![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767620704_690_default.jpg\")
Heather O\u2019Dell moved to Halifax and began work as a cardiovascular intensive care nurse on Jan. 1, 2025. (Moira Donovan\/CBC)<\/p>\nWhen Donald Trump started talking about running for re-election, Heather O\u2019Dell began looking for an exit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI had this feeling that he would win,\u201d she said. \u201cI really couldn’t understand how that was going to happen, but it really seemed like it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
As an American citizen, O\u2019Dell didn\u2019t like where the country was headed. <\/p>\n
She also feared for her safety.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
\u201cI knew \u2026 the federal government could step in and start doing things like changing my passport gender and changing my driver’s licence gender, all the things that led me to feel safer as a trans-identifying person, they could take those things away very quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Heather O\u2019Dell moved to Halifax and began work as a cardiovascular intensive care nurse on Jan. 1, 2025. (Moira Donovan\/CBC)<\/p>\n
As the 2024 U.S. presidential election approached, O\u2019Dell, who was a newly qualified registered nurse in Vermont, applied for a nursing licence in Nova Scotia. <\/p>\n
A few days after Trump’s election victory<\/a>, she told her colleagues she was leaving.\u00a0<\/p>\n In late December, she moved to Halifax. She began work as a cardiovascular intensive care nurse on Jan. 1, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was just a no-brainer. I didn’t even come up to visit. I was like, \u2018That’s where I’m going to be,\u2019\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n O\u2019Dell is just one of dozens of health-care workers from the United States who\u2019ve moved to Nova Scotia in the last year as more people move across the border, in some cases seeking a more welcoming environment.<\/p>\n Nova Scotia Health says 50 American health-care workers have taken positions in Nova Scotia in the past fiscal year, up from 31 in 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018We just want to live our life and not be harassed\u2019<\/p>\n Two of those people are Steve and Matt Ortiz, who have decades of nursing experience between them.<\/p>\n The couple is originally from Orlando, Fla. But when Trump was elected \u2014 after years of increasingly anti-2SLGBTQ+ rhetoric and policies in Florida \u2014 they started looking to Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cWe just want to live our life and not be harassed,\u201d said Matt, who notes that some people questioned their decision, saying the situation wasn\u2019t that bad or that they\u2019d soon be moving back. <\/p>\n \u201cThat’s their opinion. This is our lives. I am 55 \u2014 I want to spend the rest of my existence someplace where I don’t feel like I should have to look behind my shoulder every time.\u201d<\/p>\n After trying unsuccessfully to get nursing jobs in Alberta, they looked to Nova Scotia. With the help of a recruiter from the provincial health authority, the Ortizes found positions at Aberdeen Hospital in New Glasgow.<\/p>\n They arrived in Nova Scotia \u2014 along with their 45-kilogram bulldog \u2014 at the end of the summer. Since arriving, the couple said, their stress levels have dropped \u201cby 80 per cent.\u201d They purchased an old Victorian house in Pictou County they’re fixing up, and are looking at Nova Scotia as their long-term home.<\/p>\n \u201cWe don’t plan on going anywhere,\u201d said Matt.\u00a0<\/p>\n But it\u2019s the people of Nova Scotia \u2014 many who went out of their way to welcome the couple to the community, they say \u2014 that have cemented their confidence in their decision.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seems like most of the general consensus in the entire province is, you know what? Be a good person, do a good job, treat people nicely. That’s all we really ask,\u201d said Matt. \u201cAnd that’s all we want. We just want to be treated fairly, treated politely, like we would treat you.\u201d<\/p>\n Volunteer-led initiative offers information, advice<\/p>\n A volunteer-led initiative is trying to support even more American health-care workers to make the move to Canada.<\/p>\n The initiative was started by Tod Maffin<\/a>, a digital marketer, business journalist and former CBC radio host in Nanaimo, B.C. Last year, as tariffs and political tensions between Canada and the U.S. increased, Maffin posted a TikTok video encouraging Americans who wanted to support the Canadian economy to come spend money in Canada.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd hundreds of them showed up on the weekend that we picked.\u201d<\/p>\n Then something unexpected happened, Maffin said. The group of Americans who showed up included dozens of health-care workers who were using the weekend as an opportunity to scope out Canada as a place to escape to, if need be.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maffin and his wife helped connect those people to the hospital in Nanaimo, and decided to continue those efforts by creating a website called Canada\u2019s Healthcare Infusions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Initially, the website was directed to Vancouver Island, and contained resources about the immigration process, as well as information about things like the state of local schools. The website also had a chatroom through the Discord platform, where people looking to move could ask questions that only locals would answer.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maffin realized the infrastructure could easily be duplicated anywhere, so he put out a call for people to start their own.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s not a charity behind this or a company or anything like that. It’s just people off the side of their desks, evenings and weekends, trying to try to make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Two](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767620705_847_default.jpg\")
Steve and Matt Ortiz say that some people questioned their decision to move. (Steve and Matt Ortiz)<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767620705_813_default.jpg\")
Tod Maffin and his wife started an initiative to help American health-care workers make the move to Canada. (CBC News)<\/p>\n