They came to Canada for a myriad of reasons.

Some were fleeing persecution and discrimination.

Others were looking for better paying jobs or seeking higher education opportunities for their children.

Now those who have made new and prosperous lives in Canada are being targetted by their home countries in intensive “come home” campaigns designed to lure back capital and brain power.

From Vietnam to India to China and Singapore, governments are offering everything from cash incentives to preferential status as they join the race in the world’s economic mainstream.

Canada is doing little, if anything about this silent exodus.

Nobody is keeping any tabs on exits but the wealth of anecdotal evidence is increasing to show that many new immigrants are finding a return to their homelands attractive.

Vietnam recently announced that it plans to woo the country’s 2.7-million strong diaspora.

These are mainly Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) who fled during and after the war that ended in 1975 to start new lives in about 100 countries, including Canada.

To mark the recent Tet celebrations, the government threw a gala event for more than 1,000 returnees at a new convention center outside Hanoi.

President Nguyen Minh Triet also pledged that Hanoi will soon allow visa exemption for Vietnamese holding foreign passports.

For their part, many Viet Kieu were enthusiastic about the changes in their homeland, where the economy has hummed along at more than 7 percent a year for two decades.

China says that of the one million people who have studied abroad since the 1980s, two-thirds have not come back.

“It has been a great loss for China - which is now in dire need of people of expertise - to see well-educated professionals leave after the country has invested a lot in them,” the official newspaper China Daily said.

This year’s Blue Book on Global Politics and Security, issued by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences said, “As our economic conditions as well as academic and business environments improve, a growing number of Chinese professionals are coming back.. It’s time to nurture that reverse migration.”

The story is the same in India which is raining NRIs or non-resident Indians.

An Associated Chamber of Commerce study in India estimated that around 25 million NRIs in 125 countries were investing in property in India.

The NRIs are also returning to ensure that their politicians of choice are elected locally to protect their investments and their future, should they return.

In Punjab recently, an estimated 50,000 NRIs were in the state to throw their weight behind the candidates.

This community wants a stake in the prosperity wave and the easiest way to do it is to tap those who will rule the state for the next five years, said a media commentator.

New Delhi acutely aware of the financial and intellectual clout their prodigal children carry has a specialised Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs to deal with their needs.

It has also permitted them to hold dual citizenship for the first time.

So far an estimated 50,000 overseas Indians have applied for the new “overseas citizen of India” status. The actual number of Indian nationals resettling in their homelands is said to be much higher.

In the ultra-modern city state of Singapore, a plan in 2000 to turn the country into a global biomedical hub has attracted scores of the world’s top scientists who were lured by promises of hassle-free funding, the freedom to follow their research interests and a US$300 million ‘science city’ fitted with well-equipped laboratories, day care centers, bars and a fitness center.”

Many of those who made a beeline for this environment were Singaporeans who had left the strict nanny state.

Canada always ranks as one the most desirable places to live in the world.

But we need to do more than just attract immigrants.

We need them to stay.