The lives and seasonal movements of Canadian international retirement migrants were greatly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and measures put in place to manage the spread of the virus.• Newspaper coverage of Canadian international retirement migrants from 2020 framed them as altering consumer practices, facing uncertainties, and seeking stability in response. • These responses form an interesting dualism because the COVID-19 pandemic introduced both challenges and opportunities for Canadian international retirement migrants in 2020.International retirement migration involves the seasonal relocation of older adults to destinations abroad. For Canadians, this is typically done to escape winter at home in favour of warmer weather elsewhere. In this paper, we explore how Canadian newspapers chronicled the changes associated with managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada, including border measures and calls to avoid non-essential travel, and how they impacted international retirement migrants and their movements. We specifically present the findings of a framing analysis conducted of 187 newspaper articles published in 2020, identified through the Canadian Newsstream Database. The framing analysis identified three ways in which Canadian international retirement migrants were discussed in relation to the pandemic and the changed spatiotemporal realities that affected their transnational movements. First, they are a group who altered their consumer practices, which had economic impacts at home and in their usual seasonal destinations. Second, they are a group who faced considerable uncertainty with regard to travel and movement, among other things, as the pandemic unfolded in 2020. Finally, Canadian international retirement migrants sought stability in a number of ways, both in terms of their social networks and living arrangements at home and abroad.