Why would a Canadian who has options stay when the government shows time and time again that real estate should make more money than productive members of society, and that capital should be used to inflate assets than to invest in the country's future?
Not sure about all the other things, but in my experience if you found a startup and get American VC money, they more or less tell you to move the company to the US.
Then they start pressuring you to also move to the US.
FYI most Canadian immigrants also leave Canada once they become Canadian. Plenty of my family did that, and if we didn't first immigrate to the US we would have done the same as well decades ago.
Canada was dealing with a brain drain well before TFWPs and LMIAs were a thing - all the way back to Thomas Edison's family.
Yep. I'm using "most" in place of many (I can't always be typing in academic prose on HN - it gets tiring at some point).
The actual number is 20% of all Canadian immigrants leave Canada within 25 years of landing [0], and this rate is 2x higher amongst Canadian immigrants with a doctorate and is elevated amongst Canadian immigrants classified as "business and finance managers, ICT professionals, engineers, and architecture managers" [1].
And speaking anecdotally amongst the Asian American/Canadian community - most who I've known who landed in Canada as skilled immigrants left Canada for the US on a TN visa once they naturalized (even with Trump in office). In a number of cases, they chose Canada simply because they couldn't make it to America on their first try.
Countries compete for FDI but they also compete for labor. Canada has high taxes, high costs and lower opportunities. They deserve to lose talent to countries who offer them a better deal.
Who cares? Trying to compete with the U.S. is a race to the bottom. If young people want to enter the capitalist thunderdome we should encourage them to go off to the U.S. and instead focus on raising a generation that isn’t interested in money at any cost. There are lots of opportunities in Canada (and other countries facing the same exodus) but they aren’t going to make people rich like the U.S. will. Canada can’t be more like the U.S. without being more like the U.S. Canada isn’t perfect but do the Canadian majority really wish they were more like the U.S?
> If young people want to enter the capitalist thunderdome we should encourage them to go off to the U.S. and instead focus on raising a generation that isn’t interested in money at any cost...
How are provinces supposed to manage their finances long term if much of Canada's industry and talent leaves?
Canada's economic complexity index [0] is on par with Serbia [1] and Bulgaria [2].
there are many economic models, entrepreneurial talent is not a necessity for an economy to succeed. We are on a website all about startups so of course we are entrepreneurial and see the value in it as both a provider of opportunity for ourselves and our communities but it is not a universal truth that every country must obey
There is, of course, a literal answer that few Canadians consider worth the price — yes, throw in the towel on sovereignty and join the US, so employers have access to a 10x larger market and aren't doomed to lose market & talent to US tech giants due to economy of scale.
Wouldn't a free-trade and free-labor-movement treaty suffice for this purpose? I'd worry about Canada joining the US. The end state of most Anglophone nations is their universities full of Jason Ardays, their governments full of David Camerons, and their hip-fracture wait times set to 30 days. The closer culturally to the source, England, the worse the problem. Despite some of the worst foreign and domestic policies of this new century under the current US administration, we've demonstrated some amount of resistance to this corrosive nature that seems to spread through the English language.
Either Canada would immediately be the largest state and deliver a massive House majority to one obvious party or, if the provinces joined separately, an overwhelming Senatorial majority to that same party. I don't think that's desirable for the US.
Personally, Ben, I also think that US foreign policy of massive encirclement on the globe through mutual-defense agreements was a pincer move of super-strategic performance considering the ramifications it has had on our real opponents. Canada, I think, is best dealt with as a close ally whose borders represent a point our enemies cannot cross. We don't want their politics and I think we'd love to have their workers and they'd like the remittances. My position on this is like Ronald Reagan's or George H.W. Bush's.
Here's Reagan (on Mexico, but I think it works - we should expand the TN to be transferable to an LPR and weaken the labor requirement so that you get it so long as you're not a criminal):
> Why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems and make it possible for them to come here legally, with a work permit, and then while they are working and earning here, they pay taxes here? And when they want to go back, they can go back, and they can cross. And open the border both ways, by understanding their problems.
To say nothing of the fact that, free of our federal government and its laws, it may well be possible to have Canada run massive shipyards, nuclear power, and drone factories in a manner that we have painted ourselves out of. Allowing for an independent jurisdiction in this way gives the West a lot of freedom.
As an educated young professional who emigrated from Canada, car dependency and low density cities were major reasons I left. Suburban sprawl is a prison without a car, and I have no intentions of driving. With that said, I clearly don't fit the profile in the article perfectly, since most of my fellow emigrants are going to the US, which has those same issues.
Curious where you went! Europe? Japan? Singapore? I'm on a similar boat. There are a few areas in the US and Canada that aren't car dependent, but not many.
Tokyo! It's a city with its pluses and minuses, but having already spoken Japanese before coming, I enjoy the everyday life more than any other place I've been.
A big difference I would say between a place like Tokyo and most urbanist cities in NA is that public transit is overwhelmingly the default here. My experience is that even in Vancouver or Montreal, it wouldn't be strange to have an acquaintance or relative who lives in one of the extended suburbs or a neighboring city, and for whom driving is default.
However, properly designed cities like Houston, TX are well-poised to take advantage of self-driving cars. Very soon car ownership won't be necessary even in sparse cities, but with all the advantages of having a lot of living space and cheap housing.
Fair. I disagree with your conclusion, but I don't think it's an unfounded position to take.
Nevertheless, I imagine this is an unusually salient issue for us. I imagine for the average Canadian emigrant, the fact that the US offers a greater quantity of better quality, higher paying, jobs, is a much bigger contributor than urban planning.
Why would a Canadian who has options stay when the government shows time and time again that real estate should make more money than productive members of society, and that capital should be used to inflate assets than to invest in the country's future?
How is that different from any other country except maybe Japan?
Not sure about all the other things, but in my experience if you found a startup and get American VC money, they more or less tell you to move the company to the US.
Then they start pressuring you to also move to the US.
So seeing that startups get drawn
Bad faith article that makes no mention of the TFWP and LMIA changes which is at least 20,000 individuals
Edit: Also, the population of Canada has grown significantly (see: Century Initiative)
As a percentage of total population, net migration is the same today as it was in 2011, and lower than it was 1991-2011.
FYI most Canadian immigrants also leave Canada once they become Canadian. Plenty of my family did that, and if we didn't first immigrate to the US we would have done the same as well decades ago.
Canada was dealing with a brain drain well before TFWPs and LMIAs were a thing - all the way back to Thomas Edison's family.
Did you mean to use “most” instead of “many”? I can see many doing that, I can’t really see most doing that. If you have numbers please share.
Yep. I'm using "most" in place of many (I can't always be typing in academic prose on HN - it gets tiring at some point).
The actual number is 20% of all Canadian immigrants leave Canada within 25 years of landing [0], and this rate is 2x higher amongst Canadian immigrants with a doctorate and is elevated amongst Canadian immigrants classified as "business and finance managers, ICT professionals, engineers, and architecture managers" [1].
And speaking anecdotally amongst the Asian American/Canadian community - most who I've known who landed in Canada as skilled immigrants left Canada for the US on a TN visa once they naturalized (even with Trump in office). In a number of cases, they chose Canada simply because they couldn't make it to America on their first try.
[0] - https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/one-in-five-immigrants-a...
[1] - https://forcitizenship.ca/article/highly-skilled-immigrants-...
Housing prices in Canada make the US look affordable. But there is no political will to do anything about it.
Countries compete for FDI but they also compete for labor. Canada has high taxes, high costs and lower opportunities. They deserve to lose talent to countries who offer them a better deal.
Who cares? Trying to compete with the U.S. is a race to the bottom. If young people want to enter the capitalist thunderdome we should encourage them to go off to the U.S. and instead focus on raising a generation that isn’t interested in money at any cost. There are lots of opportunities in Canada (and other countries facing the same exodus) but they aren’t going to make people rich like the U.S. will. Canada can’t be more like the U.S. without being more like the U.S. Canada isn’t perfect but do the Canadian majority really wish they were more like the U.S?
> If young people want to enter the capitalist thunderdome we should encourage them to go off to the U.S. and instead focus on raising a generation that isn’t interested in money at any cost...
How are provinces supposed to manage their finances long term if much of Canada's industry and talent leaves?
Canada's economic complexity index [0] is on par with Serbia [1] and Bulgaria [2].
[0] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/124/export-complexit...
[1] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/688/export-complexit...
[2] - https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/countries/100/export-complexit...
there are many economic models, entrepreneurial talent is not a necessity for an economy to succeed. We are on a website all about startups so of course we are entrepreneurial and see the value in it as both a provider of opportunity for ourselves and our communities but it is not a universal truth that every country must obey
There is, of course, a literal answer that few Canadians consider worth the price — yes, throw in the towel on sovereignty and join the US, so employers have access to a 10x larger market and aren't doomed to lose market & talent to US tech giants due to economy of scale.
Wouldn't a free-trade and free-labor-movement treaty suffice for this purpose? I'd worry about Canada joining the US. The end state of most Anglophone nations is their universities full of Jason Ardays, their governments full of David Camerons, and their hip-fracture wait times set to 30 days. The closer culturally to the source, England, the worse the problem. Despite some of the worst foreign and domestic policies of this new century under the current US administration, we've demonstrated some amount of resistance to this corrosive nature that seems to spread through the English language.
Either Canada would immediately be the largest state and deliver a massive House majority to one obvious party or, if the provinces joined separately, an overwhelming Senatorial majority to that same party. I don't think that's desirable for the US.
Personally, Ben, I also think that US foreign policy of massive encirclement on the globe through mutual-defense agreements was a pincer move of super-strategic performance considering the ramifications it has had on our real opponents. Canada, I think, is best dealt with as a close ally whose borders represent a point our enemies cannot cross. We don't want their politics and I think we'd love to have their workers and they'd like the remittances. My position on this is like Ronald Reagan's or George H.W. Bush's.
Here's Reagan (on Mexico, but I think it works - we should expand the TN to be transferable to an LPR and weaken the labor requirement so that you get it so long as you're not a criminal):
> Why don’t we work out some recognition of our mutual problems and make it possible for them to come here legally, with a work permit, and then while they are working and earning here, they pay taxes here? And when they want to go back, they can go back, and they can cross. And open the border both ways, by understanding their problems.
To say nothing of the fact that, free of our federal government and its laws, it may well be possible to have Canada run massive shipyards, nuclear power, and drone factories in a manner that we have painted ourselves out of. Allowing for an independent jurisdiction in this way gives the West a lot of freedom.
”the United States dominates as the destination of choice”
As country getting closer to the Communism, people seem to take notice.
Yes. Stop toxic urbanization.
Prohibit new dense housing and slowly start deconstructing the dense office space. At the same time, promote remote work with tax incentives.
As an educated young professional who emigrated from Canada, car dependency and low density cities were major reasons I left. Suburban sprawl is a prison without a car, and I have no intentions of driving. With that said, I clearly don't fit the profile in the article perfectly, since most of my fellow emigrants are going to the US, which has those same issues.
Curious where you went! Europe? Japan? Singapore? I'm on a similar boat. There are a few areas in the US and Canada that aren't car dependent, but not many.
Tokyo! It's a city with its pluses and minuses, but having already spoken Japanese before coming, I enjoy the everyday life more than any other place I've been.
A big difference I would say between a place like Tokyo and most urbanist cities in NA is that public transit is overwhelmingly the default here. My experience is that even in Vancouver or Montreal, it wouldn't be strange to have an acquaintance or relative who lives in one of the extended suburbs or a neighboring city, and for whom driving is default.
Sure. All kinds of people exist.
However, properly designed cities like Houston, TX are well-poised to take advantage of self-driving cars. Very soon car ownership won't be necessary even in sparse cities, but with all the advantages of having a lot of living space and cheap housing.
Fair. I disagree with your conclusion, but I don't think it's an unfounded position to take.
Nevertheless, I imagine this is an unusually salient issue for us. I imagine for the average Canadian emigrant, the fact that the US offers a greater quantity of better quality, higher paying, jobs, is a much bigger contributor than urban planning.
I don't know anything about this topic and I'm not Canadian, but this has to be the most narrative destroying thing I've seen in a while.