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I wonder how much of this is due to actual structural issues in Canada, or the proximity, and ease of access to the tech-power-house regions in the US. Most US states probably have smaller tech-communities than Canada too. If we look a the US+CA as a group of metro regions does the distribution make more sense (in that for historical reasons with knock-on network effects, you see a power distribution of area with vibrant ecosystems of talent and venture capital) or do you see systematic biases that are acting as rate-limiters? I'd be very curious for any answers to this.

I think you are on to something here, breaking it down by metro regions. In Ontario, it is pretty much GTA vs the rest of the province, as much so that the easing of COVID restrictions as of now proceeds separately for Toronto for example. I wonder if we see the beginnings of a modern reincarnation of the city-states of ancient past.

I think it's two things, one of which you mentioned:

1) Structural. Canada is a 'large open economy' next to a 'massive open economy' where the economic pyramid is 10x - plus more inequality and they are a global player meaning that everything important in Canada gets consumed by the American system. Bought, put out of business, or talent goes south.

Bombardier is a good example: Trump arbitrarily and totally against NAFTA laid down tariffs which led to the failure of the business and put into the hands of another major power - the EU.

2) Cultural. A lack of focus on exceptionalism, and without very strong cultural foundations, a historical focus on 'equity' and 'stability' (which can be good things of course) Canada cannot play 'asymmetrical jujitsu' like Sweden, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong (pre takeover), Israel. It's a hugely contentious thing to say, but large scale migration - for all its benefits' - also exacerbates the problem, by creating more of an 'economic civility' rather than 'cultural civility'. When PM Trudeau sad Canada is a 'post-nation nation' - what he was saying without realizing is that Canada is simply going to be a 'safe, fair, trading post'. Think of Canada now really as 'The Hudson's Bay Trading Company' like a giant corporate living space, managed by well-meaning functionaries. Absent cultural foundations, then core civic and economic elements come to the fore. Canada can be thought of as 'an international economic zone North of the United States', basically without any real elite or national vision. The strategy is 'build more homes, get people into mortgages from one of 6 nearly identical banks, get them buying every day from Tim Hortons, Starbucks, McDonald's, get them in high-consumption environments near shopping malls full of foreign brands, and making consistent car payments, again, mostly surpluses going to foreign car companies. Working either for the government, a small business, or more likely the local office of a large international firm like KPMG, Ford, Price Waterhouse, etc..

Basically, a massive suburb of 'civic consumers', where it's very safe and placid, but nothing really happens either - no intellectual, creative, operational leadership, nothing to distinguish the situation from an arbitrary, nameless suburb anywhere else in the modern world.

This is happening a lot in the world, but the capital of this is Canada.

When you travel, it's getting harder and harder to 'know where in the world you are' by looking out the window, which is tragic.

I'm a USA-ian in Canada. Married a local, been here a while, work remotely for a US company.

> Canadian wages are considerably lower than the US for 'talent' so generally, people prefer to go to the US.

Easily a difference 40% or more. The CAD is about 27% weaker than the US Dollar, and even after accounting for currency differences the salaries are still lower in an absolute sense. Taxes are also much higher and ramp up much quicker, too, meaning there is less of an incentive to pay you big $$$ since you're going to be losing a much higher % compared to places without state income tax, like WA or TX.

If you spend time on reddit, head over to r/cscareerquestions, and you'll see a ton of "Canadian trying to go to SanFran" type posts. It's not hard to do -- the NAFTA TN visa still works -- and the FAANGM salaries in places like SV, DC, NYC, Seattle, etc. blow most Canadian salaries out of the water.

> On the high end - Canada imports doctors, software folks to do CRUD, ane engineers that never get to do engineering. One specialization is teaching and research for University, some number of profs are brought in.

Literally 5/8 of the apartments in my building are these people, lol (myself included). Imported Uni professors from India, a couple from S. Africa doing medical stuff, and a few foreign IT guy types.

> But mostly - it's people with education who will never get to use it, and a lot of people to work in retail, coffee shops and Long Term Care homes.

I disagree with the former, but the latter part is true -- Canada imports a lot of TFWs to work at Tim Hortons or nursing homes.

> Taxes are also much higher and ramp up much quicker, too

Actually taxes in the US and Canada are pretty similar. You have to be living in a state with no income tax to see any difference.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/personal-finance/t...

There are countless 'Engineers' in Canada, not doing Engineering. It's a 'big thing' right now in government - they're trying to figure out why so many 'credentialed' immigrants are not getting hired in their respective fields.

The government believes 'it must be racism' to the point wherein Ontario gov. has banned requiring 'Canadian experience' for jobs etc..

This is surely, at least partly true. It's a problem. But - overall, the issue is really that 'credentials are not equal', 'credentials may not be relevant' and most importantly 'credentials are only a small part of the job'. There are actually few jobs in Canada wherein someone's 'technical ability' will qualify them for something right away.

Doctors - well there's a pathway for them. Profs if they are hired into Unis. But even in IT - it's not so much one's education that makes one ready, we know in high tech that a lot people don't have technical degrees. Yes, ABC Corp. might be specifically in need of 'materials science' people but that is rare. Companies need people with technical backgrounds that can communicate, manage, problem solve in a North American operating environment, and they also need tons of people in talented areas wherein credentials just don't mean a lot. If you look at any successful tech corp a small minority have technical roles. Sales, Marketing, Product Management, Field Marketing, Sales Support, Branding, Customer Operations etc. etc. these are all communicating jobs wherein people who are more culturally adapted to the environment are better prepared. This is the primary driver of the 'migrant vs local citizen wage gap even among credentialed jobs'. Unsurprisingly, this gap closes over a couple of decades, which makes sense.

In places like Sweden, this problem is exacerbated by the fact that Swedish culture is very specific, the language is hard and so they're really having difficulty getting newcomers into more sophisticated roles. It's inevitable and an inexorable fact of the system. One way to mitigate this would be to make migration a little bit more job-based, in which case employers would be making the decisions as to 'who is employable' which makes much more sense, excepting the ugly scenarios wherein you get wage suppression, which is 100% a reality as well. (The large banks in Canada started dumping call centers in Canada and moving them offshore, which is an example of that kind of thinking)

This tracks with my observations. Perhaps the rise of remote work will move this needle a bit, but what you said has been true for at least a few decades. Canada has excellent execution ability (open secret in the industry) but too few companies to leverage that ability, or at least they're narrowly focused in certain industries like banking and natural resource extraction.

That said, if you roll the dice enough, you get lucky sometimes. Tobi Luetke (Shopify founder/CEO) is an immigrant from Germany. Mike Laziridis (Blackberry founder/CEO) was born in Istanbul of Greek parents. Michael Cowpland (Corel founder/CEO) was an immigrant from the UK.

Many of these outsized successes were low probability, high impact.

This is not true. Canada produces planes, helicopters (Bell Canada) and aerospace that requires advances engineering work

Canada produces the most advanced video games that require real talent, and the commercial bits happen in Canada yes.

Canada has international clusters in AI that are ahead from the ones in the US

Canada does not make any advancements in helicopter design, and unfortunately, may not be contributing to aircraft design anymore if the Bombardier deal goes the way it does.

'Assembling' aircraft and cars for other nations who are doing all the real R&D, design, business and decision making is not 'advanced'.

Canada makes some decent games, but they're mostly driven by EA (USA) an UBisoft (France).

Canada has tons of AI talent coming out of Montreal, but no AI companies. That said, there are very few AI companies, mostly the winners are the FAANGS putting it to good use in their products.