I guess it's good they'll ostensibly be able to attract more talent from other countries, but I think they need to fix their own brain drain problem in the first place.
- A Canadian living in the US
- A Canadian living in the US
Maybe there was some truth to that in the past, but that certainly isn't the case any longer, and hasn't been for some time now.
In practice, Canada's social programs are tremendously costly, limited, and low-quality.
The provincial public health care systems are relevant examples of this. It's typical for Canadians with the means to do so to seek medical treatment in the US or abroad, rather than dealing with the slow and ineffective Canadian systems, especially for any serious ailment.
The provincial public education systems are similar. Canadians with the financial means to do so will send their children to independent schools, rather than public schools. Even those who don't have the means will still do what they can to make that happen.
In terms of the broader quality-of-life picture, it isn't what it used to be. Housing is prohibitively expensive. Food, fuel, vehicles, and other essential goods are expensive. There's much less variety and choice when it comes to retail, restaurants, entertainment, and so forth. The taxation is excessive, especially for getting so little in return. Government makes it far harder than it should be to start and operate a business.
At this point, Canada is coasting on past success, and has a reputation that no longer matches reality.
My favorite example of this is Chretien's secret trips to the Mayo Clinic in 1999. <https://web.archive.org/web/20100204202553/http://www.montre...>
Check out https://www.levels.fyi/leaderboard/Software-Engineer/Staff-E....
It's shameful that we have 6-700k people here in the US that are effectively treated as second class 'citizens' and a permanent underclass. I knew one guy who had been waiting on a green card for over a decade.
They are either second-class non-citizens (compared to those on immigrant visas) or if using “citizen” broadly to call all those who are immigrants by intent (regardless of status) as well as actual citizens, something like third-class citizens, behind both legal citizens and permanent residents.
IMHO, the H1B should be abolished, and we should adopt a Canadian style points system that sets a high bar, but once admitted, automatically grants a green card. I think even Hayek himself basically admitted that our worker visa programs were effectively a labor subsidy to megacorps because these workers did not have the same abilities to negotiate and switch companies as others.
That is not like other countries. China, for example, is happy to give you a Z visa every year without any path to permanent residency. 9 years and never offered permanent residency, not that I would have probably taken it.