One thing I’ll highlight is that public sector growth has outpaced private sector during that whole time, and entrepreneurs indirectly have to pay to prop up public services only to get from a business perspective to get a worse business ecosystem than America in pretty much every way except not having to pay for employee health insurance and lower labour costs. If the idea is that the public sector’s wonderful services are supposed to help the private sector flourish, well, that whole idea doesn’t seem to be working.

The other is rents have increased that whole time, who can afford to be an entrepreneur when your lease will eat you alive before you ever get off the ground. If the argument is “aha - but Canadians could start an innovative company that relies on remote work and thus avoid such expensive leases” what is the appeal of starting such a business in Canada compared to starting one in the United States where success is far more likely due to a larger market and more pro-business environment?

Finally inequality and monopolization is just much worse than 20 years ago internationally. Why be David fighting Goliath when the deck is stacked against you? I’d be kind of surprised if the trend in the article isn’t happening internationally.

The articles suggestion that Canadians just don’t have good enough soft skills to be entrepreneurs is just insulting blaming of non-existent individual deficits that ignores systemic issues.