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Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

theglobeandmail.com

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Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#11

Post by cal5k »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #8
turnip1979 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed on the brain drain. Toronto is a major (and expensive) world city. From talking with friends, 100K (Canadian, that's 70K US) is the ceiling for intermediate to senior developers. Junior devs make a lot less ... 50-60K (that's 35 to 42K US)! That said, free healthcare counts for a lot. Also, as a dev in a Canadian tech company, you are probably not going to see as much stress and volatility as your average Sili…

Having worked in Toronto's tech scene for almost two decades I just have a big 'meh' response to it. I now work at Google in Kitchener, and commute from a hobby farm near Hamilton. Quality of life is outstanding. I dread ever having to work in Toronto proper again. The startup scene in Toronto is a clique. The quality of management talent is sad. After working as employee #4 in a Toronto startup, I jumped ship to wor…

As a Toronto-based startup founder, I'm sorry you had that experience! (Shit, how Canadian of me... Apologizing for other people)

In any event, I think for the first time there's a really good cohort of Toronto founders with American-style vision and ability to execute. I don't think we're too far from seeing a couple of unicorns in Toronto that will help to build a stronger ecosystem. And yes, where necessary that means importing American management at great expense.

Toronto has a lot going for it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, as you can attest, but I think it's as good a place as anything to do something great.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#12

Post by 3pt14159 »

turnip1979 wrote: post #4
patrick_99 wrote: post #2

It seems like the effect of the low dollar is already helping the tech sectors. Companies like Shopify make their money in USD while salaries are a bargain. American companies like Amazon are expanding their offices in Toronto and Vancouver. The brain drain is real though. I feel like there's a problem when police officers make more than most software engineers.

Agreed on the brain drain. Toronto is a major (and expensive) world city. From talking with friends, 100K (Canadian, that's 70K US) is the ceiling for intermediate to senior developers. Junior devs make a lot less ... 50-60K (that's 35 to 42K US)! That said, free healthcare counts for a lot. Also, as a dev in a Canadian tech company, you are probably not going to see as much stress and volatility as your average Sili…

$100k CAD is not the ceiling. Far from it. I've personally extended offers for $120k, and that was for a pre-series A startup. The larger guys pay even more. First company that comes to mind, Shopify, pays up to $150k:

https://angel.co/shopify/jobs/88003-software-developer?utm_s...

And it goes up from there, especially once you start looking at positions that include less sexy startups, less common technologies, or more responsibility (like being a team lead).

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#13

Post by prolepunk »

Boo-hoo.

Same newspaper that endorsed Conservatives, whose economic policies for the past decade was to put oil sands above everything else, the government under which we saw Canada withdrawing from Kyoto and generally have terrible environmental record, is now having seconds thoughts when oil tanked as well as other commodities tanked dragging loonie with it.

Boo-hoo, sir, boo-hoo.

Refs: their endorsement -- http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/editorials/the-t...

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#14

Post by bryanlarsen »

S_A_P wrote: post #5

I was recently in Calgary. I found the people there friendly, polite and nice just like all the Canadian stereotypes suggest. I would love to live up in Canada, but HOLY HELL is it COLD! I couldnt deal with that. I was just in Calgary, I cant imagine Edmonton, Red Deer or the like. Is it just as cold on the east coast? I would imagine it has to be. Signed, Someone from Houston, Tx

If the weather's too cold, just put on better clothing and suddenly it's comfortable again.

Unlike Houston, where it's crazy hot and humid all the time, and there's nothing you can do about it except for hide inside in the air conditioning.

No, the problem with Canada recently has been that it's been too warm. It's hard to really appreciate winter if it's too warm to go skiing or skating. We got close to an inch of rain on Sunday here in Ottawa that really messed up our snow. :(

I'll take the weather in pretty much anywhere in Canada over the weather in Houston any day.

I will complain about the lack of sunshine in the wintertime here, though. That's just depressing.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#15

Post by seivan »

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

I thought banks, resource companies and actual manufacturing were usually profitable. While most tech lived on VC money, at least when you look at the Bay Area.

What am I missing here? Every time I read about this stuff I always get the impression that tech is this abstract thing that barely makes profit and lives on investments while "traditional" businesses lives on selling actual things that creates profit.

Which is why I'm neurotically nervous over an impending tech crash when the dust settles and App Startup X, Y and Z will probably never be profitable with current tech salaries.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#16

Post by 3pt14159 »

Canada didn't forget anything. We have a diverse economy with common sense measures like reducing our net debt to GDP, while keeping a fully funded retirement pension fund (CPP, unlike SS, actually invests in the public market).

Even the way we do provincial transfer payments is sane. While one industry is booming (Oil, manufacturing, tech) other "have not" provinces get payments through the federal government. This brings a measure of stability to the system.

No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's a ridiculous statement.

Criticizing Canada's action on climate change is warranted, but our federal economic policy has been quite level headed.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#17

Post by cmrdporcupine »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #9
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Southern Ontario where the bulk of the Canadian population lives has basically the same climate as Chicago or Detroit. It is cold in the winter and blistering hot in the summer with a 170-ish day growing season. If you don't consider those places to be brutally cold you wouldn't consider it that way here. In fact the areas on the north shore of Lake Ontario have a milder climate (due to lake effect) than those of ups…

Upstate NY here, and we get the worst weather in the US from Canadian winds and lake effect snow. For half the year it's always windy, always cold, always snowy, and always so, so gray. But aside from that it's a great place to live. Land is cheap, you can get good local food anywhere, and we're safe from nearly every natural disaster you can think of. Just bring a jacket.

Seems like many Americans near the border have this perception as Canada being the 'source' of their cold weather.

In reality the bulk of the nastiest storms here in Ontario come over the lakes from northern Michigan, which is, yes, north of us. Look on a map, most of the heavily populated areas of Canada are as far south as northern California. The parts that are north of the 49th are much less populated.

Yes, periodically there is a nasty cold front coming down from Hudson's bay, but the prevailing winds and weather patterns are west to east. So most of our weather blows over from the midwest U.S.

The really nasty awful cold weather last year for example, hit the U.S. midwest harder and nastier first.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#18

Post by mhurron »

HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

> I'm seriously considering going back to SV.

You do know that tech centers in the US are outliers and general policy in the US is basically the same as Canada, and other countries that have a large mass of natural resources, Australia for example.

Mass exploitation of every resource in reach will make us rich. Or, to put it another way 'Drill baby drill.'

Silicon Valley and those that think it's different live in a little bubble that doesn't reflect the way the rest of the country thinks or acts. So moving to Silicon Valley because you don't like the short sighted drain every resource because it's cheap right now line of thinking won't be an act to change any of that, it will just let you ignore that it's happening.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#19

Post by cmrdporcupine »

3pt14159 wrote: post #16

Canada didn't forget anything. We have a diverse economy with common sense measures like reducing our net debt to GDP, while keeping a fully funded retirement pension fund (CPP, unlike SS, actually invests in the public market). Even the way we do provincial transfer payments is sane. While one industry is booming (Oil, manufacturing, tech) other "have not" provinces get payments through the federal government. This…

Look at the allocation of value on the stock market. Overwhelmingly oil and gas despite that being a rather small part of the economy.

Look at the allocation of most mutual funds that a Canadian owns as part of their retirement portfolio.

Look at the nature of the previous gov'ts budgetary and economic planning (in as much as they did that kind of thing). Overwhelmingly in favour of the resource sector.

Re: Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie

#20

Post by HorizonXP »

mhurron wrote: post #18
HorizonXP wrote: post #10

I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, b…

> I'm seriously considering going back to SV. You do know that tech centers in the US are outliers and general policy in the US is basically the same as Canada, and other countries that have a large mass of natural resources, Australia for example. Mass exploitation of every resource in reach will make us rich. Or, to put it another way 'Drill baby drill.' Silicon Valley and those that think it's different live in a…

100% agreed. But that insulated bubble is tremendously helpful for growing from a little shitstorm of a startup into something potentially world-changing.

Your odds are vanishingly low when it comes to succeeding in a startup. As a founder, you should do everything you can to stack the odds in your favour.

Edit: I can't respond to your reply, so I'll do it here. It's not just about funding. It's about finding like-minded individuals that are similarly motivated. It's about finding talent. It's about culture.

I love Toronto, and I love Canada. I want to be here. But it's better in SV for tech startups.

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