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

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

#51

Post by patrick_99 »

HorizonXP wrote: post #40
stinkytaco wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We need to invest in growth sectors. It may not create a ton of jobs immediately, but the potential payoff could save us. If you're not growing, you're dying. I'm curious what these growth sectors are? Are you referring to software companies? Because though I agree that's a growth sector, it's hard for me to envision how many jobs that creates in the long run. Wouldn't it create the same problems as manufacturing, i…

Personally, as invested as I am in the software space, I think Canada should not invest in software technology, at least not exclusively. It's cheap enough that we could still encourage it. I was doing my Masters in Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto (did not complete). The number of talented students and professors that I interacted with on a regular basis was astounding. And they were working on really am…

Totally agree and government could have a big role here. A majority of government budget goes to healthcare; they need innovation to improve. Why not throw some money to Canadian biotech companies?

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

#52

Post by cmrdporcupine »

3pt14159 wrote: post #33
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's because all of our non-resource companies are either: 1. American / international subsidiaries. 2. Mid-sized CCPCs. 3. Owned by private equity firms. I agree that Canadians do not allocate their retirement savings correctly and that our stock market is not a reflection of our economy, but our government has common sense measures to support a variety of industries.

The gov't was giving preferential tax treatment to resource extraction and deliberately dismantling the regulatory environment around them. Basically extending what the Alberta provincial gov't has done for decades out to the rest of the country.

A high dollar also favoured those industries against all others. Not sure if the feds could have done anything about the high dollar, but it certainly choked everywhere outside of the resource sector.

A low dollar combined with high investment in education makes Canada a good place to invest to get high skilled talent cheaper. Many American tech companies did this around 15 years ago, I worked for a couple -- marketing/sales HQ'd in the US, engineering talent in the GTA.

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

#53

Post by Camillo »

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…

> That said, free healthcare counts for a lot.

If you're young and childless, it really doesn't.

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

#54

Post by nickspacek »

plehoux wrote: post #3

"If the Canadian government is serious about long-term growth, it must focus on how it can build cities and policies that attract people and businesses. But we have not been headed in the right direction on this front." YES! I live in Quebec city and there is a rampant idea in the population that the status quo is the only way forward. More petroleum exploration, larger highways, big government mining investments/sub…

Agreed with the harm to locally-made innovation. In my city (Fredericton, NB) the tech industry has hade (seemingly) more and more bigger companies (Raytheon, Siemens, Salesforce, IBM) setting up shop and bringing better wages. It's a double-edged sword. We have a pretty interesting startup scene, but those smaller companies (startups and consultants) are now finding it harder to compete with the salaries and benefits the large companies can offer.

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

#55

Post by terrywilcox »

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

It's actually been a pretty mild winter here so far. I can't remember any really cold days.

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

#56

Post by goldmouth »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #14
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 r…

Really, any day?

It's 65 and sunny in Houston today, it's 16 and snowing in Ottawa.

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

#57

Post by cal5k »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #29
cal5k wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 m…

With the CAD being low there might be a window where a lot more American capital invests here. Until the price of oil climbs again. In general it seems like VC-funded companies that go through acquisition here get a far weaker deal than similar companies in the US. And the employees a lesser share of the pie. Maybe that's changing now, but unless the capital is there to invest, I can't see how.

It's improving. The capital is there, you just have to think globally fairly quickly.

We can always whine about how things in Canada are never as good as in , in this case the Valley, but overall it's actually pretty good. I guess the secret sauce is to just get on with doing what you'd do regardless of your circumstances. I personally am not motivated by whether or not I'd get a 30% boost on an eventual exit if we were in the US.

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

#58

Post by drzaiusapelord »

green7ea wrote: post #47
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #6

We had a gov't for 10 years full of "Calgary-school" (Canada's right-wing ultra free market economic ideologues coming out of the University of Calgary econ/poli-sci program). They were overwhelmingly driven by an oil and gas agenda. From the gov't down to mutual fund investors, everyone was treating our economy like a one-trick pony, all oil and gas. If you listened to people talk, Alberta's oil sector was supportin…

I'm from Quebec and I have to agree with you that it could easily be north america's Germany. There is a lot of very talented software developers in Montreal but a lot of them leave to get higher salaries or work for foreign companies that love the very low, government subsidized wages [1]. If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more pr…

I don't think Quebec gets a free pass here. It was once the financial capital of Canada until all this separatist talk. Toronto then became the financial capital of Canada, with something like 40% of its companies HQ'd there. Montreal now has about a third of the GDP of Toronto, yet Toronto only has 1m more people!

It seems like Canada is prone to buying into extremism. Be it separatism or the recent love-affair with Putinist style economics banking soley on oil/gas and expecting there never to be a shake-up in the market when clearly the industrialized West was going full tilt into renewables.

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

#59

Post by cmrdporcupine »

cal5k wrote: post #57
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With the CAD being low there might be a window where a lot more American capital invests here. Until the price of oil climbs again. In general it seems like VC-funded companies that go through acquisition here get a far weaker deal than similar companies in the US. And the employees a lesser share of the pie. Maybe that's changing now, but unless the capital is there to invest, I can't see how.

It's improving. The capital is there, you just have to think globally fairly quickly. We can always whine about how things in Canada are never as good as in , in this case the Valley, but overall it's actually pretty good. I guess the secret sauce is to just get on with doing what you'd do regardless of your circumstances. I personally am not motivated by whether or not I'd get a 30% boost on an eventual exit if we w…

As an employee trying to pay off a mortgage and save for my kids uni, that 30% is important to _me_. So for recruiting good talent (not claiming I'm good talent, but whatever) I'd think it matters a lot.

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

#60

Post by hackerboos »

green7ea wrote: post #47
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #6

We had a gov't for 10 years full of "Calgary-school" (Canada's right-wing ultra free market economic ideologues coming out of the University of Calgary econ/poli-sci program). They were overwhelmingly driven by an oil and gas agenda. From the gov't down to mutual fund investors, everyone was treating our economy like a one-trick pony, all oil and gas. If you listened to people talk, Alberta's oil sector was supportin…

I'm from Quebec and I have to agree with you that it could easily be north america's Germany. There is a lot of very talented software developers in Montreal but a lot of them leave to get higher salaries or work for foreign companies that love the very low, government subsidized wages [1]. If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more pr…

As a non-Canadian software developer in Canada the brain-drain to the US via TN visas is strong. Most talented devs I have met in Canada are Americans that have left the US because of politics etc.
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