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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

#81

Post by hackerboos »

lewisl9029 wrote: post #72
hackerboos wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a recent University of Waterloo grad, this has been my experience as well. I tried interviewing in Toronto/Vancouver for a while but have since given up in the Canadian job market. Not a single company I interviewed with was willing to even come close to US salaries. Everyone I know from school who's any good at all has already left for SF/Seattle/NYC and I'll probably be joining them soon. I'm not sure how these…

It's worse in London. I seen a rant on Medium [1] about the lack of affordable talent in London and I could only think of some of the low ball offers I received which would leave me worse off than staying in the North West.

I actually get paid more here in Toronto than I could hope to get in London.

My only option for the US is H1B but I'm willing to stick around for a while and I'll consider my options when I'm Canadian.

[1] - https://medium.com/@benjilanyado/an-open-letter-to-ed-vaizey...

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

#82

Post by btilly »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #58
green7ea wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Check the timeline. It wasn't separatism that drove companies out, it was Bill 101. (OK, Bill 101 was driven by the same motives as separatism.)

Thanks to that bill, you had a population of professionals who had moved to Montreal for good jobs who found that, because they were born in a different province, their children could not be educated in English. These professionals found it less painful to move to Toronto and find new jobs than they did to watch their children be forced into schools that didn't speak their language. Companies found that it was cheaper to relocate headquarters than to lose these employees, and this accelerated the brain drain.

Quebec continues to be hostile to anglophone immigration, but most of the damage is now done and permanent.

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

#83

Post by patmcc »

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

The west coast isn't cold - Victora has a growing tech scene, and Vancouver always has jobs (not a lot of money, but lots of jobs).

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

#84

Post by she_moves_on »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #78
she_moves_on wrote: post #70

> 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. Many "rational economists" have made that statement. Even the head of the Bank of Canada himself has suggested it is regrettable that our currency is so tied to oil. He can't openly criticize gov policy and so that's about as close as Poloz can g…

I love how disingenuous people often use the term "rational." Like anyone who disagrees must be some irrational loon and there's no room for debate here. Its sad that even on HN, such namecalling is convincing to many with the upvote button. Anytime I see commentary that include words "rational," "logical," or the term "man of science" I know I'm at least dealing with someone reductionist, pedantic, and usually extre…

I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I think a rational person probably wouldn't do is use the words "no rational person" so easily.

(yes I know the contradiction I just made)

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

#85

Post by stumac »

a-priori wrote: post #43
turnip1979 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My data is from before Shopify's success ... I think you are right that Shopify might be helping to raise salaries (to be fair, their post says 70K to 150K). I'm curious .. the 120K offer, how experienced was the individual (in terms of years, etc.). Just saying, average house price in Toronto is 1 million. It should not cost 10x a dev's income to buy a house in Richmond Hill. In the Bay area, total comp of 400K is n…

Just putting this out there that I personally make >$120k as a developer in Ottawa, and I doubt I'm all that rare seeing as there's people at my company with a more senior job title than I have. I don't think Shopify being in town has anything to do with that, just that the ceiling is higher than you may think.

you're not rare, but I don't think you're common. I make <$55k as a dev in Ottawa and it doesn't feel surprising.

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

#86

Post by Tiktaalik »

I accept the premise that the government spent too much time and effort focused on the resource sector, but this article, like all I see on this subject, is extremely vague on what exactly the government should be doing to create a better environment for tech companies in Canada.

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

#87

Post by graeme »

tahssa wrote: post #80
tahssa wrote: post #68

It's more like Canada is sticking to the same old plans and is failing to adapt to a future where its economic cycles no longer work. Canada has what's known as Dutch disease. When the loonie is strong the natural resource sector booms since they get more value in return for selling these assets, however the services and manufacturing sector tend to fall off a cliff since labour cost become too high. Historically the…

Care to explain the downvote?

Might be the Greece 2.0 prediction. I was with you till there. Greece's debt was in Euros, which the Greek government didn't control.

So Greece had no option to devalue it's currency in response to a slowing economy. Whereas Canada can devalue currency (as we're doing). We have the additional benefit that our debt load is in our domestic currency, so we don't face the debt appreciation challenge many countries face when they devalue their currency.

I think Canada's in trouble, but the Greek situation is fundamentally a different type of problem.

(I didn't downvote)

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

#88

Post by nickff »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #39
wmil wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ontario being a "have-not" province That's because Ontario's government managed to drive out most industry with an energy policy that created high and unstable electricity prices. As a result Ontario became a receiver of federal equalization payments for the first time ever. That's what the jokes were about.

That's a good story that the Fraser institute made a lot of noise about, and made a great headline but in reality Ontario was still contributing more in tax revenues and EI contributions than it got in equalization payments: http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/03/30/money_s...

>"That's a good story that the Fraser institute made a lot of noise about"

Please avoid implying that the post you are replying to is a shill unless you have good evidence to that effect. Even well-supported ad hominiem attacks rarely discredit the substance of a post, and your ad-hominem attack is unsupported by any evidence. You also failed to reply to what the post above you actually said, which was that Ontario was doing worse now than ever before (relative to the other provinces).

In addition, I don't think this post follows the spirit of the Hacker News guidelines.

"Be civil. Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face-to-face conversation. Avoid gratuitous negativity.

When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names."

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

#89

Post by Raphmedia »

btilly wrote: post #82
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Check the timeline. It wasn't separatism that drove companies out, it was Bill 101. (OK, Bill 101 was driven by the same motives as separatism.) Thanks to that bill, you had a population of professionals who had moved to Montreal for good jobs who found that, because they were born in a different province, their children could not be educated in English. These professionals found it less painful to move to Toronto an…

I'm from Québec.

It's all about bilingualism. As someone who learned french from birth, I could not work in tech if I couldn't also communicate in english. That's a requirement for most jobs and I had to work really hard to get a good level of spoken english.

We have people that speak french and spanish, french and english, french and german, etc.

Bilingualism is strong here, pick it up if you want to work in the area. It's no different for people born in Québec. We learn french at home and then work really hard to learn english for work.

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

#90

Post by guiomie »

btilly wrote: post #76
green7ea wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous. How exactly is anyone helped by money taking a round trip through the government rather than the same thing happening through free markets? You've made the cycle slower, you've made the recipients dependent on government bureaucratic decisions (who are not well-incentivized to deci…

"Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101" ... I thought it was the almost won referendum that drove this exile, not Bill 101.

My impression is that if you lowered the income tax in Quebec (much higher then Ontario), most probably more professionals would be willing to work there, english or french or any other language.

I agree with your statement of "Quebec being full of people who believe that the economy should go through the government".

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