Canada Facing “Brain Drain” as Young Tech Talent Leaves for Silicon Valley

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,003
A University of Toronto study has revealed that Canada is losing most of its computer engineering graduates to the US, as the majority have taken jobs in Silicon Valley. Software engineers (66%), computer engineers (30%), and computer science graduates (30%) represent the top three groups that have taken an exodus.

Governments spend billions subsidizing the cost of university education, while students who go on to work for foreign companies help fuel the economic growth of those countries. A lack of successful “scale-up” tech firms in Canada has been cited as one of the reasons research development spending and productivity here have lagged other developed countries.
 
something something something high costs of living something something lots of people wanting to live in one place with limited housing.
 
Outside a couple cities (which are really nice) there isn't a whole lot to Canada. A lot of logging, and mining towns with lots of cold weather.
 
Our government is also rather fond of suppressing wages via a whole litany of foreign worker streams and much higher numbers of foreign work visas than the US issues, for a population that's *many* times smaller. They've recently been promoting a new fast track tech visa where they can express ship your foreign tech worker in just 10 business days. I wish I was kidding.

The US H1B Visa cap, what, 65,000 people for a nation of 326 million? Meanwhile, back in Canada, we're bringing in nearly 500,000 foreign workers for a nation of about 36 million. Granted they're not all going into tech, but it gives you some idea how out of control this shit is. Meanwhile, most of the population is clueless, thinking all the foreign workers are just manning drive-thru windows or something.

We also have wide-spread issues with foreign residential real estate speculation and money laundering and lax to non-existent enforcement . Making buying a detached home in some of the bigger cities (Vancouver & Toronto, specifically) pretty much a lost cause even for families with two working professionals.

It's not all bad, but this country definitely has some real problems and the real estate thing is a time bomb just waiting to go off.

Added cheery bonus: CPTPP (re-branded TPP) is likely to remove current the current TFW caps & wage floors completely.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-china-visa-offices-foreign-workers-1.3714991
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mic...ist-mostly-of-foreigners-draft-plan-1.2990462
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/new...on-temporary-foreign-workers/article26817494/
https://globalnews.ca/news/3350193/canada-launder-money-real-estate-report/
 
Last edited:
Anybody who is Canadian will know what I'm referring to when I say "women and minorities". We've had three successive governments that were focused on suppressing science and technology and focussing on "women and minorities".

I'm no alt-right conspiracy crack-pot, but "women and minorities" is not "inclusive". It's very, very specifically exclusive. If you look at university graduates and then you look at who is in the Canadian work force five years later, you can see who the brain-drain really is.
 
We have lots of Canadians here in Silicon Valley working for tech companies from startups to big techs like Google and Apple. It's true, I know a few that are from University of Toronto.
 
Let’s break this down:
Employers:
High internet costs, high rent, smaller talent pool.
Employees:
Higher taxes, high rent, low housing availability, lower wages.

Though I feel like this study is a little late, Silicon Valley is already ditching itself for other smaller areas in the US because it’s too expensive there for start ups for similar reasons.
 
I have a cousin who left for New York instead of silicon valley although he did fly down for a few interviews in California.

To be honest other then the experience of living in New York I don't get it myself. He could have stayed home and easily got himself a job paying him 60-70k starting... which sure is less then the 100k or so he got offered to start there.

Accept here he could buy a house for 200k... or rent a decent place for a grand a month. In New York hes paying close to 3k a month for a shitty little living space, he bitches about his close to 20 c/kWh electric bill (residential use charge in MB is 7.381). Last time I talked to him he actually bitched for 5 minutes about how his electricity was coming from Quebec and the profits they where making off it. lmao

Bottom line is he has very little left over after paying his basic living expenses.

My bet like most of the Brain Drain kids.... he'll either luck into some Job that pays him a ton of coin for nothing, or he'll be back home in a few years working a decent job, paying his taxes... and actually being able to buy a house and have a life.
 
U-238 said:
Until they find out that the cost of living in SV is twice as high as well...
Click to expand...

It's pretty expensive to live in the tech centers here too (not as, but I bet if you count the increased tax and lower overall salary it's pretty close).

One fellow I knew moved to Colorado for an IT job that paid 135k USD and the same job here paid 60.
 
Aireoth said:
It's pretty expensive to live in the tech centers here too (not as, but I bet if you count the increased tax and lower overall salary it's pretty close).

One fellow I knew moved to Colorado for an IT job that paid 135k USD and the same job here paid 60.
Click to expand...
one there was probably a goverment contract lol
 
Bigbacon said:
More busin3ss should just allow telecommuters. Solves the high cost of living issue fir workers. It is a serious good jump in happiness towards life.
Click to expand...

Most people cannot productively work from home; they aren't responsible enough, disciplined, or motivated to get the job done.
 
Good thing Feminist Trudeau is committed to importing the entire 3rd world to make up for the loss of quality.

Twisted Kidney said:
Anybody who is Canadian will know what I'm referring to when I say "women and minorities". We've had three successive governments that were focused on suppressing science and technology and focussing on "women and minorities".

I'm no alt-right conspiracy crack-pot, but "women and minorities" is not "inclusive". It's very, very specifically exclusive. If you look at university graduates and then you look at who is in the Canadian work force five years later, you can see who the brain-drain really is.
Click to expand...

Yea, you guys are screwed. Canada has the fastest ongoing demographic change of any Western nation, and Canadians will be a minority in Canada within just a few short decades because of what that globalist scumbag Trudeau is doing to you guy. It is like he saw what is going on in Europe and decided he wanted to be the first to have his nation commit cultural and demographic suicide.
 
BasicCandor said:
Good thing Feminist Trudeau is committed to importing the entire 3rd world to make up for the loss of quality.



Yea, you guys are screwed. Canada has the fastest ongoing demographic change of any Western nation, and Canadians will be a minority in Canada within just a few short decades because of what that globalist scumbag Trudeau is doing to you guy. It is like he saw what is going on in Europe and decided he wanted to be the first to have his nation commit cultural and demographic suicide.
Click to expand...
This is all kinds of stupid
 
There's a theory in sociology called 'Solve For n', where a person or group champions an idea without understanding how it fits in the ecosystem as a whole. Paraphrased, trying to solve any single problem in a complex system is impossible without knowing the entire equation that the problem is part of. And this is another classic 'Solve For n' problem. These things cause huge arguments because we either don't know how to solve for 'n', or we've never ever tried to solve for 'n'. Almost every argument listed above has some validity, but none of them have meaning because the problem is offered alone without the rest of the formula.

Remember this idea - 'Solve For n'. Every time someone wants to talk about a valid problem, but places the problem in a vacuum without considering the ecosystem as a whole, remember 'Solve For n'.

Coming back to the United States (and ignoring things like abortion rights or gun control, which have no effect on the economy), the Democrats want to raise taxes to pay for the elderly and the poor, to pay for education, healthcare, and maybe some for the environment. Their only tool is legislation, which will stifle business. The Republicans want to simultaneously pay for a big military and to reduce taxes, especially for businesses and the rich. Their only tool is the manipulation of funding, and they do nothing to protect American jobs in American businesses, allowing their only tool, the government's funding, to drain as American jobs are sent overseas to support Wall Street's bottom line, which they also want to make tax-free.

Since there is no working formula that shows how many overseas workers we can absorb in times of need, how many American jobs we can afford to lose, what the correct pay scale and work hours are needed for a productive society, how many bachelors degrees we need vs. how many associate degrees, etc., etc., neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have any idea what the baseline is for what WE NEED, and so they keep pushing their agendas blindly. Both sides are unhealthy. We've known for 50 years that the Baby Boomer retirement was coming, that we were coming up to a time when the greatest percentage of the population was going to cause the greatest drain on the economy and fuel the greatest need for healthcare, and we've done NOTHING to get ready for it. NOT A FUCKING THING, we are worse off now than in any decade except the 2000's. We also know that we're flushing 6% of our taxes down the drain paying interest on the national debt, but that's another story.

P.S. Yikes! Soapbox! GET THIS SOAPBOX OUT OF HERE! My God, the thing crawled right under me.
 
Last edited:
As a computer engineer who moved back to the US from Canada and just filed my last tax return for Canada I can confidently say that your absurdly high taxes and overburdened and underfunded health care and other governmental services are the main reason I left.
Very high income taxes and very high sales taxes. Yet when it comes actually using the services those tax dollars pay for they are always allocated to help others who are more in need.
Both of my sons needed to see a speech language pathologist. The school had one but had a waiting list and their limited time was prioritized to the students with the worst problems. So we had to pay for out of our pockets. My one son has a minor learning disability which Canada's health care system contributed to. Yet when his teachers suggested that he be evaluated for a learning disability, the school didn't have the resources to provide the evaluation because there were too many students that were worse off. So the costs of the psychological assessment was something we had to pay for ourselves. Then when we had the assessment in hand, they drug their feet implementing the recommendations, once again due to lack of funding.
I'm a US citizen, so my sons are US citizens by birth. I look at the cost of the immigration lawyer to apply for residency for my wife as an investment in my kids future.
The schools have more resources available to my children. The healthcare system isn't stretched remotely as thin, and my insurance co-pays are a tiny cost compared to the higher taxes I was paying.
The extremely high cost of electricity in Ontario is also a significant factor in driving away both people and businesses.
Immigration wouldn't be a problem if Canada was more selective in who they allowed to immigrate. Canada has and continues to invite in too many people who are more of a drain on their society than they contribute. They have too many people using government services without enough people paying for them.
You can't just keep taxing people more to provide more for others because some of those people are going to get sick of it and leave. I did.
 
RMCO said:
Meh, they'll just replace the talent with refugees to fill the gaps. Should be fine.
Click to expand...

something like 90% of the refugees have been deemed unemployable, so just another drain on the system. Pile that on top of ridiculous taxes, illegals coming from the USA, carbon tax scams, piss poor leadership at a federal level handing out tax dollars left right and center to people who don't deserve it, while taking it from workers gets old. Ontario is now the largest in debt region in the world, also also led by some of the most corrupt leadership worldwide driving out jobs and employers with high taxes and carbon taxes and insane electrical rates

long and short, Canada is now the world dumping ground for overflow of people and going broke with piss poor leadership...people leaving/want to leave for many reasons.
 
Putz said:
something like 90% of the refugees have been deemed unemployable, so just another drain on the system. Pile that on top of ridiculous taxes, illegals coming from the USA, carbon tax scams, piss poor leadership at a federal level handing out tax dollars left right and center to people who don't deserve it, while taking it from workers gets old. Ontario is now the largest in debt region in the world, also also led by some of the most corrupt leadership worldwide driving out jobs and employers with high taxes and carbon taxes and insane electrical rates

long and short, Canada is now the world dumping ground for overflow of people and going broke with piss poor leadership...people leaving/want to leave for many reasons.
Click to expand...
I only just started becoming aware of Canada's woes a couple years back when the Ft. McMurray fire happened. Came across an interesting article about racial issues involving the tribes. Since then it seems to be one thing after another. A shame really.
 
Master_shake_ said:
Ontario and yes it's all true.
Click to expand...
The post I directly replied to, suggested that "three successive governments that were focused on suppressing science and technology". So this is demonstrably false. As the Harper government did not focus on women and minorities .. you know being conservative and all. The Harper government did muzzle federal scientists (that is the only true statement). The Liberal government has not muzzled scientists, federal employees said as much (recent PIPSC survey) The federal employees stated that it is much better under the Liberal government and any muzzling they currently feel is a direct result of their managers and not government policy. This would be a direct result of the Liberal government negotiated language in federal scientists' contracts that protect their right to speak freely about their work and their science.
Additional the suggestion that "Canadians will be a minority in Canada within just a few short decades" is also false. 19% of Canadians are visible minorities with 30% of those being born in Canada. In comparison, the US is nearly 50% visible minorities.
So no ... the vast majority of the post I responded to is false.
Edit: I enjoy when people pull numbers out of their ass. StatsCan reported that 80% of refugees to Alberta were employed within a year.
 
Draax said:
Edit: I enjoy when people pull numbers out of their ass. StatsCan reported that 80% of refugees to Alberta were employed within a year.
Click to expand...

Where I live politicians have been doing that for years in relation to 'jobs created'. Often leaving the part out about most of those jobs being minimum wage and how the workers continue to sink in debt since its not enough to cover basic living costs. Credit card companies and payday loan places love it though!
 
I really can't blame people for leaving this country. I live in Toronto, and it has changed a lot in the last 10 years. I feel like a minority in my own city. I'm looking at moving northward myself, couple more years to banking it away at my current job and then i'll have a cushion to let me go up there and re-evaluate things. maybe start my own business or get some odd-jobs. There's not many technically minded people living up there, and that is where all the rich people are retiring to, if they're not leaving the country entirely. The next generation I don't see leaving the cities, they just aren't being taught the skills they need to do things themselves. Maybe a few will learn. We're in a tight spot if the power grid goes down.. or supply chains stop to the cities. Hell, if the farmers all revolt and the power grid goes down we will have a zombie epidemic, it'll be a bunch of starving city folks that can't figure out how to grow their own food or build their own fires and get shelter.. hah.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Putz
like this
DukenukemX said:
Oddly enough, there's an increase of people in California that complain that 60 degrees Fahrenheit is too damn hot.
Click to expand...
Man, are they in for a surprise when it hits high double-digit temps with no rain in sight if CA keeps its cycle of two seasons a year (Summer/Not Summer). :)
 
Aireoth said:
The issue is our wages (low) and taxes (high), last I read on the issue, we basically pay about 60-70k/year and for the same job you can make 140+ in the US.
Click to expand...


Don't worry with the pace that the United States has been trying to embrace socialism we wont have the tax advantage very long.
 
Lotsa smart people go to where the jobs are, and the jobs are where smart people are at, a self feeding cycle.

The brain drain is a universal phenomenon I think, I recently left West Virginia for similar reasons after fifteen years; the state just can't support well paying hightech jobs, and the public/legislative mentality there doesn't make significant progress in that area likely any time soon.

Cali's not perfect but still pretty nice overall, a major improvement so far, I miss old friends but no regrets.
 
Dman014 said:
Don't worry with the pace that the United States has been trying to embrace socialism we wont have the tax advantage very long.
Click to expand...

Don't get me wrong, socialism isn't all bad, its primarily the wage issue here.

I think about (Canadian) socialism this way, I pay more in taxes than the US which is basically forced savings for schooling and healthcare. If I lived in the US, I'd likely need to put that % aside anyway to pay for things that are covered here.

On the flip side, can't pay for better treatment here, so if you have the money you travel for healthcare.

It is not perfect, but imho a mixture of capitalism, democracy and socialism is the best government.
 
Aireoth said:
Don't get me wrong, socialism isn't all bad, its primarily the wage issue here.

I think about (Canadian) socialism this way, I pay more in taxes than the US which is basically forced savings for schooling and healthcare. If I lived in the US, I'd likely need to put that % aside anyway to pay for things that are covered here.

On the flip side, can't pay for better treatment here, so if you have the money you travel for healthcare.

It is not perfect, but imho a mixture of capitalism, democracy and socialism is the best government.
Click to expand...
The problem here is we have 10 times the population in the states then you do in Canada. A lot of your people are more productive and contributing members. We in the states have so much dead weight that does nothing but leech of the system and contribute nothing.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top