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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

Thankfully I had my money in HKD and Euros for several years now...

Seriously though, this is what happens when you base your economy on primary industries (aka. resource extraction) and commodities take a huge hit.

Canada has a major infrastructure deficit, no competitive industries, major brain drain (and why not, you can go to the US or Europe and get paid way more, and pay less in cost of living), and absurdly expensive real estate. Even the cost of meat has gone up to the point where it'll make an Albertan think about going vegetarian (then again, a cabbage costs like 3$).

Not sure I'd even want to start a tech company here - people are too cheap to pay for services, and good luck ever getting any funding - maybe a small government grant or something...

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Considering the CAD is so weak to the USD and there are skilled software engineers up there, wouldn't it make sense for VC's to fund Canadian startups? If you can get a software engineer at 30-50% of the price in the US with state funded healthcare ...

One would think so. Doing open source consulting in Montreal I've discovered that Canada is pretty backwards on average when it comes to having access to lots of forward-thinking companies to trade with. Many investments seem to be very focused on cheapness and "deliverables" with bad specs as a preferred approach to software development, when most engineers have acknowledged for a long time that working iteratively is better.

The Canadian environment is extremely fertile for exploitation by US companies though, and we're having some success working with them already. It helps that the exchange rate is favourable. I would like to see much more competition and American money around here if only to teach the crusty old guard what it means to be innovative.

I'd love to see services overtake natural resources as a main export because it would be more sustainable and it would improve the lives of regular people a lot more than, say, unrefined oil or softwood lumber do.

"I'd love to see services overtake natural resources as a main export because it would be more sustainable" ... this was always something that bothered me with the Harper government, this complacency to rely on the resource sector. But then, another part of me feels like this is also a cultural problem, Canada was funded on exporting its resources and has always evolved like this, from fur trade, to wood, to oil ... There is the MARs initiative in Toronto, but I don't what it will lead to.

I really feel like funding/moving startups that don't require a specific geography could gain in Canada. Maybe the currency needs to stabilize first.

"American money around here if only to teach the crusty old guard what it means to be innovative"...I totally agree, I deal with big vendors, and smaller alternatives would be great.

Unless you pay me in USD or double the CAD salary (aka be Google or Ubisoft), I won't be working for your abroad company when I can work for locally based startups and tech companies.

Why would you think you can get a software engineer at 50% the price of one in the US? Particularly given Canada's median income is now roughly on par with the US.

The US is a very large place with a lot of cities, it has 30 cities the size of (or larger than) Vancouver. You can find good software engineers across the entire nation, including in lower cost locations. From Portland, to Las Vegas, to Kansas City, to Raleigh, to Atlanta, to Detroit, to Pittsburgh, to Tulsa etc. You have dozens of cities to choose from that will have good engineers.

There's no reason you'd need to pay bay area salaries or locate in Silicon Valley (or NY). Unless you're trying to build the next juggernaut tech-startup and are going to take on the VC to match (in which case that pays for the high salaries).

Because of the terrible exchange rate. It's a weird thing... I have an American client that I bill in CAD. We negotiated the rate when the exchange was close to parity, and have continued at the same rate as the canadian dollar has tanked. It works out pretty well for us... they can now afford more hours, and I spend less time chasing other clients to fill the gaps..

The only part that sucks is when I have to order parts or equipment from down south.

Depends on the market. I don't live in the Bay Area or NY, but knowing how much I make where I am (plus that of my peers) and similar pay levels in the Toronto tech labour market (one of the better ones in Canada), I would probably end up with ~50% of my US compensation in Canada even when assuming 1 USD = 1 CAD. Once you factor in the exchange, it's probably in the low 40s.

And that doesn't even account for take-home pay after taxes and the large Canadian urban markets' cost of living, since the tax brackets top out quite a bit lower in Canada (not that I think the higher taxes are a bad thing; I don't feel my taxes in the US are high enough).

All the really skilled devs leave for the US. There's some skill up here but frankly the cream of the crop is long gone.

A few reasons why it isn't necessarily so:

- Cost of most goods is still more than the US since we import them

- House prices are higher

- Quality of developers isn't necessarily as high (less universities and less students choose CPSC)

For most Canadian software engineers it's more worthwhile to work remotely or to relocate.

Not just start-ups. Google Waterloo and Amazon Toronto both spent 2015 building new, bigger buildings that will each hold at least 800 developers.

> If you can get a software engineer at 30-50% of the price in the US...

This is the mindset that got Canada into this situation in the first place.

As a recent Waterloo grad, I've witnessed first-hand how the tech industry in Canada has been bleeding talent to the US, even from our own top schools. Just about everyone I know who's good enough to have offers from US companies have taken the offers and left.

And it's not hard to imagine why: the average "highly competitive" salary in Canada is pathetic compared to what you could be making in the US for a similar position.

I think Blackberry has been a prime example of a company hit by this. Even with the advantage of being literally next door to the Waterloo campus, most students I know treated it as nothing more than a "safety" in their co-op and grad job search. So in the end, the only students Blackberry ever had access to were the ones who weren't good enough for the US companies, and the few good ones who couldn't to go to the US for what ever reason.

I can't see this trend slowing any time soon, unless Canadian companies start offering salaries competitive with companies across the border, rather than just with their other Canadian neighbors.

I agree with your thesis, but I doubt Blackberry would be a top choice even if it was in San Francisco. They had the world by the thumbs for a while...

Canada's advantage in terms of getting work visas v. the US seems like it should contribute to this as well.

Agreed, the TN visa and other NAFTA policies have had an adverse effect on the Canadian economy. Expect more when TPP is ratified.

The housing market seems to be weathering the storm.

House prices are sticky (no one wants to sell for a loss). Eventually they will fall though, as long-term unemployment rises (the effect is delayed until people burn through savings/severance packages and/or run out of EI).

The housing bubble in canada is fueled largely by foreign money, the majority being chinese.

Much of this also applies to Australia.

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