Canada's Tech Firms Capitalize On Immigration Anxiety
npr.org
npr.org
Is it... paying more so people don't have to choose between their country and financial security? Let's see.
"Canadian tech companies are eager to capitalize on anxiety among international visitors and would-be immigrants following President Trump's travel ban and other immigration policies."
Nope. Just trying to capitalize on people's fear and anxiety to avoid matching their competitors' pay.
I hate SF/SiValley. I would love nothing more than to go home, but I'm not about to take a paycut that's measured in multiples of the median Canadian salary.
Many of the devs worth their dime in Vancouver end up remote working when they get to the Sr. level. Get paid in USD, and for 25-30% more in a stronger currency. Works out to almost 60% more?! also if you aren't a city person you can then move to one of the gulf islands.
I know a few vancouverites who live in Vancouver, who are working for Texas based companies, no local office in the country
They are paid in USD.
When the cdn dollar tanked against usd after being on par, it was like a 30-40% raise for them in cdn just cause of the exchange rate
Its very hard to attract workers when the salaries just cant compare.
Don't mean to pick at your comment, but it's something I've seen around lately and makes me wonder.
I'll grant that's higher than in some US states, but come over to Europe where VAT is usually 19-25%. Although at least in Europe prices are advertised including VAT, so no mental math is required to calculate how much it will end up costing.
That's a huge outlier, though. The average is 5%, and many states exempt huge swaths of goods (such as groceries) and some have no sales tax at all.
Groceries are exempt from GST/PST or HST in Canada as well.
With 1 USD = 65 INR, we're used to converting with cost of living and Purchasing power in mind.
Japan is a good example because people have an idea that it is a rich, expensive country.
Living in Japan with a Japanese lifestyle is not that expensive. I have many Japanese friends living in Tokyo for under $1.5-2k a month. They’re not living in luxury, but they quite enjoy their lives, travel every once in a while, etc. You won’t be doing that in SF (and Tokyo is a much more pleasant city than SF in more ways than one).
On the other hand, living an american lifestyle in Japan (big car, big house, eating lots of red meat, buying imported American goods, etc) is going to cost you a lot of money though.
Just normalize everything to a single currency; we can still talk about differences in cost of living. Sure, exchange rate fluctuations can be related to the cost of living, but it's not everything.
Thus for the casual observer it look like the difference is in the exchange rate---not in the prices.
This is an honest question - is it worth living somewhere you "hate" for increased pay? Why not take less money and live in place that would make you happy?
Here is an example. Would you accept 100 million dollars to work in Saudia Arabia for a year? I probably would. I'd do it for a year, and then retire.
People do lots of things where they are exchanging happiness now, for happiness in the future.
For him, it means that he can save up a whole bunch of money, and then retire 20 years earlier at the least.
No, not everyone has a price for which they are willing to exchange their happiness for.
I also completely disagree that everyone "should" have a price they are willing to exchange their happiness for. It's strikes me as quite odd that you choose to pronounce these things(your opinions) as universal and absolute truths.
There are many people who work jobs that offer them happiness at the expense of lower pay. Artists, teachers, journalists, social service workers are all examples of this. I recently met some Americans and Britons who were working in tech in Berlin. Even though they could make a better salary back home they chose Berlin because the quality of life there makes them happier. So no, not "everybody" has a price.
>"Here is an example. Would you accept 100 million dollars to work in Saudia Arabia for a year?"
This is a total straw man. The OP actually stated that they were able to triple their salary by working in SV/SF. How is that at all comparable with being able to retire as one of the most wealthy people on the planet after 1 year? You are comparing a possible practical reality with a fantasy.
Also along with tripling one's salary by working in SV/SF comes a higher tax bracket and probably triple what you would pay in rent in the most expensive Canadian tech hub. It's not very realistic to think that you are going to retire 20 years earlier on just a SF/SV salary, not even close.
It is not about trading happiness for money. It is about trading a small amount of happiness NOW for a large amount of happiness later or a large amount of ability to achieve your goals.
If you are a teacher/Journalist/artist who wants the world to be more educated, more informed, or more artistically enriched, you are universally better able to achieve those goals with 100 million dollars in the bank.
So yes. Everyone SHOULD have a price. Maybe that price is 100 million dollars. Maybe it is 10 thousand. But a price is a price.
But back to the actual question at hand. Yes, i do believe that tripling your salary could lead to you retiring 20 years earlier.
It is simple math, really. Even with the increase in taxes, you will have about double at least the total amount of take home pay. And if you have a ~40 year work life, but take home twice as much money after taxes, that means you only have to work ~20 years to make the same amount of after taxes income.
Call it 15 years to be more conservative. But the numbers are close.
Are you just trolling then?
The "what if someone offered you 100 million dollars?" game is a game that children play. Your insistence on repeatedly interjecting this bit of childishness is just bizarre. The context of the discussion and the OPs comment is working as a salaried employee.
There was was never any question of a job "liked moderately less." The OP said quite unequivocally that they "hate" living where they live. Hate is a pretty strong emotion, it does not describe a state of being moderately less happy.
At that point one starts hating low pay and need to move somewhere with high pay if possible.
I don't think many software developers in Canada are facing that choice. Is there the opportunity to be 'more' secure in the States? Sure. But being a developer in Canada is hardly a bleak proposition.
Cost of home ownership at SF levels. Check. Salary to match? Nope.
I used to love Vancouver, I went to school there. I wanted to stay. But I doubt I'd move back except to retire.
5 years later, I'm pushing something like 8x what disposable income would have been by now if I compare with my old colleagues.
And that's even after I take out the extra expenses of my mortgage being 11x what my rent used to be (by choice, it was "only" 4x higher originally, since I lived in a rent controlled area for almost 30 years.
The difference is absolutely absurd. And since a lot of things don't vary in price with the average cost of living (cars are not more expensive south of the border. Neither are smartphones or restaurants), it matters.
I worked for a company that did just that: open an office in Canada in the same timezone as their American HQ to cut cost. The taxes, expenses, and complying with local laws at large scale (think: Quebec language laws) are real, and they almost ended up killing the office because the cost was too high. They absolutely were hiring more in the American office in the end from a pure cost perspective, and using the Canadian one to scale even though it was super expensive to run.
Now, its very likely it was them simply being inefficient and unprepared for it, but it doesn't really matter: its a real issue.
Now in the case of my current employer, we absolutely have international offices where getting head count is much cheaper, but to scale, we need offices everywhere where there's talent, and that includes in the big american metros. In my case, I just moved to get the $$$ of the American offices, that's all :)
People should be aware though, your example isn't even close to usual.
Work the numbers for a simple case - for round numbers take 100k/yr and 1000/month disposable. To do 8x that you are adding basically another 100k, post tax - so add another 35 k.
Do at this rate you have a salary multiple of 2.35. This just doesn't happen in general, for the same job. You may have an opportunity for a different job at 2.5 timed salary, but mostly people don't
Much more realistic is a 30% bump, which is still on the high end giving you a disposable income multiple of 2.5, which isn't bad.
Anyway, the numbers vary a bit with higher salary and rates, but mostly people won't see anywhere near 3x, let alone 8x - unless they are comparing very different jobs.
I was looking for my first job out of college, offers in Canada were 1/2 what they were in Seattle. Cost of living was lower than Vancouver. A TN visa was a low barrier. This story repeats over and over again.
Montreal is ridiculous since it is essentially NYC's favorite "nearshoring" . It's also big for game dev, which pays like crap even by Montreal standards.
Is it better in Edmonton? No idea. But with Vancouver/Montreal/Toronto out of the picture, that leaves precious few options.
There are other issues though
But the rigorous winters are one, also see my other comment in this thread
The caliber of engineer is just bad too. There's always the occasional superstar teams, but it's really, really hard to find a good spot unless you have connections...and even if you do, 2 years later as personnel shifts it goes to hell again.
I would have taken a pay -cut- to work in a different city. Fortunately, you'll never have to since the salaries are so bad.
But as you mentioned, unless you compare different jobs: the same opportunities simply don't exist up there. Making 300k, 400k or more? Its certainly not common in NYC or SF, but if you try hard enough, and shoot for it, its possible. Up north? Maybe as an exec, but as an individual contributor or tech leadish style position? I wouldn't know where to start looking. While here there's a lot of options. There's not for everyone by a long shot, but they are there.
Thus 8x or more becomes possible. And someone like a top Waterloo engineering graduate has an above average chance at those. But I don't know where they would without moving country.
You are right that there are many more top tier opportunities (although they do cost in Canada in small numbers) - but by definition nearly, this doesn't apply to most developers.
I'm a Canadian that moved to the US for work - this multiple sounds entirely plausible, in fact it sounds like a conservative estimate.
In major tech hubs the multiple is closer to 3-4x.
> "Much more realistic is a 30% bump"
This is not at all realistic - I know many Canadians working in the US as developers and all of them are making well in excess of 200% of their Canadian market rate.
You're characterizing Canadian tech salaries (in say, Vancouver or Toronto) as being moderately below US standards (~30%?), where in fact they are vastly below the standard in comparable markets (SFBA, Seattle, NYC, etc). The gap is already big for new grads, but it widens even further with experience. A dev with ~5+ years of experience can reasonably triple their salary moving south.
But if you were making 70-80k in Canada then hit the US and do 200k + RSUs + bonus, you're in a much different world...and it can just keep going up and up and up and up, while up north you will hit a wall much sooner.
Again, I'm not denying that vastly more of these opportunities exist in the US, particularly in a few locations. But that doesn't factor into the majority of tech jobs on either side of the border.
However, the Waterloo software engineering graduate who's making 150k+RSU+bonus is probably nailing a Principal engineer position at a famous american tech company in SF/SV/NYC/Boston and is absolutely going to nail big bucks. Thats some superstar material right there. The only places I've seen that approached those numbers in Canada were Canadian offices of Wall street banks. And having worked for those companies in the past, superstar engineers at Morgan/Goldman in NYC made me look poor.
And i'm far from poor.
But to suggest this is th norm for software jobs across both countries? The stats just don't support it.
3-4x is crazy. You make it sound like the US is crawling with tech jobs paying > 500k for mid-career jobs. It just not so.
During that time you have college grads in the states walking away if they don't get 100k as their first job in SF.
Now obviously if you take the hottest markets in Canada and compare them to mediocre markets in the US, the gap is much smaller, but that's usually not the move people are considering when this topic comes up.
But, I'm not sure it's possible for companies to do so.
I mean, first of all, in the US, outside of a few cities like NY, SV, Seattle, Bellevue, you start to see lower pay which gets closer to Canadian pay.
Appart from that, Canada just doesn't have the same market. That's the biggest difference. Most startup capitalize on the US market, and that's just easier and more accessible to do if you're US based.
In a way, Canada pays decently. You'll be very comfortable as an engineer in Canada, even with a large family. But compared to certain US cities, it's abysmal.
It's kind of crazy that in the US, a bachelor degree in CS can give you pay close to what doctors make. And a 9 month dev boot camp can have you earn similar to many university level degrees.
I'm not sure this will last forever. My point being, it's unclear if Canada's pay for tech is too low, or if some US cities pay is too high.
In cities where the pay lowers so does the cost of living. Canada will never get over the exchange rate + availability of goods in America. Canada is an amazing country to live in but America is great too when you have money.
Engineer wages in Seattle were ~30-100% higher - before the Canadian dollar tanked. Now they are ~50-160% higher.
I suppose there's also Victoria, but there's no tech jobs there.
https://github.com/sendwithus/vic-startup-jobs
Victoria also has nicer weather than Vancouver (less summer rain). Direct flights to Seattle and SF.
Hmmm depends on where you live. In some places a large family would be quite unaffordable. The average cost of a detached house in February in Metro Vancouver was $1.76 million. Vancouver has become so unaffordable that even those with great (for Canada) six figure salaries would find it very hard to cobble together enough money to buy property.
You're more likely to require two cars in Vancouver than in Toronto as the combination of the Greater Toronto Area public transportation options cover a wider area than Vancouver's.
But sure - if we change frames then both city downtown cores are either easily walkable or extremely accessible via public transportation, hence ceteris paribus neither family (living in the downtown core) in their respective cities would require more cars than the other.
Have you actually tried that, or just hyperbolizing? Many devs in Canada net 4-5K/m. Rent in Vancouver would easily be 1.5-2.5K/m for a "large family". That's not a "very comfortable" spot.
As a rule, Canadian citizens are highly mobile to the US due to the TN visa, the lack of a language barrier, close proximity and the extreme similarity of cultures.
So if Canadian companies actually need that talent, and for some structural reason related to being located in Canada they are unable to pay for it, then their business isn't viable. Full stop.
If Canadian businesses are just less profitable and less productive and therefore can only afford lower wages, that's fine. They will get the talent that isn't mobile for one reason or another. Some Canadians choose to stay in spite of the lower pay, some developers just aren't able to get hired at top US companies, and Canadian immigrants who aren't yet citizens are mostly locked out of the US job market.
The problem arises when Canadian business think they can keep the low pay and get people to turn down Google to stay in Toronto. If you're trying to do, say, an AI-focused startup in Canada and you think you're going to hire top people away from Google for $100,000 CAD because Trump, that's not going to happen.
So if Canada wants to have companies that aren't "X but for Canada" but rather actual global internet companies, they should expect to pay global internet company wages.
America's able to lure these workers by relying on easy investment money, not business viability.
You're pretending that there's an even playing field, and there isn't. If there were an even playing field, every firm would have left the valley decades ago to find cheaper workers.
But that's just not how it works.
This speaks more about the relevance of these [university level] degrees than how high dev salaries are.
In my experience seed funding in Canada doesn't mean "this idea looks like it's on a promising growth trajectory, here's 100K for a bit of equity to see what we can make of it". Instead it means "show us $500K in revenue and we'll consider you for a loan next year".
So what you have left are the smaller companies that happily feed their owner and not much else, or enterprise shops delivering established solutions in an established market for established rates (Canadian ones).
And the companies that do well and grow: they just move to the valley, because they generally can, and they have every reason to.
Source: I've lived both worlds.
I have a friend who has been trying to raise for his company, and the expectations that investors have in terms of how much equity they want is much worse than in the US.
That seems within reasonable bounds of a VC offer, am I wrong? If they expect to be valued much higher then they would probably be more well known (approaching unicorn realm) and would get SV interest anyway. And if they want to give less equity maybe they should find a earlier stage/smaller fund?
And after all of that, this level of equity is a curse on your books that locks you out of SV VC. So if you actually grow you're still disadvantaged by such an offer. Lose lose.
We can debate whether such an offer is reasonable. But taking this offer in favor of seeking funding in the valley... that's unreasonable.
Slack is a perfect example of this. They still have a small office down the street from me here in Vancouver, but they're based out of SF now. I can totally see why given the access to capital and talent in SF vs Van.
Even digital media companies seem to see technology as something that happens outside them, and should just work. They have keep a handful of developers on hand because they have to, not because they want to. And then they're just the "computer guys".
There's a significant bit of nerd stigma still. It's a bit outdated, that way.
You're pretty spot-on with the support network, though. The federal government does offer programs at an increasing rate these days, but they're too few and can't do all the lifting.
What surprises me yet is how we seem to have no shortage of digital design agencies in Toronto, but anything more technical seems to need to have enterprise money flowing in, or academic support. I'm generalizing, because there are edge cases, but it's certainly seems to be the mode.
Not that it's what you're doing. You're right, but still wanted it on the record that it's one of the few that's done so well. That said, I'm always happy to be proven wrong here!
My startup has a $10M run rate after three years and the best we can do is get debenture and loan offers, no actual investment.
Investors in Canada hate technology.
Source: developer in Vancouver who could easily get 2x the salary a 4 hour train ride south. I stay in Canada because it's my home.
Likewise; all things considered, I consider the value of staying in Vancouver well worth the difference in salary to the USA.
However, I prefer to work in video games, and in this industry compensation is shit basically everywhere.
There's lots of people in similar situations, so it's not impossible to find 10x devs up here, just more difficult than SF.
So I'd be out, too.
Though I could likely find a Seattle-based company willing to let me work remote most of the time. I could hop on the train once a month and AirBnB a place for a week, and many employers would be satisfied with that. It's what I'm considering next time I'm on the job hunt.
Maybe Canadian companies are different, but companies in Slovenia simply can't pay their engineers 150k salaries even if they wanted to. So many people move.
That is a pattern I've noticed in Canada in contrast to the US in fact; We settle for "good enough" or "profitable" but not the "moonshots" or strive to be "the best".
Whether in tech, business, or even global influence, we are a "middle power" and we seem happy about it (my high school politics teacher explains that this is a result of constantly being the US's little brother). This makes me immensely unhappy, and I hope to make Canada more ambitious one day.
Also a century of political monotony didn't help.
The main problem is investment. You just don't have the investment capital in Canada that you can get in the U.S. I'm not just talking tech, but throughout the economy. Lots of successful Canadian SMEs get bought out by Americans because there's no one here who has the balls to invest in them. In many cases, their (head) offices are moved to the U.S., further reducing the economic impact they had here and making the U.S. economy stronger. Canada is a perpetual SME incubator feeding the U.S. economy.
Software investment is probably the only sector that is undercapitalized in Canada.
Of course commodities and the financial system to support them as well as local consumer banking have that funding. All nations do.
It is the 'soft' economy outside of that where the differences lie.
You know something funny I've learned recently? The top three owners of the 4 largest Canadian banks are... Each other.
> Mining
That's a really good counterexample. As for oil, how much of it is really Canadian-owned and developed, though?
They live in the Bay Area, LA, NYC and more.
He stated that they have a "cut the tall trees" mentality, and doesn't believe he could have been successful had he stayed in Canada.
I moved from India (Mumbai) when I was 10, to grow up in Vancouver. I've previously worked in NY, and I now work in Seattle (you can guess where), but think about moving back to Vancouver all the time to live a life of "mediocrity" and "underachieving".
In both India and America, the mindset is "If you're not first you're last", but my mindset after growing up in Vancouver: "I don't need to be first, I just need to hold my own and stay with the pack". For some reason (unclear how/when/why I learned this) growing up in Canada: 1. I learned to feel guilty for my successes (lol make it go away!). 2. I learnt very quickly, that getting one rank higher at something competitive keeps getting exponentially harder (i.e. I'd be less happy). To sum it up: Its not just about victory, but the balance of effort to victory, and the happiness from being a part of a community that counts.
However, its hard to reconcile. The Indian/American mentalities in me, especially about career, are very much a part of me. I think I compromised on "I don't need to be first, but should be at least 1 or 2 std deviations above median". As a result, I don't work in NY or SF, I live in Seattle, for the money but have a great work life balance, thinking every now and then if its it the right time to move back to Vancouver.
I hope OP does start that company in Waterloo to kickstart the whole process.
It takes multiple companies all making bay-area-style profits to create upward pressure on labor prices to end up with bay-area-style salaries.
You have completely changed your goalposts. I will remind you of your previous points:
1. Canadian companies don't make much money so they can't afford high salaries
2. Canadian companies don't forecast they will have high growth after expensive hires.
Please tell me if I have misinterpreted your comment.
My primary point was "The motivation to pay more for talent is to make more money" (quoting myself). Companies won't pay top dollar if they don't think they will make more money by hiring top talent (#2 above), or they don't have the money to afford the top talent (#1 above), or...let me add #3:
Companies won't pay more for top talent if they can acquire that talent for cheaper (which happens when there is no competition for that talent). Tho #3 is kind of a metafeature - the ecosystem needed for #3 to be satisfied requires many companies that all satisfy #1 and #2.
I think pay statistics from multiple companies would be mcuh stronger for your argument..
Because even European startups seems to work out better
Even In India Google/MSFT pay atleast 25k$ annually to new hires (not including stocks), Purchasing power wise that is around 100k$, right where the US salaries are.
US interns get paid around 6-8k a month, let's be generous and say 9k$. Are you saying that as a full time dev you could only earn 3k$ a month? Looks like you could earn more as a garbage truck driver?
Top end dev pay is about $100K here, especially in the web space. Average would be $60-$75K. And that's Canadian!
Some people have put together prices and it came out that Toronto is about 31% cheaper to live in than SF. (https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/comparison/san-fra...). That adds up.
As for medical care, most tech jobs have very good benefits. If you have a major medical problem, you might be out $5K before you hit your out of pocket max. The higher wages and lower taxes in the US mean you can easily handle it (but you do have to plan for it).
And you can't count on your kid getting into Waterloo, the only university anyone in SV/SF have heard of, it's very competitive.
As people mentioned, there are a lot of cheaper options for school in the states. Americans just looooooove the expensive prestigious options.
If a DINK couple of engineers (to exagerate the number for example purpose) move from Canada to the US, their combined salary could go from 150k/year to 300k/year. That's a 150k a year of difference. Minus the difference in housing cost, we end up with 126k more, let say 85k after tax.
That buys you a lot of (cheaper in the US!) cars over a few years.
Most other professionals (doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc) throttle supply through things like certification, but for some reason developers can't / don't want to get their act together to do the same.
Even worse, they (we) welcome more supply! The mind boggles. And I say this as a Canadian employer who would certainly welcome more good developers at a lower price...
Being the only plumber in town means you can charge whatever you want. Being the only developer in town means you're telecommuting and competing with Satyam.
I think we might be talking about two different Silicon Valleys. The one here in the real world has a glut of developers fighting for scraps. Companies that have the luxury of being extremely picky and only hiring the best. Lots of interviewing and so-called "open positions" but not a lot of hiring.
The unemployment rate for Computer and Mathematical Occupations was about 2.0%. [2]
Anecdotally, since a large part of someone's world view is by bad things that have happened to them, none of my friends from college are working outside of software. Some earn at the 10% spot in low cost-of-living areas, but they all are employed with enough money to get by.
1. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...
2. https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea30.htm
Edit: this only holds true for the U.S.; unemployment for coders is probably far different in other countries.
I've never thought of it this way, but it seems so obvious in retrospect.
1. there isn't much of a culture of entrepreneurship;
2. there are few VCs, and they're pretty much all hyper-conservative, to the point that they may as well be banks.
In a few months/years, students from India and China going to US for grad studies will slow down, and most of them chosing Canada over US.
In a few years, if US continues its systematic and unfair ways of keeping citizens of India and China from immigrating to US, and Canada continues its policy of courting immigrants, you'll see a culture of entrepreneurship growing in Canada too.
Meanwhile, these startup founders often come back to Canada after getting their startup off the ground in the US... to create a Canadian "engineering branch office"—i.e., to hire tech talent at the cheaper Canadian going rate. But, of course, this only happens for startups that manage to get to a stage where they need whole offices of additional tech talent—which is not most startups.
Given this dynamic, I wouldn't expect increasing the number of available developers would do much at all. Now, if you could come up with some way to keep entrepreneurs from moving to the US, that might help...
Canadian policy was always much easier than US for immigration. I wonder then why Indian/Chinese did not go in much larger numbers to Canada as compared to US.
They did, and they still do:
Canada's percentage of foreign born population: 20.6% [0]
US's percentage of foreign born population: 13% [1]
[0] http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-010-x/99-01...
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brookings-now/2013/10/03/what...
I think it is actually a kind of wtf that there are no certifications for software devs that make life and death things, life auto-pilot or pacemaker software.
So we should reduce the supply by forcing licensing?
That would lower employment in the field since it would require accreditation i.e we would get an increase in unemployment which is what reducing the supply means. And Canadian companies can't afford developers as is, and you suggest increasing the cost of said developers which would force Canadian companies to either change field or close their doors. How could this possibly help anyone but Americans and American companies?
If Canadian companies can't afford to pay developers what the market bears out, they will close because those developers will get paid what they're worth somewhere else. That's capitalism.
You're suggesting Canadian developers should take lower market salaries to help those mediocre companies survive...?
We are specifically arguing that the market should determine salaries. Don't put up barriers to entry. Let the market work it out.
I'm merely stating that if I were a Canadian developer competing against other developers for a job, and the supply of competitive developers increased, I would be unhappy because that would drive down salaries. This is uncontroversial.
Barriers to competition like certification are one way to keep salaries high. I'm surprised that for how analytical developers are, this barrier has yet to be erected.
Paralegals and specialized software is a market response to the bottleneck of lawyers. Physician's assistants, BSN Nurses, and Nurse Practitioners are another market response to doctor bottlenecks.
I think that the majority of stakeholders in software would be opposed to licensing legislation for coding.
They would care because laws would be put into place making such certificates required for doing work. Just like accountants need to follow GAAP etc.
> I think that the majority of stakeholders in software would be opposed to licensing legislation for coding.
For sure they would. But that doesn't necessary mean it could be stopped from happening.
Yet programmers writing embedded software for medical devices are not regulated for safety and reliability purposes, as far as I know. Why is that?
There are some guidelines for writing software in regulated industries, eg: FDA Part 11 and Annex 11 in the EU for food and drug manufacturing.
However it's more of a speed limit situation. If you're willing to risk your client getting audited while you're speeding you could get yourself and your client in trouble with the industry watch dog.
That being said I think our industry does need professional recognition and liability. That's not a bad thing... it just means you can't be reckless and you have to have someone with a PE on your team. I know SV likes to move fast without their permission but that's insane when it comes to protecting the public interest. Just look at the vulnerabilities and shady practices in automobile automation, testing, verification, etc, etc.
We could do a lot better and build more reliable things if there were some guiding hands leading the way.
Anyone should be able to become an engineer. Don't the fact that they have an effect on our huge salaries? Well thats the market. Tough shit. Get better and compete with them. Don't stop other people, who are better than you, from competing by using the law against them.
In the land of facts, salaries are lower here, and taxes are higher. Liberties are eroding, and the cost of living is skyrocketing.
On the whole, you can work just as hard here for a whole number fraction of your salary, have less capital availability, and have less personal liberty. The best deal for the brilliant people at the U of T here is to leave, if we're talking about money and freedom. If we're talking about security, maybe a slight improvement for some kinds of people, but not all.
I'd easily make the choice to move to Canada where I can get a green card right away rather than wait 10 years for a green card in US. Salaries might be low, but one cannot put a $ amount on peace of mind.
Unless you are an Indian PhD it's more like 60+ years. Basically becoming impossible.
This coupled with H1B abuse has created a very difficult position for some people who are basically indentured.
Excellent, we welcome world-class talent, you'll like it here.
Canada is far easier to permanently settle in, but the opportunities are far fewer, and salaries are lower too.
I don't know what the answer is here.
Others come to Canada with the intention of doing this and end up staying cause hey, life is pretty good in Canada and after 3 years you may have family ties here.
The mistake I've seen immigrants make is move to Canada, then move to the US on an H1B, L1 or other visa before attaining Canadian citizenship, lose their Canadian PR due to leaving the country permanently, then lose their US job & visa and end up having to return to their original country.
Ouch, that sounds terrible.
Yes, getting citizenship in Canada first seems like a good idea. Btw, it's not 3, it's 4 years.
It's a sad commentary on the broken immigration system of the US, when it would be faster for me to get Canadian citizenship, and then switch to US citizenship than go directly for US citizenship.
Though of course, I wonder if the US authorities would be able to find out I am switching citizenships like that, and cause issues. Do you know anyone who did this?
AFAIK the only other developed country that comes close is Australia.
If you want cut throat lifestyle that pays the most - with the guy who cooked you dinner keeping one eye out for an ICE van, your ex-slaves in prison and some homeless guy going through your dumpster - you'll love the US. If you want to live a fairer society (Canada, France, Germany, Australia etc) don't complain about earning less.
(Though I get the point that this isn't consistent with my first comment)
That's before taking into account the volume of job opportunities, exchange rate, and access to goods and services.
Maybe in the Bay area. Most of the USA you'd get half that with 10y experience.
No, it doesn't. "It" prefers to import "refugees" en-masse and giving them free shit, rather than fix poverty for Canadians.
Anyways I don't see how these follow each other at all. What's shitty tech salaries in Canada to do with any of this?
On the other hand, what is the link between a high salary and an immigrant being deported? Between higher rates of homelessness? Between higher rates of incarceration?
The reason why I ask is because the tax burden of a software engineer in California is equivalent to one in Vancouver. Deportations and incarceration are contrary to tax savings. Fewer community and welfare services, leading to homelessness, are linked to tax expenditures, but the U.S. historically has large population groups that have practically always suffered poverty.
Anyway, I agree that the U.S. can do better, but see almost no causal link between high salaries for one profession and the problems you mentioned (except maybe a higher corporate tax to eat the delta of the higher added value per employee). Hmm. Canada has a 15% corporate tax rate, lower than the U.S.
Are you saying Canada doesn't have homeless people going through dumpsters? I would invite you to take a walk down East Hastings in Vancouver. It looks a lot like the worst parts of SF.
And by the same token, almost no amount of pay (within the tech spectrum) could convince me to live in the cities in Texas where right-wing extremists are rallying outside mosques with assault rifles.
I agree with this sentiment but if you have a high-paying tech job then you probably get insurance which won't bankrupt you in the case of a medical disaster. It's the ~90% of the rest of the population who has to worry.
As I understand it (I live in Canada), you can subscribe to an insurance policy and they can refuse to give you the money for one reason or another.
For maybe most of the U.S. population, this is a risk, but most tech companies have health plans that cover this.
> And by the same token, almost no amount of pay (within the tech spectrum) could convince me to live in the cities in Texas where right-wing extremists are rallying outside mosques with [semi-automatic] rifles.
I don't think it's representative of most of Texas or the rest of the country. I get that you're using rhetoric, but there is also anti-Muslim violence in Canada, Australia, UK, Germany, etc.
Serious question. How does the following situation work in Canada?
You make a bunch of money and so you buy a house and car appropriate for your salary. You then get cancer (or your arm falls off, or whatever) and you lose your job. Who makes that house and car payment for you?
It is a Nassim Taleb type of point: you're basically making extra money writing healthcare puts, but when there is a crash, you get wiped out.
edit: Here is a source for doubled tax, looks like google parser is wrong https://pasteboard.co/hMazP1hHs.png
This is not true, and was likely posted by a conservative hardliners.
Canada uses an after-price sales tax like the USA, but in higher quantities - it will vary between 5% and 13% depending on province. Also, all provinces are currently implementing a carbon pricing system, so some provinces will have an additional sales tax on carbon intensive goods like gasoline. Unlike VAT, they're above the printed cost of the time, not included. These have been quite stable for a long time.
Also, Canada has income tax. Like the Americans, we run on a graduated income tax system, where you pay no tax at all on the first $11,000ish dollars you earn, and then in each tax bracket you pay increasing percentages on the money that falls within that bracket. There has been modest increases in the highest tax brackets to pay for a cut in the second-lowest bracket. Also some "boutique" exemptions have been closed or reduced recently.
In every case, there are taxes paid separately to both the federal government and provincial governments.
The biggest rising expense here on Ontario is not taxes, but "hydro" which is what Canadians call electricity (so much of it is generated by hydroelectric dams and power companies market themselves as hydro companies because of it). Ontario has had a history of mismanaging electrical bills, and that process has come to a head and so energy prices have skyrocketed recently.
While our taxes are normally somewhat higher than Americans, it hasn't been really a huge problem historically. Only now it's starting to come to a head with cost of living as the crazy housing market has driven mortgages through the roof and the hydro crisis have come together to create a cost-of-living problem in the Toronto area.
Finally, we have municipal property taxes (comparable to British council taxes). These are priced based on the value of your real-estate property. These are generally stable, as councils are very price-sensitive and are hesitant to raise them outside of a crisis.
I would like to just add that unlike the US, where some states do not have state income taxes, all provinces in Canada have provincial income taxes, and with the exception of Alberta, all of them have provincial sales taxes.
For individuals:
Top rate - US - $418,000+ taxed at 39.6% Top rate - Canada - $220,000+ taxed at 33%
Also, provincial taxes tend to be a percent of your federal tax. It's been a while since I lived there, but Alberta used to be 50% of whatever your federal tax rate was.
No home mortgage deduction either and the equivalent of a 401k (RRSP) limits contribution to 18% of your income up to a max of ~$20K.
In some provinces like BC you also pay approx. $60/month for health insurance.
Sales tax is from 0% to 13% depending on province and types of goods / services.
Nothing like doubling of income tax happened, not sure why your google says that.
Income tax: province/territory and federal levels Consumption tax: government level (5%) + provincial level (most provinces/territories) (this is close-ish to VAT) property tax: municipal/provincial, like council tax health care cost varies by province/territory.
Income tax has definitely not doubled. It's unchanged at the federal level.
I'm increasingly troubled by the notion that the only way one can move from one place to another, is by some contrived rule of value-add that person may offer. Aside from this new rule, Canada otherwise is a difficult country to gain entry to. The exclusivity of such movement is worse than outright border lockdown, because it essentially provides a validated classist bias against others.
EDIT - removed the "arbitrary", which I could argue for but for the purposes of the discussion concede. I stand by the rest of the claim despite the downvotes :)
I don't think personal preference should carry a whole lot of weight in the context of setting policy on who gets to cross your borders. Certainly not near as much weight as the load on local welfare systems, personal history, culture fit, and so forth.
Why do you think this? I personally believe the opposite and think world wide semi-open borders would be for the best. (By semi-open I mean that you still need to pass background checks etc). You could also disqualify people from accepting welfare if they have recently moved into the county.
The best for who? Do the people who live in countries with valuable infrastructure and institutions benefit from having to share them with immigrants that will be net-consumers of those services? (Note: I'm not saying all immigrants are net-consumers, I'm specifically asking about the subset of immigrants that are net-consumers.)
Essentially, everything will be China given long enough (I'm obviously exaggerating). There might be a few people of middle eastern descent too. Maybe.
Unless we abolish the concept of countries and all live in a global government of sorts, that's how it works _everywhere_.
Neither of us will see that, and it would take something very drastic to change how the humans behaved for millennia.
So it's not at all a given that the current system with tightly regulated borders, visas, conditions of residence etc will still be in place in 100 years.
The great land border lockdown between the United States and Canada or Mexico really started after September 11, 2001. The current border controls are extremely excessive by comparison, and the current US president's proposals are completely insane by 20th century standards. Many people born in the 1990s do not realize just how unusual the current border lock-down situation is.
To add an anecdote, the most unusual Canada/US immigration story I know is an acquaintance, US citizen by birth, who had illegally immigrated to Canada and was an undocumented under-the-table cash worker for almost a decade by the time I met him in 2010. One of his American grandparents originally came from Canada by literally swimming across a lake in the 1930s to immigrate to the United States.
When prior to industrialization would mass migration (especially of another ethnic group) have been seen by the current inhabitants as anything other than an invasion?
>Taking US as an example where this sort of thing is a controversial political topic today - in most of the 19th century, if you had access to any means of transportation necessary to get there (including walking across the border from, say, Mexico or Canada), that was all you needed to become a legal resident. Yet the country did just fine.
The immigration restrictions of the late 19th/early 20th century were a reaction to immigration numbers having risen beyond the point that the current inhabitants were comfortable with. Yes, controls were lax before then but that was a reflection of 1) the relatively low degree of conflict over resources (a result of industrialization), 2) the similarity of ethnicity/culture between the current inhabitants and the immigrants (they were predominantly Christians of European ancestry -- Chinese immigration was not viewed so favorably), and 3) comparatively low numbers of immigrants before ~1870, and especially before 1850.
For libertarian arguments underpinning this fundamentally moral and human rights issue, see https://openborders.info/
That's true according to some moral systems and not true according to others. What's more important is that we have the power to do so, and we think it's in our interest to do so, so we do it. If you want to convince us not to restrict immigration, you'll have to convince us it's not in our interest to do so. Saying we're immoral according to your chosen moral system will persuade some, and it will be easily rebuked some others, but most will say "It doesn't feel wrong" and ignore you and your whole moral system.
>inviting my non-citizen friend from staying at my house, in my property -- which is the despicable (and immoral) unquestioned status quo of today.
That's not really the important status quo of today, though. The problem isn't that people are inviting their non-citizen friends into their homes. It's that some non-citizens are coming here and consuming limited resources that would otherwise be consumed by citizens, especially services funded by taxpayers, and are not providing enough services to the people here to make up for what they're consuming. Many citizens, especially those who are in most direct economic competition with immigrants, are made worse off by the presence of even those who do provide more resources than they consume. The gains they provide are not distributed evenly throughout the population, and neither are the costs they impose.
In the moral system of the mid-19th century U.S. South, it was moral and right to have slaves. Human beings could be property. Similarly, in the communist and some socialist moral systems, it is evil and immoral for me to, say, start a company, and make millions of dollars of wealth. I have to share the fruit of my labor with other citizens of my country who did not work hard, and who might have spent the time I was toiling on my startup, playing video games and watching Netflix.
> you'll have to convince us it's not in our interest to do so
Absolutely not. As long as your self-interest doesn't violate the rights of others, I fully respect. But the moment you want to oppress my freedom, for the sake of your self-interest, I say fuck you self-interest. I don't need to convince you of anything. Why?
* Your same repugnant self-interest argument was used by slave owners. It wasn't in their self-interest to lose their free labor. It was economic disaster to relinquish slave labor. To quote, the Mississippi Declaration of Secession, it was "the greatest material interest of the world", c.f. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp
* You have no right to dictate to me that I can only associate with you (i.e. whether in employment, friendship, marriage etc). I should be free to hire any one from any country as I see fit. Immigration restrictions are oppressive and immoral, c.f. https://openborders.info/
* If I started a company, and made large amounts of money, and you decided to play video games and watch Netflix all day long while I toiled day and night, then you have no fucking moral right to live on money stolen by taxing the income of hard-working people like myself.
Frankly, I am under no obligation to convince you that you should not oppress my freedom, and threaten me with violence, to further your self-interest.
I believe in absolute objective morality. I don't think there are multiple "fair/just" moral frameworks. I reject the moral framework that upholds slavery. I think communist (and some socialist) moral systems are evil and wrong. Similarly, I think the immigration laws of most countries in the world are objectively immoral, evil, and wrong.
Try to live without violating the rights and freedoms of the others. Thanks.
What experiment can you perform to decide if a moral system is superior to another?
>In the moral system
What is your point? Are you listing examples where you expect me to sympathize with you and therefore agree? How does my own sympathy for your position prove that those moral systems are inferior to others? What does that even mean?
>But the moment you want to oppress my freedom, for the sake of your self-interest, I say fuck you self-interest.
Yes, and we say fuck what you think is your freedom, except we're powerful enough to actually get what we want.
>I don't need to convince you of anything. Why?
Because it sounds like you want us to change the way we're behaving, and you don't have the physical power to make us. Moral arguments will work on people that are already sympathetic to you, and people whose interests are pretty well aligned with what your moral system prescribes. They don't work so well on people whose interests would be seriously harmed by following them.
>Your same repugnant
I'll save you some time typing: I don't care if you call me repugnant. I don't care if you call me the worst names out there. It's not an argument. It's not going to convince me of anything except that you don't have an argument.
>self-interest argument was used by slave owners
Yes, it was, and so they did it until someone more powerful made them stop.
>You have no right to dictate to me that I can only associate with you
I don't care if your moral system says I do or don't have a right to dictate such to you.
>I should be free to hire any one from any country as I see fit.
That's your opinion, not an argument.
>Immigration restrictions are oppressive and immoral
Oppressive? I guess you could make an argument like that if you defined oppressive in a certain way. Either way, I think they're in my interest. Immoral? That's a matter of opinion.
>If I started a company, and made large amounts of money, and you decided to play video games and watch Netflix all day long while I toiled day and night, then you have no fucking moral right to live on money stolen by taxing the income of hard-working people like myself.
Another matter of opinion.
>Frankly, I am under no obligation to convince you that you should not oppress my freedom, and threaten me with violence, to further your self-interest.
The only obligation would be a self-imposed one. If you want very badly to get what you want, and are not powerful enough to make it so, then you have no choice but to convince those that are powerful enough. That's reality.
>I believe in absolute objective morality.
What is an example of a hypothesis that you can test to determine if something is absolutely objectively moral? How can you test it? What useful information can I get out of such a test? Can I use the result to make a prediction, like in science?
>I don't think there are multiple "fair/just" moral frameworks.
There are certainly multiple moral frameworks. They mostly consider the others unjust in various ways.
>Try to live without violating the rights and freedoms of the others.
Why should I choose to honor the rights and freedoms which are specified by your moral system rather than the rights and freedoms specified by some other arbitrarily chosen moral system?
The foundations of libertarianism is a belief that individual rights and human rights are supreme. I don't believe a majority, or a democratically elected sovereign, has the right to curtail the freedoms and rights of individuals. That's what being discussed here.
A "moral" system that deprives people of human rights, is amoral, and not worthy of honor or respect.
By your moral framework, the German people, who elected Hitler into power, had every right in the world, to murder and slaughter millions of Jews, Roma, Slavs/Poles, and others. It was justified by the Nazi moral framework.
This is why moral relativism is a bane, and a curse, and the source of many evils.
With regards to immigration, you have no right to demand the loyalty of others towards you or anyone else, or make it a precondition to alleviating the deprivation of their rights.
You have no right to restrict who I can engage in commerce with, or really to restrict any sort of interpersonal relationship I can have. You trying to prevent me from doing so is a violation of my freedom.
Visa restrictions are similar to banning interracial marriage. Interracial marriage means X race has more competition from people Y, Z races. Great.
I believe people are free to engage in any form of human interaction with others, as they see fit. You have no fucking right to dictate who I decide to be friends with, hire, etc.
> Either way, I think they're in my interest.
I think I told you in my parent comment, that I give zero fucks about your self-interest, as long as you pursue your self-interest in a manner that respects the rights of others.
> ... the physical power to make us .... Yes, it was, and so they did it until someone more powerful made them stop
You're basically saying, I will continue to violate the rights of others, enslave others, oppress others -- until someone more powerful stops me.
In other words, your moral framework can be summed up in three words: might is right.
What a terrible moral framework.
Well, I don't believe in the Nazi-Darwinian crap. I believe in basic human dignity (as mentined in the EU Charter[1]), and in the inalienable rights of man, as expressed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence[2].
Suppose, I lived in the mid-1800s, and the majority of my co-citizens decided to pass the Fugitive Slave Act. I am against slavery, and I believed that that law was immoral, reprehensible, and wrong. What do I do? Comply with law? No. I would fight against it, and with violence -- if necessary.
> If you want very badly to get what you want, and are not powerful enough to make it so, then you have no choice but to convince those that are powerful enough
Or I don't try to convince you under your depraved moral framework, and instead I get my gun, and shoot you and kill you.
All I'm asking for is that you respect my basic human rights, nothing more. If you can't do that, I am justified in using violence against you, in self-defence, as I try to defend myself and others against the violence you try/wish to inflict upon me and others.
Things do get to the point of violence, in a situation like this, when parties can't agree on what is morally right. One party is willing to deprive the rights of others to forward their self-interest. The other party believes in respecting the rights of all human beings. When such a strong disagreement on such a fundamental moral issue occurs, violence ensues. I can't convince a slave owner that their self-interest won't be affected by them losing their slaves. Similarly, I'm not going to make a self-interest-based argument with you. This is about funamental human rights, which you seem to despise.
[1] http://fra.europa.eu/en/charterpedia/article/1-human-dignity
[2] http://famguardian.org/subjects/politics/thomasjefferson/jef...
Trust me, I don't need a lecture on the foundations of libertarianism. I've read enough Rothbard and company to get a pretty good feel for it.
>I don't believe a majority, or a democratically elected sovereign, has the right to curtail the freedoms and rights of individuals. That's what being discussed here.
I know what you believe.
>A "moral" system that deprives people of human rights, is amoral, and not worthy of honor or respect.
It's up to you to decide what you think is worthy of honor and respect, and up to me to make the choice for myself.
>By your moral framework, the German people, who elected Hitler into power, had every right in the world, to murder and slaughter millions of Jews, Roma, Slavs/Poles, and others. It was justified by the Nazi moral framework.
Hitler may have had the power to do those things. I'm not sure where you think I suggested he had a moral right to do them.
>This is why moral relativism is a bane, and a curse, and the source of many evils.
I agree with you that moral relativism is a bad ideology for a society to be founded up, in terms of achieving stable, wealthy, and peaceful societies. That said, it is a question of fact whether there is actually some absolute objective morality, and as far as I can tell, one does not exist.
>With regards to immigration, you have no right to demand the loyalty of others towards you or anyone else
I'm not sure why you're still telling me what I have the right to do or what I don't have the right to do. I know what your preferred moral system says I have a right to do. As it happens, I don't demand loyalty of people, I'd just rather that the people around me be loyal to me, and it's quite clear that certain human beings are more likely to be loyal to me than others are, and that there are policies that can discriminate on that characteristic and so achieve the result I desire.
>Visa restrictions are similar to banning interracial marriage.
I'm not sure why you're still listing things you think I will think are horrible in order to get me to agree with you. As I said, even if I sympathize with you on some point, it doesn't make your system universal.
>that I give zero fucks about your self-interest, as long as you pursue your self-interest in a manner that respects the rights of others.
I'm not sure why you would bother to write something like this. You do give zero fucks about my self-interest when I pursue it in a manner that doesn't respect what you think are the rights of others, and it's clear that's what we're talking about here.
>You're basically saying, I will continue to violate the rights of others, enslave others, oppress others -- until someone more powerful stops me.
I said that as a matter of fact that is what certain people did.
>In other words, your moral framework can be summed up in three words: might is right.
Might determines what happens is reality. I acknowledge and embrace that reality. You seem to want to yell your head off at anyone that won't absolutely accept your preferred moral system, as though that will get you what you want. I assure you, it will not.
>Well, I don't believe in the Nazi-Darwinian crap.
What does that even mean?
>What do I do?
My recommendation would be to convince other people that it's not in their interest to support slavery, and do what you can to change reality so that it's not in their interest to support slavery. Don't expect making people go against their interests by telling them they're horrible to be an effective or sustainable solution. If you convince them you're right about how horrible they are, and they go against their own interests, then what you've just done is harm the material interests of people that are predisposed toward listening to moral arguments, and effectively selected against trait.
>If you can't do that, I am justified in using violence against you, in self-defence, as I try to defend myself and others against the violence you try/wish to inflict upon me and others.
I think that's probably a bad idea, and not just because you'd lose the fight. The people you're fighting to allow into this country are not very likely to be sympathetic to your moral arguments, or even to your well-being.
On this point, you need to educate yourself more. It's cleared you've consumed the lies of right new media outlets. Immigrants contribute a lot more than they consume. See the National Academy of Sciences report[1], or read some articles from the Cato Institute, or even the short summary of the Libertarian Party's position[3].
The problem is that this country's laws hate and despise skilled and educated immigrants. My company tried for two years in a row, to bring a developer from our Paris office over into the US. A brilliant developer, who had been with us for a year, and proven himself. Someone who had graduated from EPFL (one of the best higher-education institutes in Europe -- the equivalent of CMU/MIT here). Someone who was being offered a $140,000/year base salary. Someone who spoke fluent English. And he was rejected (lost the H1B lottery) twice, thanks to the US skilled immigration policy.
That is the status quo today. Which is a far cry from what is morally right. I don't think even a preference system for educated/skilled immigrants is morally right. The only morally righteous immigration system is one that permits the free immigration of people that are peaceful/non-voilent and who are self-sufficient/self-reliant (i.e. they'll have no access to welfare, and must be able to support themselves).
[1] https://www.nap.edu/catalog/23550/the-economic-and-fiscal-co...
Some do. Many don't. And even among those that do contribute more than they consume, it seems very unlikely that the contributions and the drawbacks would be distributed evenly throughout the population. Some people will be made better off by their presence, and others (perhaps even a greater number, but totaling a smaller dollar value) will be made worse off. Do you disagree with that?
>The problem is that this country's laws hate and despise skilled and educated immigrants.
I don't lock my doors because I hate the people outside. I lock my doors because I want to protect the people inside.
>And he was rejected (lost the H1B lottery) twice, thanks to the US skilled immigration policy.
Right, but do you deny that many companies make enormous amounts of money off of the H1B programs and that they can bring down salaries of the local people that compete with their labor? Do you deny that people that come in via H1B are less likely to have loyalty to this country and its people?
>Which is a far cry from what is morally right.
Whether it's morally right or not depends on what moral system you're using to evaluate it. I can pick one that says what I want just as easily as you can.
>people that are peaceful/non-voilent
How do you know their descendants will be peaceful and non-violent, and that their interests and those of their descendants will tightly overlap with the interests of the current population and their descendants?
Why would the current inhabitants want to let people in if they don't have strong reason to believe that the interests of the immigrants and their descendants will strongly align with the interests of the current inhabitants and their descendants?
I'm not. The sovereign is. By the definition, the monopoly to use the violence belongs to the sovereign, which in this age is in a form of a democracy or republic.
For you that means, that the majority of your co-citizens decided on some rules and if you break them, yes, violence may ensue, until you stop breaking them.
> which is the despicable (and immoral) unquestioned status quo of today.
As you were told in the sibling comment, your moral system and moral systems of others may be different.
> Simply because you belong to a majority (or minority) of the citizens of my country, does not give you the right to dictate
Yes, the majority has that rights. Again, the common name for that is democracy.
If you do not agree, use the first three of four boxes of liberty.
> who I can hire,
The majority definitely has this right. The labor market doesn't belong to you, you just participate there.
> who I can invite into my home, etc.
Fortunately for you, the majority in most countries consider tourism to be a good thing, where just the security of the others need to be taken care of. Tourist tend not to use social security, health care or other services, that were funded by your co-citizens and not your guests.
> For libertarian arguments underpinning this fundamentally moral and human rights issue
Libertarianism is just one of many ideologies in this world. It doesn't have a status of the only truth. Other ideologies or world-views have their own arguments.
Here I return to one of the box of liberty mentioned above, soapbox. For communication and discussion it is important not only to present your arguments, but also listen to the arguments of the others, who you might not agree with, and correctly embed their points and worries into your position. If you do not, it's you who will get ignored, as there would be no point of discussion.
I believe individual rights and human rights are supreme. I don't believe a majority, or a democratically elected sovereign, has the right to curtail the freedoms and rights of individuals. That's what being discussed here.
By your moral framework, the German people, who elected Hitler into power, had every right in the world, to murder and slaughter millions of Jews, Roma, Slavs/Poles, and others.
What a terrible moral framework.
> who I can hire
No, restricting who I can engage in commerce with, or really any sort of interpersonal relationship, is a violation of my freedom. I believe people are free to engage in any form of human interaction with others, as they see fit. You have no fucking right to dictate who I decide to be friends with, hire, etc.
> ... one of many ideologies in this world. It doesn't have a status of the only truth ...
I'll just point you to my other comment for this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14545935
> For you that means, that the majority of your co-citizens decided on some rules and if you break them, yes, violence may ensue, until you stop breaking them.
Suppose, I lived in the mid-1800s, and the majority of my co-citizens decided to pass the Fugitive Slave Act. I am against slavery, and I believed that that law was immoral, reprehensible, and wrong. What do I do? Comply with law? Fuck that. I would have fought against it, with violence, if necessary. All I'm asking for is that you respect basic human rights, nothing more. If you can't do that, honestly, I am justified in using violence against you, to defend myself against your acts of violence against me.
You didn’t define these individual rights and human rights yet. Every few years someone invents a new ones. Should we have something so vague as a foundation of our system?
> By your moral framework, the German people, who elected Hitler into power, had every right in the world, to murder and slaughter millions of Jews, Roma, Slavs/Polet, and others.
You are conflating several things. The Germans weren’t acting in their jurisdiction, they invaded others. They were no longer keeping theirs whats theirs, they were taking from others.
> What a terrible moral framework.
If you say so. I’m still avoiding the judgement of yours, despite having a suspiction of confusion of ideas.
> No, restricting who I can engage in commerce with, or really any sort of interpersonal relationship, is a violation of my freedom. I believe people are free to engage in any form of human interaction with others, as they see fit. You have no fucking right to dictate who I decide to be friends with, hire, etc.
If you do not intend to respect the law of the land, you can still move out. Well, if someone other will accept you. You might find that the other countries are not as open as you think they are and you might be a subject of same or more restrictions.
And again, we are back to inventing a new “rights”. Why should be your “right” something, that possibly damages communities in your existing jurisdiction?
> Suppose, I lived in the mid-1800s, and the majority of my co-citizens decided to pass the Fugitive Slave Act. I am against slavery, and I believed that that law was immoral, reprehensible, and wrong. What do I do? Comply with law? Fuck that. I would have fought against it, with violence, if necessary. All I'm asking for is that you respect basic human rights, nothing more. If you can't do that, honestly, I am justified in using violence against you, to defend myself against your acts of violence against me.
At the time, your moral values would be different and you would do zilch. You still do not have objective criteria to define them, they are formed by the current prevailing ideology. Unsurprisingly, in different parts of the world, they are different. The adage “every nation deserves the government is has” is unbelievably true on many levels.
I would be very, very careful with inciting violence. The chances are, if you cannot persuade others about your ideas using communication, you definitely won’t persuade them using violence.
the selection criteria it's not arbitrary and is based on the factors Canada considers important. It's like saying asking for a job applicant to have a certain skillset is "discrimination based on arbitrary stereotype".
How would you regulate immigration?
It would be the first step in a united planet rather than the pettiness we suffer now with individual competing states.
The beauty of countries is that different countries can try vastly different things, and then we can look at the results afterwords and see which countries made good decisions and which made bad decisions.
Until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, there were no restrictions on immigration. And after that, the immigration of white people was still completely unrestricted, until the Immigration Act of 1921. And after which, it was still relatively easy for citizens from Western European countries to move to the US (thanks to the "National Origins formula", up until the Immigration Act of 1965 was passed.
These days, we don't need any more able-bodied factory workers. We are no longer an industrial-labor economy. We need service and skilled labor, instead.
You need to stop relying on television shows for understanding history and read more. There was no "rugged expanse," there was an ongoing Native American genocide. Geronimo died in 1909. The Indian Wars did not end until 1924. As to how much laborers were really needed in factories, Sinclair's The Jungle (published in 1906) is a good illustration.
When did the US A) allow unrestricted immigration of people of non-European origin, B) actually have significant numbers of immigrants of non-European origin, and C) not quickly move to restrict that immigration?
Unrestricted immigration of people of European origins is not the same thing as opening up the borders without restriction.
At the end I went back to working in the EU and earning more, (paying 5x less for a mobile plan and not having to shove snow in the winter are advantages as well)
If you are down on your luck, I will take you into my home. But there is a limit to how many people I can support without them contributing to the household. Scale this up to nation state scale, and you have visa quotas.
The problem is that capital flows more or less freely but labor does not.
Apply for college -> graduate and find a job -> get residence.
Canadians are friendly but not suckers.
Over-50s can immigrate if they are joining family, employing people, or exceptionally skilled, etc. You have to make a case that you're a net benefit to Canadians.
For a skilled and experienced software engineer, immigration to Canada is far from being trivial compared to EU, UK, Australia, ... even Japan!
The neat thing about international tech workers however, might be that you can get skills without needing to transfer your education over in Canada and still have transferrable value and skills. Not to mention being self taught is good enough to find a way into Canada.
If you take in more people, it's because it is in the best interest of the people currently there.
That might mean as a way to grow the economy, as a tax source, maybe even just as a general way to increase happiness because existing citizens like it. Maybe it's to ensure the country's reputation among other countries.
But you don't let people in just for shits and giggles unless everyone already there are fed and happy. And that never happens, so...