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Comment by robotresearcher | Hacker News Reader

Canada is getting some great talent right now. Americans, Brits, and people who would have gone to the US or UK are coming here.

If we can keep them here, this will be a big boost for Canada long term.

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Canada doesn't pay half as well as US when it comes to research in STEM. Every country has great talent right now, except US has the money.

If there was money then why are there not enough research positions open?

I don't think this is a productive game to play.

If there's not enough money then why is academic pay better in the US than almost anywhere in the developed world?

Not enough for what?

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.

We don't have to pay as well, someone else will always be willing to ravage their own country to beat us at that game. We just have to not screw up the local society and environment as badly as the superpowers.

Sorry, can you flesh this out a little more? I'm not quite grasping how paying academics high wages is ravaging our country.

What I mean, is that it does not really matter that Canada is not the highest paying country in the world, because money is not the only factor in determining where academics choose to live. If we can offer an environment that is conducive to intellectual work (low financial stress, spiritually uplifting environment, a culture of mutual assistance, minimal neurotoxins in the food, water and air, good schools for their kids, freedom of thought and expression, minimal discrimination, no threat of war, etc) then academics will try to come here despite the fact that they won't be as financially wealthy in the global market.

We can offer many of those features simply by leaving the huge local ecosystems intact and accessible, and by avoiding changes that cause parts of the population to become desperate.

That's true. The uptick in Canadian academic hiring is about something other than money, I'm guessing.

probably canadians going back home because ... family.

That's a roughly steady state flow, all else being equal, and wouldn't explain the change.

US postdoc pay is around 40K. Cannot believe Canada pay around 20K.

Depends on field. I paid my last postdoc $90K CAD ($72K USD).

It's hard to find good postdocs in AI with the job market right now.

For biologists or other oversupplied PhDs, salaries are much lower.

I guess both US and Canda pay simliar to postdoc, even in China, because all of them are low.

Agreed. My neighbor (a Mexican national in the U.S.) who has successfully started many companies is looking for a place in Canada this week. His moving will be a great loss to the U.S. economy and innovation.

I made the move to Canada some years back. Coincidentally, there was a thread about H1B and here is my comment why I moved to Canada.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15100981

I moved to Canada to escape the George W. Bush presidency. I couldn't in good conscience pay taxes to support the Iraq war. I took a 40% salary cut but the next few years dropped the US$ rapidly and made me some of that back. Also my family health costs dropped dramatically, making up more than the rest.

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