When I worked in Canada, I started a consulting company because high salaries were very hard to find. Now Trudeau is making it harder to make money in consulting by going after corporations aggressively. There is a severe salary shortage problem in Canada and instead of fixing it we end up with articles talking about how $60K CDN in Waterloo is better than $105K US in the Valley. We also end up with the idea that it's fair to compare base to base as if the valley didn't have bonus and RSU's (I've seen a lot of companies in Canada that don't have bonus or stock payments, enough that I'd even say it's the norm). I think at it's core Canada is a smaller market so most companies have a Revenue or Potential Revenue problem which turns into a fundraising problem which turns into a Salary problem. I have sympathy for start-ups trying to make it in a tough market, but it's pretty ridiculous to think about this as a HR style recruiting/retention when you generally talk to the right people but they pass on comp.