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Canada's Challenge Is Keeping Techies, BlackBerry Inventor Says (bloomberg.com)
The former chief executive officer of BlackBerry added his voice to the chorus of people saying that Canada's main economic hurdle is keeping technology talent. From a report: "The biggest challenge as a country is retaining and recruiting the best people to build industries in Canada and not lose them to other jurisdictions," Mike Lazaridis, who left BlackBerry in 2013, said Thursday at the Waterloo Innovation Summit. Canada is pushing to become a technological leader as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tries to shift away from a commodities-driven economy by increasing funding for technology and offering fast-track visas to highly skilled workers. Cities like Ottawa, the capital, have stepped up recruitment efforts targeting expats in the U.S., while Toronto and its surrounding cities submitted a regional bid Wednesday for Amazon.com's second headquarters. The BlackBerry inventor sees Canada as at the forefront of the development of quantum computers, technology that could transform the world by allowing computers to operate much faster and on larger data sets than ever before.
Do you think people leave Canada because they want to?
Actually I do kind of wonder what this guy was even doing for Blackberry at all. They company was already all but out of business in 2013 as is. Guess he was one of the last few people involved in making them.
I thought everyone with an IQ over 85 or so had already fled the stupid 'Murica for Canada when Trump won!
I mean, just look at the posts from good leftists on here who always follow through with their promises to go to Canada if Trump won.
Then again, I did say an IQ over 85 was a requirement to leave for Canada, so maybe these points aren't really contradictory.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Canada has had a number of successful technology companies, but they've all been plagued by mismanagement see Blackberry, Nortel, Corel, etc
Just start an H1B program to bring in "highly educated workers" to fill the gap.
And/or pay them more.
Canada (and Britain) have a history of abandoning promising technology to the USA.
Have gnu, will travel.
More lies by companies to get cheap foreign labour. I work in the IT management field and know many well educated, skilled people who cannot find work. Banks are making record profits and laying off IT staff and out sourcing to India or bringing in cheap labour to replace Canadians. For example
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/rbc-replaces-canadian-staff-with-foreign-workers-1.1315008
Again... when private companies are offering crappy wages (with high canadian taxes) comparable to other professions with a lower skill requirement (teaching, nursing) with no pension people are going to go where there is opportunity or choose a different profession. And bonus points to the government for importing more workers to depress wages even more....
Canada doesn't want highly skilled workers, they want highly educated workers.
There is a difference. The two do meet from time to time, but not always.
If I had a job lined up. Toronto is like a smaller, cleaner, better-organized version of New York. The cost of living is 27% less too.
The only thing is I also do like a place with a little more topography than Toronto, and access to wilderness-y areas within reasonable driving distance. There probably aren't any good places for fly-fishing around Toronto, that's almost a deal-breaker. Maybe Vancouver, then. Weather's better there, too: a bit rainy in the winter but with dry, cool summers with, long, long days. Good summer trout fishing in BC, too from what I hear, and salmon runs starting as early as August in some rivers.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
They are a failing company. It wouldn't matter if they had techies knocking on their door to work for them. That is not blackberry's problem. Their problem is their shitty devices, nobody wants them.
Just keep making syrup and growing trees and weed Canada, it's what you are good at. Now apologize for complaining and crack a beer, eh.
It is OK if you get a job in the private sector. if you get a job in tech within the federal government, you have a glass ceiling at the CS-02 level (where you don't manage people) if you are not bilingual.
There is a reason most senior jobs are held by French people even though they make up a small percentage of the population. Your technical skills barely register, being bilingual is the most important thing. FWIW I have a CBC language ranking as a CS-04, this language nonsense seriously hampers my ability to staff positions.
Guy who left Canadian job thinks everyone is just like him - more at 11.
#DeleteChrome
The cause is lack of ecosystem, including the lack of useful and scalable Venture Capital. It is impossible to grow a venture backed startup in Toronto, once you reach a certain point and need to raise $15M, you run into problems with your unsophisticated (read: small time, inexperienced and Toronto market size thinking) investors who just want out, or get scared.
There isn't an ecosystem, so you can't build an ecosystem. And if you built a company, the only way to get scale customers is to sell where there is an ecosystem. Staff, has to be with talent that may come from Toronto, but have gone where there is an ecosystem. The only way to (usefully) exit is to sell where there is an ecosystem. There isn't an ecosystem, so you can't build an ecosystem.
I'd like to make it work... still looking for a way...
I could very easily be tempted to move permanently to the Toronto metro area, but a work visa is not enough to tempt me at this stage of my life (more or less closing in on retirement). If they could offer a faster, simpler route to citizenship, that'd get me there pretty quick.
PS if anyone at my current company is reading this, I don't really mean it.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
One interesting thing Canada could do is make it incredibly easy for US citizens to work in Canada. I know I'd move there if I didn't have things tying me down in the US and could have an easily portable work visa. The climate (both literal and political) is better in my opinion...the issue is that there need to be more than a couple of standout tech companies to create an ecosystem. Nortel was absolutely huge until they went bankrupt after the first dotcom bubble, and BlackBerry has basically run its course.
I do hear that Toronto and Vancouver are in the middle of a housing bubble though, so I don't know if now is the right time to move there. But, if US citizens could easily work in the Canadian labor market and not be tethered to an employer the way H-1B visa holders here are, I think a lot of people would jump at the chance to move. I've looked into it in the past, and apparently US citizens don't get any special preference and have to deal with immigration the same way everyone else does.
If they really wanted to accelerate a move, just implement a program where a US citizen with a certain skillset and education can walk into any Canadian embassy and turn in their US passport in exchange for a Canadian one. Overall quality of life seems much better there, so it would just be a matter of convincing people of that.
Want more tech talent?
Fucking pay them.
People leave Canada for two reasons: climate and taxes. The Government can't change the weather, but they really should consider fixing the taxation system if they really want entrepreneurs to 'build industries' here. We have 43% incomes tax plus crazy corporate tax rates (Federal and Provincial), small businesses have all the same red tape as large ones which impedes growth. On top of that Trudeau and Wynne have added carbon taxes and are now in process of closing 'tax loop-holes' which are actually reasonable ways for small business owners to actually save for retirement. Now why would anyone want to leave?
Some time ago, I went to up to Montreal for a business trip. Talking with the engineers there, they told me that Canadian salaries are largely the same dollar (number) amount as US firms pay, but their tax burden is far higher, with federal, provincial and VAT taxes taking away a good deal of that salary, plus then the cost of things like gasoline were considerably higher, making the cost of living greater. That can't help. There's also the issue of the climate. Given a choice between working in a warmer climate (California or Texas), working in the Great Frozen North is a really hard sell. There are also other issues like travel hassles to visit family, crossing international borders and so on. I've also been to Toronto a number of times for vacation and I've enjoyed it, but I always went in the warmer months. Toronto reminded me a lot of a cleaner and more polite version of NYC and I enjoyed my vacation, but I've never been there in winter time. People say the lake "helps" but I can still imagine the winter nights being dark and full of Horton's. I can't stand the darkness of winter here in Massachusetts, and geometry tells me it's far worse in Canada. So Canadian firms need to come up with means of sweetening the pot to attract talent, one knob being paying more.
Disclaimer list: 1) anecdotal, employer could have been stingy, employee could have been a poor performer 2) a big metro area, as they are expensive in the US, too 3) years ago, when the US dollar was stronger vs. CAD 4) comparing COL across countries is hard, as I pay more out of my paycheck for health insurance in the US than a Canadian does, who pays it in taxes.
Would be simply to realize that while Ontario is in the center of Canada it is not the only concern of Canadians.
Oh and maybe the idea of a Substitute drama teacher running the country that has no idea what technology actually is. Then again all of this is really to distract from the corruption in his own party and specifically the leadership of Ontario.
Maybe, just maybe the dumber Trudeau could focus on the problems of current Canadians (such as job retraining for the manufacturing jobs that are being lost) instead of creating the exact same problem that the USA had with H1B visas.
As a Canadian from Toronto who is working in NYC, it is really hard for Canadian companies to compete if the wages are 30-40% lower. Also tech adoption and the scale in Canada just doesn't compare to the US.
"PMJT tries to [help] by increasing funding for technology"
no thanks!
Canada's problem isn't unskilled labor. On a whim, I looked into jobs in Canada after Trump won. (yup, I'm that guy) As a mechanical engineer, there are basically two major employers:
1. Bombardier -Horribly mismanaged
2. Mining -Since environmental responsibility was on my mind, I ruled that out.
There were a few smaller organizations, but they seemed to be shrinking rather than growing. One example is the nuclear power sector.
If the Canadian government wants a high tech industry, they need to invest in some scientific research. Sure, it's a gamble that will take decades to pay off if it ever does. It's no coincidence that The Bay Area has four national labs, and the most high tech jobs.
I was at a lab in Ontario five years ago, and that place was struggling. There was so much equipment gathering dust and in disrepair it was astounding! I've since learned that lab went out of business.
Canada already has a very simple immigration system. A lot of people who can't get into the US go to Canada. One of my coworkers immigrated to Canada from China. He ended up in the US because he couldn't find work in Canada. He used to commute between Windsor and Detroit every day until he was granted a US visa.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Does Canada not have H1Bs? Does Canada not have sanctuary cities? Does Canada not have a welcoming policy for refugees from the entire world? Why aren't people flocking to staff these industries? Someone explain, I don't get it. #welcomerefugees
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Aaaah, so the tech industry has produced yet another toxic environment where half of the tech people have no desire to participate. When the politics are removed from the tech industry, this is when you will actually produce an environment that achieves better results. US big tech is starting to see the backlash now for the environment that they created and it will eventually catch up to them (Hollywood, NFL, [insert favorite big corp. here] is the same way).
Have they realized that "we need more new ideas" does not come from loading your company with 20-30 year olds who's idea of progress is to get all the "baby-boomers" to retire as soon as possible? Have they realized yet that a mass infusion of mindless drones from a foreign country is not indicative of progress?
Here's an idea, don't alienate half of your consumer base on your ideological beliefs (*Points at Stabucks*). The same thing applies to your workforce. GROUPTHINK leads to stagnation and complacency.
They only work at cryogenic temperatures, so Canada is a perfect location. Just watch out for that Global Warming!
1 - it's freaking cold
2- the pay sucks
3- pretty much everything sucks (yeah sure the basic quality of life is fine but everything else is just worse than the USA)
Pay them more, or watch them go to the U.S.
Can't afford it? Don't bother being in business then. You can't expect to pay high tech workers the same wage as you do a Subway employee.
This is the fundamental problem.
When I see the progressive garbage coming out of Canada (e.g. giving the government the power to seize children from parents who don't agree with the child's gender identity, stripping a parent's right to decide how their child is taught about homosexuality), I simply shake my head and say, "No, thank you."
From a high level perspective, workers stay where they are because they cannot leave (legal implications, family, silly patriotism) or they are in their comfort zone (complaining but getting a roof and food). The big problem I see in Canada is the lack of interest from the Govt to regulate the main expense in the living cost in cities like Toronto or Vancouver: property. The main reason, everybody except the buyer/tenant, get a cut from it: Owners, City, Province, Federal govt. How do you convince a group of thieves to steal just half of the bounty???
So a couple of points. I'd say generally speaking the pay in the US is more. There are also more opportunity (though perhaps more competition as well). Tax burden is heavier in Canada for sure. I don't think the cold or the darkness really matters when trying to KEEP talent, as they would already be used to it. Trying to ATTRACT talent, well that might be a different matter. Also, another point is that most of the places where these jobs are located are also the most expensive to live in Canada, Toronto and Vancouver for example. Montreal however isn't as expensive, however some might be put off or at least a bit intimidated by living in Quebec and all the French speaking, though Montreal is totally bilingual anyway. I doubt Travel is a big deal, Canada is BIG. I live about 2000 km away from my family for example. There are plenty of families that are spread across the country.
Then there is the political climate, not to mention cultural. As much as we are good neighbors, and share a lot of commonalities, Canadians in general are a different bunch of people. I know once upon a time I had a bit of a plan in which I was going to work in Canada for about 5 years, then head south for the big bucks. It was about that time that George W Bush was elected. I decided that things were going good enough as they were. It wasn't the only reason of course, but I can't say it didn't enter my thought process. So while money certainly factors into it of course, it isn't everything. That said, at least in Canada's instance, being a bit more competitive on salary is probably one of the key factors that if address might make a big difference.
As a Canadian Army veteran, I was trained as an Oracle developer, went to Canadian universities and colleges, and then moved to the US.
I didn't move for money, or because I didn't like the military or anything, I moved because I met someone who was a citizen of another country with a kid there.
You can make all the retention programmes in the world and I still would have moved.
Did I make more in the US? Sure.
Did I like Canada's single payer national healthcare, run by provinces? Loved it!
Worry more about the cost of housing and education and the rest will fix itself.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Canadian tech company hints at Canadian Government to throw money at Canadian tech companies.
I have worked for the biggest companies on both sides of the border. Canada's biggest problem is that their currency is 25% less than the usd right now. Why would I as a skilled tech worker with options, return to Canada to be taxed more and paid less? Tons of other issues but the initial issue is a check mate. Until trump dismantles NAFTA, i'm going to take jobs throughout the USA.
Its funny reading posts from people about the lack of major companies being in Canada. There are defense companies, the biggest banks in the world, tech giants like Amazon and many more major companies in Canada. I have no clue where these people are getting their info from... And no, Canada doesn't need Americans to cross the border to fill the jobs, Canada has Tons of major world class universities.
So whats the problem?... See the first paragraph.
Why all the hate for the cold? Don't you guys have touques? Play hockey? Ski?
There's a lot of great tech going on here in Canada - OpenBSD, D-wave, we just cranked up a new radio telescope (CHIME), and any minute now Elon's going to realize he needs a few Canadarms.
The only thing keeping Blackberry afloat these days is licensing QNX (anyone remember the Audrey?). There's a software glitch preventing our Public Servants from being paid at the moment, so most people just work at Tim Horton's.
Going to be able to get weed at the Liquor store pretty soon though - and they deliver :)
I'm staying.
I'm a Canadian and a Software Engineer. I have attempted to work twice in Canada. The first time was at the beginning of my career, the second was after I had substantial experience (more than 15 years).
For all my efforts I have worked a grand total of 1.5 years in Canada and 16 years in other countries and I regret even wasting the 1.5 years.
Primary reasons for not working in Canada:
1. The businesses and my Software Engineering peers were dysfunctional and clueless. Probably because anyone with clue already left for somewhere else.
2. The work available is as uninteresting as watching paint dry. The majority of the jobs are web-oriented garbage.
3. The pay is fucking abysmal. Even the best offers I ever received were pathetic in the order of $80K less than even a standard rate job in other markets.
4. Taxes are atrocious and insult is added to injury the way the Federal government pisses them up the wall.
I'd love to live and work in Canada since my family is there but I doubt that's a realistic goal.
I could swallow taking a $20K pay cut for the privilege and paying the awful taxes just to be close to family but Vancouver and its so-called Silicon Valley north can go fuck itself if they think that living there is that precious.
Oh also do they only sell one style of glasses in that town or what?
AMD - Used to be ATI. Sweatshop mentality, generally poor management, poor and mediocre pay. A company that tends on hiring contractors since they can't commit to full-time employees, and full time employees have such a huge low retention rate anyway. There's a reason why they're always hiring, and not for good reasons.
Nortel - Once the glory of Canada, a company with good working environment has been destroyed by the people up top.
RIM/Blackberry - See Nortel
JDS Uniphase - [status: unknown]
PMC-Sierra - bought out by Microsemi
Intel - Small office that does system-level stuff
Broadcom - Smaller office that does mostly software. Company bought out by Avago and now named Broadcom Inc.
Cisco - [Status: unknown]
There are a number of smaller companies in Canada, but not many. Overall the job market is much more limited and is pretty trash.
Wonder what he'd have to say about the wanton halal bloodbath every year by Muslims on Eid ul Adha?