[HN Gopher] Canada plans brain drain of H-1B visa holders, with ...
___________________________________________________________________
Canada plans brain drain of H-1B visa holders, with no-job, no-
worries permits
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 298 points
Date : 2023-06-28 11:56 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| shyn3 wrote:
| I don't think white people love in Canada. Every store in Toronto
| has foreigners. Everywhere you go, most people have been here
| less than 10 years. You only see real old people or extremely
| smart engineers stocking grocery shelves since the robots are
| cashiers now.
|
| All the new people are delivering Uber and skip and living with
| 6-10 in a 1 bedroom.
|
| Not sure why people keep coming here. Most people who grew up
| here have moved outside of the city and many more left because
| the salary here is good when you first come as an immigrant but
| you realize the costs are not worth it.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| It's because the situation outside (in poorer countries) is
| even shittier, and stocking shelves is not paid enough to be
| able to live normally (without 6+ people in one bedroom),
| because cheap foreigners living 6+ in one bedroom do it,
| instead of the company having to pay local workers high enough
| wages. Even if foreigners leave, someone new, from an even
| shittier situation will come and replace them.
|
| If shop owners were forced to pay native canadians the
| "livable" amount of money, the situation might be different...
| but I agree, that the housing situation is fucked in most of
| the developed world and governments actively try to keep it in
| a fucked state.
| grimgoldgo wrote:
| What's wrong with foreigners in stores? Why wouldn't white
| people like that? I'm white, I like seeing my neighbors in
| stores.
| lametr01 wrote:
| [flagged]
| spacephysics wrote:
| Good way, and perhaps one of the only ways, to counter the
| coming population collapse and intense strain on social welfare
| and healthcare costs in next ~10 years
| lametr01 wrote:
| [flagged]
| gmerc wrote:
| Replacement you say. Care to elaborate how this is replacing
| Canadian population? Are we shipping neonazis down south in
| return ?
| lametr01 wrote:
| [flagged]
| jkic47 wrote:
| Not the OP, but I suspect they meant that the immigrants will
| likely be young, and start families in Canada, adding to the
| population. Over time, this will likely change the
| demographics of the country "replacing" the "original"
| population
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| The "original" population is "replacing" itself by not
| having enough children.
|
| The racists and conspiracy theories should be railing
| against their own "demographic" for not reproducing enough.
| ngcazz wrote:
| Mate, what are you talking about? it's a conspiracy theory
| and a racist dog whistle
| [deleted]
| lametr01 wrote:
| [flagged]
| version_five wrote:
| I suspect that by 2050 a lot of current Canadians will have
| left for the US, Europe and China, and Canada will be made up
| mostly of immigrants from a small number of countries and
| culturally will look very different (though it will still be
| ruled by the same set of wealthy families that run it now).
| Sort of a different pathway to building a colony if you think
| about it.
| lametr01 wrote:
| [flagged]
| pjc50 wrote:
| Replacing the indigenous Canadian population? I think that
| already happened.
| KoftaBob wrote:
| How are you defining "population replacement"? What does that
| mean exactly?
| bovermyer wrote:
| I have been trying to immigrate to Canada as a (US citizen) tech
| worker for the past six months.
|
| The H-1B visa thing is cool, but it's the other changes that are
| exciting for me. I'm particularly interested in the new LMIA
| exemption.
| kkukshtel wrote:
| Can you say more about this? Which changes? Also interested.
| bovermyer wrote:
| These changes:
|
| > the development of an Innovation Stream under to the
| International Mobility Program to attract highly talented
| individuals, options for which include
|
| >
|
| > employer-specific work permits for up to five years for
| workers destined to work for a company identified by the
| Government of Canada as contributing to our industrial
| innovation goals
|
| > open work permits for up to five years for highly skilled
| workers in select in-demand occupations
|
| and:
|
| > the creation of a STEM-specific draw under category-based
| selection to issue additional invitations to apply under the
| Express Entry program
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| As someone who moved from the U.S. to Canada at the start of my
| career. Don't
| moneywoes wrote:
| Just do express entry, I did the same ( regrettably) I should
| add.
|
| Feel free to shoot any questions
| lukas099 wrote:
| Why is it regrettable?
| bovermyer wrote:
| I'm in the Express Entry pool. However, my CRS score is 380.
| I don't know French, I'm 41, and I have no Canadian work
| experience. I'm unlikely to get a draw.
|
| It's possible that my odds will improve with the new tech
| draw, though.
| shagie wrote:
| For Canadian and US (and Mexican) citizens, the relevant visa
| is the TN visa that is part of NAFTA.
|
| https://www.uscis.gov/working-in-the-united-states/temporary...
|
| https://www.canadianimmigration.com/working-in-canada/nafta-...
|
| For the US -> Canada route:
|
| > One of the benefits of applying for a NAFTA Professional work
| permit is that applicants are exempt from the Labour Market
| Impact Assessment (LMIA) requirement. Further, professionals
| who are destined to work in Quebec are also exempt from the
| Quebec Acceptance Certificate (CAQ) requirement. NAFTA
| Professional work permits are only for individuals entering the
| Canadian labour market temporarily, and their work permits
| cannot be longer than 3 years in duration.
|
| Immigration visas, however, would be different and go through a
| different approval process.
| theironhammer wrote:
| Gotta keep the wages down.
| abledon wrote:
| Goodluck finding Housing
| pjdemers wrote:
| How many tech jobs does Canada have? If everybody who wants to
| move to (or stay in) the US but can't because of visa issues
| moves to Canada, are there enough jobs for all of them?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| There aren't even enough jobs for the people who are already
| here. See https://reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionscad
|
| There also aren't enough houses for the people who are already
| here. Vancouver has a Vacancy rate under 0.9%, and we likely
| have more homeless people than available rentals.
| noisy_boy wrote:
| What I want to know is which countries allow parents to immigrate
| with the main applicant. Lots of countries don't allow it for the
| fear that they have to bear the health care costs; even when the
| main applicant is willing to give an undertaking to bear the
| costs. This excludes a section who have parents dependent on
| them. Singapore is one notable exception I know that grants a
| long term pass to the parents that folks can renew every 1-3
| years, depending on the expiry - the sponsor needs to bear the
| healthcare costs but at least it provides an option to keep one's
| parents with them.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| So US companies will hire remote Canadian workers at lower wages.
| jmyeet wrote:
| Canada has a ton of structural problems that will prevent this
| from doing anything most likely, namely housing and wages.
|
| The housing crisis in Canada is extreme and well beyond the very
| real housing crisis in the US. Previously people focused on
| Vancouver, which is insane, but now the GTA (Greater Toronto
| Area) is essentially unaffordable basically everywhere. Possibly
| the only exception is Quebec. There is no political will to fix
| this problem because houses have become retirement accounts and
| anything that reduces home values is political suicide.
|
| The second problem is that Canadian wages are incredibly low,
| even in tech. In the US at least software engineer compensation
| largely shields you from the housing and cost of living crisis.
| That is not the case in Canada.
|
| Canada is very similar to Australia, which also has a housing
| crisis. Both countries have an economy geared to resource
| extraction and the respective currencies move with commodity
| prices.
|
| I don't expect this scheme to have much impact.
| hgs3 wrote:
| H-1B's undercut supply and demand: if a company can't find
| workers (low supply) and they need them (high demand) then
| they're supposed to raise wages to compete for them.
| Artifactually increasing the supply of workers suppresses wages.
| It's crony capitalism.
| alkonaut wrote:
| For context, what is the "normal" immigration policy for Canada?
| E.g. if you are a poor person from a random country with no H-1B?
| How many non-refugee economic migrants normally move to Canada in
| a year?
| theironhammer wrote:
| Bring cash, lots of it. Your going to need it for rent. Oh and
| a really warm coat. Winter's last 6 months and it gets very
| very cold.
| discretion22 wrote:
| Right now is probably the best time to apply. The current
| government has a policy to maximize immigration, currently at
| over 400K/year. You do need to apply and meet basic criteria.
| Essentially be in good health (also all dependents accompanying
| you), have no substantial criminal history and have a
| reasonable level of education and have functional English or
| French. If you have French proficiency then it is substantially
| easier as you can qualify for special more relaxed immigration
| programs in Quebec (Quebec has different programs aimed at
| promoting French speakers). More advanced qualifications do
| help prioritize your application.
|
| The downside is getting established can be difficult - many
| immigrants do end up in low paid sales jobs at appliance
| stores, driving Uber, working in fast food places etc. Living
| costs are extremely high (rent, food etc.).
|
| Tech jobs tend to pay less than 50% of US equivalents (speaking
| from experience) though it is possible to work remotely for US
| companies and get paid substantially better than any Canadian
| employer would pay. Quite a few Canadians do that, but do have
| to constantly deal with the problems of cross border payroll as
| US companies cannot comprehend that Canada is a different tax
| system and keep screwing things up by filing stuff with the US
| IRS instead of the Canadian CRA and you then have to sort it
| out yourself and fill out mountains of paperwork to stop the
| IRS tax enforcement for taxes that are not due since you don't
| live in the US. Also speaking from experience.
| jdougan wrote:
| It probably won't work, the problem is a lot deeper than a
| something a few more talented migrants can fix. A few years ago
| Alex Danco wrote up what he saw as the issues [1] and it reads
| pretty much like the list I would have made in the 90s, except
| for the bit about Montreal.
|
| There were also other issues, like accounting practices, [2]
| which don't sound like thy have changed much either.
|
| [1] https://danco.substack.com/p/why-the-canadian-tech-scene-
| doe...
|
| [2] https://troymedia.com/business/tech-sector-canada-problems/
| isykt wrote:
| Not much of a threat since it's only 10,000 slots. There's
| 420,000 H1B visa holders in the US.
| version_five wrote:
| Canada is seeing record emigration of it's own citizens (amongst
| other reasons, it's less affordable, less opportunity and lower
| salaries than the US). Anyone with the option (meaning the top
| people) will ignore this and stay in the states. This kind of
| thing works to get people, but not the best or even necessarily
| "good" people (from a qualification perspective)
| dkqmduems wrote:
| I think a good number return once they have kids...
| chollida1 wrote:
| > Canada is seeing record emigration of it's own citizens
| (amongst other reasons, it's less affordable, less opportunity
| and lower salaries than the US).
|
| According to the numbers this is not true. What specific
| numbers can you show that backs up yoru point?
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/443066/number-of-emigran...
| mr90210 wrote:
| The most qualified people are attracted by exciting challenges
| and excellent income.
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| On an aggregate level, probably true, but I've run across
| plenty of highly talented people in smaller markets and at
| less exciting companies purely because it's where they wanted
| to be.
| mr90210 wrote:
| Agreed. My comment was too absolutist.
| bovermyer wrote:
| I dunno, I'm willing to take a pretty substantial pay cut to
| move to Canada from the USA.
|
| I like to think I'm fairly competent.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| How substantial? I don't think most people really understand
| the economics of being Canadian right now compared to the US.
|
| Right off the top you're earning CAD instead of USD, so with
| the current exchange rate that's a ~25% reduction in
| purchasing power.
|
| On top of that, it's a smaller country, with fewer large and
| wealthy industries. Salaries are not only CAD but also the
| actual dollar numbers tend to be smaller. EG I've seen
| listings for roles in the States offering 200k USD, but
| similar roles in Canada offer 120k CAD, which is less than
| 100k USD. That's a "pretty substantial" pay cut if you want
| it. It's also not like they make up for lower salaries with
| other perks like super high vacation time or anything either.
|
| Then you're living in a country where we have some of the
| most expensive real estate in the world in Toronto and
| Vancouver, which has effects in other markets as well.
|
| Also everything is just more expensive here, with the
| exception of Health Care I suppose. Groceries are absurdly
| expensive right now, but even when they were cheaper they
| weren't anywhere near as cheap as my friends pay in the US.
| The cheapest pound of butter you can find is $6.50 CAD right
| now. Same with Gas for your car, insurance, etc. All of the
| tech we buy is more expensive too, and not just "cost of
| exchange rate", it's always just higher.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I am happy here and in a lot of ways I am
| glad I chose to stay rather than chasing higher salaries in
| the States. I'm just trying to illustrate that there are
| definitely struggles here too and it will very likely be a
| _very_ substantial pay cut to move here and get a job here.
| More substantial than you probably think.
|
| tl;dr: It's very expensive to live here in a lot of ways, our
| salaries don't really compete in a numerical way even before
| factoring in exchange rate.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Butter prices are not a good representative of Canadian
| grocery prices. Canada has a really stupid milk quota
| system making milk, butter & cheese more expensive than
| elsewhere.
|
| But most other groceries are cheaper in Canada than in the
| US. For example, the average cost of a loaf of bread in
| Canada is CAD3.50, in the US it's USD3.50, 33% more
| expensive.
|
| https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-
| living/compare_countries_resu...
|
| Most things are cheaper in Canada than in the US, mostly
| because the average wage is cheaper in Canada than the US.
|
| But the things that are more expensive are the biggies,
| like rent & taxes.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > But most other groceries are cheaper in Canada than in
| the US. For example, the average cost of a loaf of bread
| in Canada is CAD3.50, in the US it's USD3.50, 33% more
| expensive.
|
| I suspect this does not tell the whole story. Sticker
| price is one thing but how often does stuff go on on
| sale, what volume of coupons and other savings are
| readily available?
|
| Maybe I'm completely off base here, but I've discussed
| this quite a bit with my friends who live in the states
| and overall they pay way less than I do for very similar
| items. And it's not some extreme couponing thing, it's
| just "these are buy one get one all the time", which is a
| rare occurrence here.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| It's likely that numbeo gets their data from the official
| inflation basket sources, and those baskets sample
| transactions to get the prices that people actually pay,
| rather than sticker prices.
| tyrfing wrote:
| BLS data states $1.95 for a loaf of bread.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/charts/consumer-price-index/consumer-
| pri...
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I live in downtown Vancouver, and at the expensive market
| downstairs in my building, it's about CAD$2.50?
|
| Also... seems quite some people comparing quality of
| food, and usually US ends up losing. For bread and even
| kit kats
| mattkrause wrote:
| Counterpoint from an American working at an academic
| research job in Montreal.
|
| The gross salary is indeed very low compared to US offers--
| moving to DC would have increased my gross salary by >2.5x.
|
| However, add in various public services. I pay a few
| hundred dollars a year _total_ for my family 's insurance
| and medical care and there's little danger of this suddenly
| changing. Childcare is literally 10x cheaper---and that's
| after very generous parental leave (50+ weeks). Quebec has
| fairly strong protections for tenants, so the rent is
| rising but not wildly. The city is very walkable with solid
| mass transit, so I can walk, bike, or bus to most places,
| insulating me from gas prices. Once you start trying to
| 'buy back' a similar quality of life in a big American
| city, the salary gap is smaller than you'd think.
|
| We're interested in moving back for other reasons (closer
| to family, more exciting jobs, etc) but the economic case,
| butter aside, is not wildly compelling at non-SV salaries.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Yep. People need to look at the whole picture.
|
| An additional subtle one where Canadians are paying less
| than Americans: In many parts of Canada property taxes
| are remarkably low when compared to the USA.
| version_five wrote:
| If it works for you, cool. I live in Montreal and I don't
| see those numbers though.
|
| Healthcare is free but Quebec also has horrible
| healthcare (they seem ok for pregnancy though). And your
| employer would cover that in the US anyway.
|
| Rent has historically been reasonable but is quickly
| getting just as bad as other Canadian cities, and there's
| no availability.
|
| I think we pay $60 / day for daycare, which gets
| subsidized down to ~$30 ish. You paid $300 in the US?
| There is subsidized daycare buy only if you're willing to
| wait forever.
|
| Parental leave is only pays you 50k a year or so out of
| your employment insurance.
|
| I agree that driving in Montreal is so horrible that I
| don't use the car unless I absolutely have to. Some would
| consider that a positive, I don't.
|
| There are some good sides to Montreal in particular
| compared to other Canadian cities and US cities, but it's
| still not the land of milk and honey, and you still
| sacrifice a lot of money for it.
| mattkrause wrote:
| I waited forever for a family doctor, but all of our
| other experiences have been decent, especially once
| you're in the system. "Covered" in the US also rarely
| means 100% coverage: between copays, deductibles, and
| just general run-you-around-until-you-give-up nonsense,
| you usually end up paying something.
|
| Daycare for us is about $15/day (calculator here: http://
| www.budget.finances.gouv.qc.ca/budget/outils/garde-
| ne...). Some of the prices we got for DC in 2021 were
| over $2500/kid-month and they've only gone up, so
| $150/day is indeed in the ballpark.
|
| Driving? Chacun a son gout. I found driving here better
| than DC or Boston, but...yeah, I'm glad I don't do it.
|
| I agree that it's not a land of milk and honey--but
| nowhere else is either.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Montreal and Quebec generally is the exception to the
| rule. You can't compare it to Toronto or Vancouver.
| Quebec has chronically depressed real estate prices, and
| has for decades. It has gone up some, but nothing like BC
| lower mainland and southern ON.
|
| There's all sorts of reasons for this. But bad medical
| services is a big problem in Quebec, along with language
| politics.
|
| I like many things about Quebec, but I wouldn't relocate
| there.
| bovermyer wrote:
| The minimum I would accept is $100k CAD. I currently make
| about $170k USD ($225k CAD), so that's a pretty steep drop
| that I'm willing to deal with.
| dleslie wrote:
| After Federal and Provincial income tax, EI and CPP
| premiums, your net pay at 100k CAD would be 68k in Qc,
| 75k in BC, and 74k in ON or AB. In BC and ON, you'd
| expect to spend 30k on rent; in AB and QC it'll be more
| like 21k.
|
| So after rent and taxes, BC is 45k, ON is 44k, QC is 47k,
| and AB is 53k. Roughly.
|
| Now you've got to pay for food, utilities, and so forth.
| That's probably another 30k. It's easy to spend 2500
| CAD/mo on just food, gas, electrical, insurance,
| utilities and so on. Everything adds up fast.
|
| So really, after all is said and done, you're working
| full time for 15k to 20k CAD a year; or 11k to 15k USD.
| amrocha wrote:
| Your numbers are way off
|
| >30K on rent
|
| Not unless you're living in luxury towers in rich areas.
| A 1 bedroom or a studio will rarely go above 2K, even in
| Vancouver or Toronto.
|
| >2500 on food
|
| If you're cooking, and not being frugal at all, you're
| spending 500 per month at most.
|
| >gas
|
| Canadian cities are walkable and have public transit, you
| don't need a car. If you do need a car where you live,
| then you're likely saving on rent.
|
| >electrical
|
| Electricity is dirt cheap in Canada. Never paid more than
| 60$ even in winter. Other utilities are similar to the
| US, that'll add up to 200-300 dollars.
|
| >insurance
|
| Not a thing. Welcome to modern society, baby.
|
| I'm sure you can spend that much money if you want to,
| but that's a choice to live a certain lifestyle. This
| lifestyle is not necessary.
|
| My first job in Canada I made 53K, 37K after taxes. I
| lived a normal life, studio downtown, going on vacations,
| drinking and eating out, and still managed to save 13000
| dollars in a single year. Later I got a raises to 80K,
| 120K, and eventually 250K, but my (again, definitely not
| frugal!) lifestyle never cost me more than 25 - 30K per
| year.
| dleslie wrote:
| > A 1 bedroom or a studio will rarely go above 2K, even
| in Vancouver or Toronto.
|
| Average price of an unfurnished 1 bedroom in Vancouver is
| well over 2k now.[0]
|
| > If you're cooking, and not being frugal at all, you're
| spending 500 per month at most.
|
| I said food, gas, utilities, electrical, and all the
| other sundries required of living in Vancouver. And 500
| CAD on food was achievable pre-pandemic, but inflation
| hit grocery bills the hardest.
|
| I paid for renter's insurance, and extended medical while
| living in Vancouver. It was worth it, because my storage
| locker was busted into several times by junkies and we
| had things stolen that we later replaced. And, if you
| bike you are potentially liable in accidents. Getting
| insurance if you commute by bicycle is sensible.
|
| > Canadian cities are walkable and have public transit,
| you don't need a car.
|
| Taking Translink will still run hundreds of dollars a
| month.[1]
|
| 0: https://www.vancouverisawesome.com/local-
| news/vancouver-rent...
|
| 1: https://www.translink.ca/transit-fares/pricing-and-
| fare-zone...
| amrocha wrote:
| Average price includes luxury places. Spend a couple
| weeks searching and you won't pay the average.
|
| Inflation, sure, it's still not gonna be more than 700$.
| My 500$ figure is literally from 2022.
|
| Rent insurance is 30$ per month, anything else is
| optional and your choice and also not that expensive.
| That does not add up to 2500 per month.
|
| And yeah, I know transit costs money, just get a pass.
| Work pays for it, and if they don't you can deduct it
| from your taxes.
| dleslie wrote:
| There isn't enough luxury stock across the whole of Metro
| Vancouver to meaningfully inflate the mean above the
| median. Looking at New Westminster, the cheapest I see
| now are all private rooms in someone's suite. Most units
| are well above 2k.[0]
|
| Utilities includes heat and hot water, electrical, home
| internet, cellular, gym memberships, and so on. I suppose
| if you never turn on the heater, don't have home
| internet, never hit the gym, don't make any calls, don't
| own a car, and only shit at work then you could save a
| bundle, here.
|
| The transit tax credit was eliminated in 2017.[1]
|
| 0: https://rentals.ca/new-
| westminster?bbox=-123.08659,49.11473,...
|
| 1: https://turbotax.intuit.ca/tips/deducting-the-cost-of-
| your-p...
| version_five wrote:
| Most of this is either a very atypical experience or just
| made up. And obviously is from the perspective of a kid
| on his own for the first time. Being able to spend most
| of your money on renting a bachelor apartment and not
| afford a car doesn't sound too appealing for most adults.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Keep in mind that I have done my own research and am
| aware of the numbers I'd be looking at. They disagree
| with your numbers.
|
| For one thing, I don't plan on living anywhere near one
| of the big cities.
| [deleted]
| dleslie wrote:
| That really is a YMMV outcome, then.
|
| Ie, Nanaimo was once a small town in central Vancouver
| island, with low rents and cheap housing. It's now one of
| the fastest growing cities in Canada[0] and has some of
| the highest rents and fastest growing rents in BC[1].
|
| Really, here in Canada the situation is changing _fast_.
| What may have seemed a reasonable market a year ago could
| have collapsed into unaffordability by now.
|
| Also, as a resident of Nanaimo: be prepared not to have
| access to Health Care. As a new resident you won't get a
| family doctor, and the _single_ walk-in clinic stops
| taking patients early in the morning. The ER is your only
| option, and often it only has one attending doctor.
|
| This is similar throughout BC outside of Victoria and
| Metro Vancouver. In no small part because of people like
| yourself, who are avoiding immigrating to the big cities;
| but also because of people fleeing the cities.
|
| 0: https://nanaimonewsnow.com/2022/02/09/nanaimo-
| population-jum...
|
| 1: https://nanaimonewsnow.com/2022/12/14/rent-prices-in-
| nanaimo...
| [deleted]
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| That's fair, just be aware that it's not just a salary
| drop, it's likely higher income taxes (depending where
| you're from) and expenses too. Canada has some of the
| highest telecom prices in the world for instance.
|
| There's still a lot to like about Canada. I grew up here
| and didn't leave, so I'm not saying don't come here.
|
| Just making sure you don't get here and are shocked that
| not only do you make way less, what you do make doesn't
| buy as much either.
| somerandomqaguy wrote:
| Eh, take it for what it is but when I was in QA, my
| salary was $52,000 CAD for 9 years of experience. That
| included doing a lot SDET and customer integration work
| as well. And that was with a Canadian tech company.
|
| You can probably do better but kind of gives you an idea
| about how big a US vs Canadian gap can get.
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think you do not know how badly the housing gand healthcare
| crisis in Canada is right now. But you do you!
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| Please say why? I thought about moving to Italy but taking a
| 40% income loss to taxes seems insane to me. Canada is pretty
| much the same. I'd rather move to Georgia or Indiana.
| [deleted]
| FalconSensei wrote:
| You could also ask yourself about the quality and type of
| life you would have. Do you prefer your life in Indiana, or
| Italy?
|
| For me it's a no-brainer that it would be Italy. Not much
| interest on living in the US, unless I was a millionaire.
| moneywoes wrote:
| We'll check out the express entry program you'll be welcome
|
| However, I'd read up on the healthcare shortage and high
| housing costs first though
| bovermyer wrote:
| I'm already in the Express Entry system. My CRS score is
| much lower than that of a student or someone with work
| experience in Canada, though, so the odds of me getting a
| draw are very low.
|
| I'm already aware of the healthcare issues and the housing
| costs. I have a region picked out that mitigates some of
| that.
| RobertDeNiro wrote:
| Keep in mind the COL in Canada is often higher too. So its
| pay cut + higher COL. Most Canadians can't afford to buy
| homes.
| brewdad wrote:
| Most Americans, who don't already own a home, can't afford
| to buy a home either.
| Fervicus wrote:
| Why?
| bovermyer wrote:
| There are things I value more than money.
| Fervicus wrote:
| I am curious what those things are and why you think
| you'll get them in Canada and not in the US.
| bovermyer wrote:
| Fewer fascists, for one thing.
| xyzelement wrote:
| Why haven't you?
| bovermyer wrote:
| I'm trying. The difficulty is in the Canadian immigration
| bureaucracy, not the availability of jobs.
|
| These changes announced yesterday will make it much easier
| for me.
| bentlegen wrote:
| Do you have any evidence suggesting record numbers?
|
| Canada's official numbers do show that Q3 2022 was a record
| high for emigration (16.5k -- Q3 2018 was 15.5k), but other
| recent quarters (Q4 2022, Q1 2023, etc) are still lower than
| prior years. And you have a significantly higher population now
| than back then.[1]
|
| [1]
| https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=171000...
| hg35h4 wrote:
| You are only looking at one small part. Total immigration
| affecting housing & jobs are regular immigrants + temporary
| foreign workers + students (who often also work and have had
| most work restrictions removed). Each group also has their
| own path to citizenship. Our government is unfortunately
| targeting >500,000 per year even though housing cannot catch
| up. When people have kids they take almost 20 years to need
| their own space, direct adult immigration like this takes a
| housing unit away from an already tight market.
| RobertDeNiro wrote:
| I wonder how remote works factors into this. I know a few
| Canadians with US jobs that stayed here because the corporate
| policy now allows them to work remotely.
| dontwearitout wrote:
| It's very bad for tech in particular. This is a bit dated,
| but ~84% of Waterloo grads jump ship to the US
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25911922). Put another
| way, it's a roll of the dice chance that a graduate stays in
| Canada.
| bentlegen wrote:
| That linked report says that 84% of _Software Engineering_
| Waterloo grads, from the class 2020, _intended_ or desired
| to move to the US (it 's unclear if they actually did --
| the poll was completed June 2020).[1]
|
| A very important detail here is that Software Engineering
| is a specific specialization under the Engineering faculty.
| This figure does not include Computer Science graduates,
| for example, as that is a separate and much larger
| department.
|
| So, this is a poll of 87 students (out of ~107) of a very
| specific graduating class. To put this in perspective, the
| Computer Science department at Waterloo is 4,000
| undergraduate students.[2]
|
| I'm not refuting that Canadian graduates often look to the
| US for better employment opportunities (full disclosure: I
| did that), but I think we owe ourselves to look at this
| topic objectively.
|
| [1] https://uw-se-2020-class-profile.github.io/profile.pdf
| [2] https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/about/quick-facts
| ArtemZ wrote:
| I'm struggling to land _any_ software engineering job for the
| last 6 months, even though I 'm a permanent U.S resident and have
| 10 YOF and actively applying for jobs every day. I can only
| imagine how hard it must be now for H1B holders...
| seydor wrote:
| It's nice to see the competition for immigrants but wish we would
| see more of it in europe
| idontwantthis wrote:
| I can't imagine the stress of being H1-B. I know for a fact I
| just couldn't handle it, so I admire anyone who is willing and
| able to take it on to better their life and their family's. If I
| weren't American I wouldn't have the guts to try. It's insane how
| they are treated; both for their own and for America's wellbeing.
| [deleted]
| piloto_ciego wrote:
| This is a hot take and might rule some people up, but... Canadian
| Immigration policy is often racist, ableist, and just generally
| bad.
|
| The US's policies are effectively worse in my opinion but the
| Canucks are often a bit short sighted with this sort of thing.
|
| The people support immigration... but they elect leaders who
| enact laws that make it really hard.
| Kranar wrote:
| What is racist about it?
| renewiltord wrote:
| The important thing to remember, for immigrants, is the power of
| unions. If tech workers unionize, the opinions they espouse will
| be like these from this thread, which I will quote below. Once
| they unionize they will have power. Once they have power, they
| will act on what they say they want here. Read the AFL's (largest
| union in the US) arguments against immigration[0] and you will
| see many of those below mirrored there. This what software unions
| will want. This is what they will push for. If you join them and
| give them power, you will find yourself suddenly on the outside
| in the cold. There is a thing Americans say which I like: "When
| someone tells you who they are, listen".
|
| They will talk about how you reduce their wages
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36511005
|
| > _Artifactually (sic) increasing the supply of workers
| suppresses wages._
|
| They will consider you bad for "regular citizens".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36510490
|
| > _So, that means inflation and it is bad for the regular
| citizens._
|
| Your existence will devalue their education
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505802
|
| > _Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you
| are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from
| underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc
| and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in
| education._
|
| "Getting rid" of you will be considered a good idea
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506071
|
| > _I think US will benefit in the long run getting rid of these
| h1bs._
|
| You won't be considered to have "original values"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36505919
|
| > _People of often having a cultural, religious and moral
| background completely different to more-or-less original value
| Canadians? How will that work?_
|
| 0:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_policies_of_Americ...
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| This is a drop of water in the ocean. However I hope those people
| have great lives in Canada, it's an awesome country.
| sremani wrote:
| Canada eating America's lunch is something that I have heard
| multiple times in past 20 years. There was a time where YC took
| pitches in Vancouver or something perhaps a decade or so ago. I
| do not know if they are still continuing this.
|
| At the end of the day, the immigration is only part of it. The
| economics of being Software developer compared to US or India are
| not that great (in general). That is where Canada in my humble
| opinion should focus.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| True I think Bangalore beats Canada on software developer
| salaries. Bangalore in fact beats most of the world except
| Silicon Valley and NYC.
| spandrew wrote:
| I have two of these individuals on my team -- who had to leave
| due to the harsh rules around the H-1B visa. During the Trump
| administration the backlog for processing these was molasses and
| I picked up two very talented individuals who have since gone on
| to become very high-functioning team mates.
|
| Good idea.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I wonder what is the sentiment of complete abolishment on the
| Visa regime. Just plain background check for security maybe, and
| let everyone who wants in. Maybe keep the social programs for the
| citizens but let whoever wants to work, work. IMHO it's
| ridiculous to have the bureaucracy as the first step in
| employment, people shouldn't be asking bureaucrats for permission
| to work.
|
| Edit: Can you please also write why you don't like the idea? Are
| you worried about competition? About culture? About something
| else?
|
| Edit2: Wow, I wasn't aware of how much people love restrictions
| on working and traveling. Please tell me, I want to know your
| thinking behind this, maybe you are right about it?
| causality0 wrote:
| I agree we (North Americans) need more, easier, and smoother
| immigration, but I see no reason we shouldn't limit it to
| people who will make the lives of our citizens better by being
| here. "You are what you eat" applies to countries as well.
| mrtksn wrote:
| How do you know who makes it better and who makes it worse?
| The government officials who issues the visa? Some kind of
| test? Something else?
| causality0 wrote:
| No doubt it's a difficult problem. Personally I would start
| with more straightforward measures such as a zero tolerance
| policy for violent crime. If someone commits a violent
| crime of any sort in their adopted country before achieving
| citizenship they should be swiftly and permanently
| deported.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Why not deport those who are citizens but commit crimes
| too?
|
| See, the problem with punishment which is different for
| one group than the other is that you create an artificial
| subclass. You chose "violent crime", which sounds
| reasonable but someone can say any crime or even a
| parking ticket should result in deportation.
|
| So let's consider that the politics in your country have
| turned very divisive and immigrants are protesting
| together with the citizens against something - should the
| immigrants be able to protest? What if the protests are
| considered illegal? What if the protest are legal but at
| the heat of it some people throw stones and maybe even
| injured some law enforcement officers. Is it O.K. to have
| a slap at the wrist for some of the protestors and life
| changing deportation to the immigrants?
|
| I don't say it's easy and there are easy answers, it's
| just that I really don't like the artificial borders and
| I think it's worth paying the price of a transition
| period to get a global society where people are not
| divided like work cattle and are treated as individuals
| regardless of their nationality.
| causality0 wrote:
| The citizens own the country and the non-citizens do not.
| If I burn a car I own in my front yard I'm probably going
| to get a ticket for improper disposal or some such. If
| someone else burns my car in my front yard they're going
| to jail.
|
| There isn't much point in debating border policy with
| someone who doesn't believe in borders. Believing in the
| greatest good for the greatest number of people fullstop
| is a respectable philosophical stance but it isn't one to
| which I subscribe.
| mrtksn wrote:
| No one owns countries, these are political structures
| that often come and go but the people stay even when the
| country is gone. It is OK to restructure those.
| stcroixx wrote:
| People with from countries with low standards of living would
| simply undercut the market, destroying it for citizens. This
| already happens to some degree with the visa, but without it,
| the entire would would rush to the highest paying country, push
| wages down until there's a different country paying more, then
| move there, repeat.
|
| If a country doesn't prioritize the interests of it's citizens,
| who will?
| mrtksn wrote:
| This sounds awfully lot like artificially creating a shortage
| and this artificial shortages can seem to benefit those who
| create it but on the grand scale it is bad for the society as
| a whole because it simply means a suboptimal market.
|
| At first, I agree that an adjustment period will be needed
| but this is only because current we have artificial market
| borders and it will eventually stabilize.
|
| There's nothing wrong with someone else takes someones job by
| providing greater value, be it by doing it for cheaper or
| doing it better. In other words, if Albanian window cleaners
| end up driving the Canadian window cleaners out of business,
| Canada will end up with better cleaned windows or more money
| to spend on something else than window cleaning. The Canadian
| window cleaners will need to adapt but the world will be a
| better place, except for some of the Canadian window cleaners
| who used to overcharge thanks to the artificial market
| forces.
| stcroixx wrote:
| It is bad for society as a whole - it prioritizes the
| interests of citizens of one country. That's all countries
| are - groups of people competing against each others. There
| are winners and losers. I'm fine with this. It allows
| countries the freedom to run things according to their
| values and sink or swim accordingly.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Why don't you limit other subgroups for your advantage?
| Women used to be like that but it's not cool anymore.
| People from certain race used to be limited for the
| advantage of another race but it's not the case anymore.
| Why just don't drop all these shenanigans and adopt a
| meritocracy? A meritocracy will yield a much better
| society where you won't need to be from the privileged
| class to have a good life.
| stcroixx wrote:
| That would go against the majorities preference within my
| country where everyone is equal under the law. Other
| groups of people in other places may feel differently in
| their sovereign nations. There is no global authority
| here to resolve these kinds of disputes or impose it's
| will on those nations.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > everyone is equal under the law
|
| Apparently not. If that was the case, you would have
| equal punishment for equal crimes.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Sovereign countries can set their visa (and citizenship and
| work eligibility) requirements.
|
| I'm not aware of any that have chosen fully open borders,
| mostly because that's not in the interest of the citizens and
| residents of the country.
|
| Edit in response to P's edit: if the country I'm in has a good
| balance of labor, jobs, and related resources, and is therefore
| a great place to live, what's the incentive to open our borders
| to everyone and risk upsetting that balance with no way to turn
| off the tap?
| mrtksn wrote:
| I don't say that they can't do that.
|
| What I say is, they shouldn't be doing it and any person
| anywhere in the world should be free to travel, live and work
| anywhere in the world. I'm curious about your argument
| against that.
| have_faith wrote:
| What about all of the negative effects of masses of people
| attempting to move somewhere that hasn't prepared for their
| arrival? (Energy, sewage, public transport, healthcare,
| housing, etc). How are these things planned if movement is
| completely free and fluid?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Why do you assume that people who can build sewage or
| public transport or houses or provide healthcare wouldn't
| move to the place where everyone wants to move to?
|
| My answer is that the demand will provide its supply.
| tokai wrote:
| >My answer is that the demand will provide its supply.
| You have no definitive proof that this is actually the
| case.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I have a proof though, there's this country called The
| United States of America, where almost everyone is an
| immigrant and they live in a prosperous country.
| Immigrants turned into builders, doctors, scientists,
| engineers, artist and many more!
| have_faith wrote:
| This isn't an argument for open borders, just that some
| level of immigration is beneficial (it is).
|
| Americas brief history of "free immigration" is also
| littered with atrocities.
|
| I don't think you can use an immature country (beginnings
| of USA) and use it as a template for a mature country
| (current day USA). Doesnt America already struggle with
| the level of immigration it currently receives, why would
| fully open borders improve this situation?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Visa and restrictions on freedom of movement are pretty
| new thing though. I don't think the history can be used
| as an argument for visa regimes. Visa regimes are also
| littered with atrocities, have you heard of the immigrant
| boar that sink last week? I'm not talking about the
| billionaire submarine.
| have_faith wrote:
| > restrictions on freedom of movement are pretty new
| thing though
|
| So is how easy it is for anyone in the world to move to
| anywhere else in the world within 24 hours. The
| situations and their outcomes are difficult to compare.
|
| People want restrictions because of a long list of
| concerns with open borders. This seems to be the
| prevalent view in every country in the world (are there
| outliers?).
|
| Do you not see the concerns that people have with open
| borders as valid?
| mrtksn wrote:
| Restrictions were put in place mostly in the beginning of
| the century during the WWI. It wasn't "we have trains,
| let's restrict who can work where" thingy, it was a war
| thingy.
|
| EU was able to abolish those restrictions to great
| benefit and is trying to make it check-free through the
| Schengen agreement. It's Romania and Bulgaria who still
| need to show passports and this creates great friction at
| the borders but hopefully, this will be no longer the
| case by the end of the year.
|
| In the United STATES of America, people are free to work
| and travel any any state and notice that people don't
| simply flock to the richest one.
|
| I agree that sudden removal of the borders will create
| serious issues but this is only because there are borders
| at first place. The situation will stabilize and you
| won't see 8B people moving to Canada, 8B people moving to
| USA, 8B people moving to Germany, 8B people moving to UK.
| sokoloff wrote:
| People in literally every nation appear to disagree with
| your position, at least as expressed in their border
| policies.
|
| If your position were the majority opinion, some nation
| somewhere would be trying it.
|
| For me personally, I think that the US would be a
| substantially less appealing place for those I care about
| if our population doubled to 700M. With open borders, we
| couldn't prevent that.
|
| Do I support more immigration of high-skilled, highly
| educated people and their families? Absolutely. Do I
| support open borders? Absolutely not.
| mrtksn wrote:
| They can disagree, about 50 years ago UK was castrating
| gay people and even castrated Alan Turing and at the same
| time the black people were very limited on what can and
| can't do in the USA.
|
| I simply don't see an argument here. Just because that's
| how it is now, doesn't mean it should continue to be the
| way it is. It's not even that old of a tradition, Some
| 100 years ago people were able to move and work wherever
| they like.
|
| So you support particular kind of people come to your
| country, do you support deportation of people who are
| born in your country but don't meet the standards you
| impose on the immigrants?
| sokoloff wrote:
| I don't support deporting citizens (and neither does US
| nor international law).
|
| My support for high-skilled/highly-educated immigrants is
| based on a nakedly selfish desire to have those
| immigrants improve the global competitiveness of my
| country, in order to make it continue to be a great place
| for my children and grandchildren to live. I assume other
| countries are making the same selfish calculations,
| resulting in similar policies.
|
| Feel free to call my policy preferences selfish; I
| already have and will agree with you.
| mrtksn wrote:
| > I don't support deporting citizens
|
| Why not? If they are substandard, why keep them there?
| What's the difference between them and the people you
| would like to keep out?
|
| I'm not calling you anything. I'm trying to understand
| you.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Citizens have, by definition, a right to enter and reside
| in their country of citizenship.
|
| I see a difference in kind between denying someone a
| right and failing to grant someone else a privilege.
|
| (You are the only one calling them sub-standard, by the
| way.)
| mrtksn wrote:
| We can rewrite definitions, don't worry too much about.
|
| I guess your motivation of keeping substandard immigrants
| out but substandard locals in doesn't come only from your
| desire to stick to the definitions, am I right? Because
| if that's your worry, it's very easy to resolve it by
| changing the definition through a legislative process.
| sokoloff wrote:
| The policies don't emerge from the definitions, but
| rather the definitions emerge from the policies.
|
| Changing the definitions and expecting the policies
| (which are the expressed will of the people in
| democracies or of the leaders in autocracies) to change
| is folly.
| mrtksn wrote:
| So, why do you want to keep the substandard immigrants
| out and substandard citizens in, if it's not about
| satisfying the definitions?
| sokoloff wrote:
| It's a policy choice. I believe that people born in a
| country have a 100% right to live in that country while
| someone not born there does not have that same right.
|
| We happen to call the former group "citizens" and there
| are other paths to citizenship in most countries, but
| that word is merely a shorthand for "a person with a non-
| revocable right to live in a country". If you change
| citizen to mean something else or change non-citizen to
| mean that, new words will emerge to mean specifically the
| difference in that right and we'll switch to using that
| word.
|
| Separately, the decision of whom to extend the privilege
| of entry or working to non-citizens is based on whom the
| population (in democracies) thinks will make the country
| better. If you're picking your team to compete on a
| global stage, why wouldn't you allow the brightest and
| most educated to come join your team?
|
| You appear to disagree on my initial premise that people
| born somewhere have more rights to be there than others
| who weren't. I respect your right to hold your opinion. I
| also reserve my right to hold my opinion.
| mrtksn wrote:
| This is yet another "it is the way it is because it is
| the way it is" argument. I will leave it here.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It is the way it is because it is the way the citizens of
| countries want it to be.
|
| That's unsurprising that that would be stable over long
| periods of time.
| 1over137 wrote:
| >and let everyone who wants in
|
| That could be _a lot_ of people. Canada is (I think
| objectively) a better country to live in that most of our
| planet (alas). Very many would jump at that offer. Where would
| they live? There is a housing shortage. Their health care would
| cost taxpayers a lot (universal healthcare is considered a
| right and source of pride in Canada).
|
| Basically, it would be too much of an increase, too fast. It
| needs to be spread over decades.
| mrtksn wrote:
| Maybe house builders and doctors can come too if there's a
| demand for it? Maybe the new comers can pay for housing and
| healthcare like everyone else(taxes, insurance etc.)?
|
| In short there could be some problems but at some point it
| will stabilize and the would will become a meritocratic
| place.
| nirav72 wrote:
| >Maybe house builders and doctors can come too if there's a
| demand for it?
|
| Having a large pool of house builders isn't going to
| suddenly solve new home supply problems or make homes
| affordable. That is a far more complex problem and simply
| having a readily available skilled labor force will not
| solve.
| 1over137 wrote:
| >Maybe house builders and doctors can come too if there's a
| demand for it? Maybe the new comers can pay for housing and
| healthcare like everyone else(taxes, insurance etc.)?
|
| I think you are maybe missing the scale of my point. Canada
| is a country of 40m people. There are 8000m people on this
| planet. If we "let everyone who wants in" in, then the
| country's population could double if just 0.5% of the
| planet thought Canada was a better place than they are in
| already. There are easily that many such people.
|
| You think housing stock can be doubled? You think there are
| jobs for a doubling of population? On what time scale? Like
| I said already, it needs to be spread over decades.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I think you are overestimating the demand for moving to
| Canada. I'm sure it's a nice place and works for people
| who like that climate and culture but I never considered
| moving there. There are many nice places in this huge
| world, the fear of having 8B people moving into canada is
| baseless.
| alach11 wrote:
| It's always funny to me to see the hypocrisy of HN on immigration
| policy. Low-income workers to clean our buildings, pick our
| crops, and receive more in taxes than they pay? Bring 'em in!
| High-income workers to drive America's tech industry success and
| pay way more in taxes than they receive? They're taking our jobs!
|
| While I'd argue we need both, the latter is clearly better for
| the nation, considering our skyrocketing debt.
| SonOfKyuss wrote:
| It's easier to have sympathy for immigrants who are starving
| and dying trying to make it here and then demonized and used as
| a political punching bag if they do make it.
| ta889988 wrote:
| [flagged]
| BizarreByte wrote:
| So I can expect a mass influx of new workers and probably a
| lowering of my income/benefits over the next few years I guess?
| have_faith wrote:
| Depends on if there's a lot of demand currently not being
| fulfilled. You'd expect wages to go down if new workers flooded
| a market already operating in a sense of "equilibrium" for lack
| of a better word. I don't know what the case is in Canada
| though.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| You can expect an influx of companies taking advantage of a
| base of talent. That's why startups pay SV rent.
| BizarreByte wrote:
| > You can expect an influx of companies taking advantage of a
| base of talent.
|
| We have been promised this time and time again in Canada, but
| it seemingly never comes to fruition. Call me cynical, but I
| don't foresee it working out like that.
| ricardobayes wrote:
| Maybe, but you can expect a lot of new businesses being opened
| too. You would never dream of starting your company on a H-1B
| but with a blanket work permit you absolutely will.
| deskamess wrote:
| "I respect myself too much to stay in Canada" was an article that
| got a lot of traction.
|
| https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/06/11/i-respect-mys...
|
| Just remember, Canada is geographically situated near the US but
| their attitudes to innovation, risk taking, rewarding talent, and
| merit based promotion are not the same. Even if they say that it
| is - the reality is very different.
| fidotron wrote:
| A cynic might be tempted to believe the purpose of the population
| is to work in almost but not quite well paid jobs in specific
| geographic locations where the only option is to rent at
| hilariously high prices, coincidentally from the law makers,
| while providing tax revenues to support the actual productive
| enterprise that is the government. But cynicism gets you nowhere.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Being an immigrant is stressful. period.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Terrible talent swap, bad deal for Canadians.
|
| Graduates from Canadian universities, who had their tuition
| subsidized by the Canadian taxpayer, can easily go straight south
| to the US under TN-1 NAFTA VISA and immediately obtain
| compensation sometimes 2-3x local rates.
|
| Meanwhile we'll bring in skilled immigrants who couldn't make it
| in the US immigration system. And drive down the wages even
| lower. Making it even less likely for local grown talent to stay.
|
| Race to the bottom, and it will do nothing for the quality of
| work done here.
| sashank_1509 wrote:
| As someone who's on H1b this whole effort by Canada seems
| pointless and I don't understand the rationale behind framing
| this law.
|
| H1b comes through a lottery. This year less than 10% got through
| the lottery (mostly because Indian consultancy scams that US govt
| is trying to crack down on but mostly won't). Even in good years,
| a good 50% don't get through the lottery. If you complete your
| masters in US, you get 3 shots at the lottery after which you
| have to leave the country (Called the STEM OPT extension). If you
| pass through the lottery you are mostly set for life in US. If
| you're not from India or China, you just need to find a company
| to apply for your green card and then get in in 3 yrs (All of big
| tech will apply for your green card). If you are from India and
| China you will have a long waiting line, Indians in particular
| might have a 100 yr waiting line because of the massive amount of
| recent immigration. Even then your H1b lasts a total of 9 yrs,
| after which you can apply for green card and then get an EAD
| while waiting for your green card, which basically ensures you
| can stay in the country and work as long as your green card is
| processing. This situation is a bit stressful, because if your
| green card processing has issues and you get a reject, you have
| to instantly leave the country on EAD (your life is uprooted) but
| by this you are either 100% committed to living here or you're
| gonna leave (a lot I'd estimate 50% leave back to India)
|
| Which brings me to my puzzlement regarding this law. The main
| bottleneck is the H1b lottery, I would guess easily a good 30-40%
| of Indians leave unable to get past the lottery and that number
| is increasing. Canada is also giving choice to those who went
| past the lottery. But if I went through the lottery, why would I
| ever consider going to Canada? No offense, but US salaries are
| easily double, and even higher the higher you climb, there's no
| comparison really. And if Canada is trying to maintain quality of
| immigrants, the H1b is literally a lottery, a member of Google or
| an Indian outsourcing sweatshop like TCS have the exact same
| chance of getting through (and TCS applies way more for H1b) so
| this isn't even a great quality filter. By my prediction, this
| won't do anything to attract immigrants from US, because those
| who made it through H1b are not going to leave except to maybe
| return back to their home country. US is simply too good pay
| wise, and then on top of that most of the country is very
| welcoming to immigrants.
| [deleted]
| SEJeff wrote:
| FWIW, Canada did something fairly similar with laws / incentives
| regarding filming whereas California became outright hostile
| towards the movie industry. That is why so many shows and movies
| are now filmed (believe it or not) in Canada and not in the US.
|
| https://reviewed.usatoday.com/canada/streaming/features/best...
|
| https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?locations=Canada
|
| The US is losing out on a lot of tax revenue because of poor
| policies disincentivizing an entire industry.
| version_five wrote:
| Or the Canadian government is wasting a lot of money
| subsidizing an industry. It's not clear to me which is correct
| but I know many of our industries are effectively pretend and
| bought with government money
| SEJeff wrote:
| Hollywood has been spending literally over a billion USD
| equiv a year in "Hollywood North" aka Canada since around
| 2006. It creates thousands of local jobs and has a lot of
| follow on effects.
|
| This was more or less the culmination of super-NIMBY
| California folks making an entire industry pick up and move
| due to hostilities.
| version_five wrote:
| So, is it a net benefit or not?
| ameminator wrote:
| This is actually a terrible deal in disguise. According to recent
| reports (which I don't have on hand at the moment), over 70% of
| immigrants to Canada are under employed or under utilized. While
| the federal government controls how many immigrants, the
| provinces control certification and expert recognition. This
| means that foreign-trained doctors (as an example) can easily get
| a federal visa to enter the country, but the province will refuse
| to recognize their medical training, forcing these skilled
| immigrants to work low-skill jobs instead. It is not rare to find
| foreign-trained engineers working as taxi-drivers or for PhD-
| holders to be slinging coffee.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't think programs like these will have any
| beneficial impact until Canadian society can fix its abysmally
| low productivity (and productivity growth) as well as the severe
| under-utilization of skilled immigrant labor. All this will
| accomplish is exacerbate the housing crisis in metropolitan areas
| and further expose Canada's extremely poor economic performance -
| expected to be the _absolute_ lowest in the OECD in upcoming
| years.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Canada educates a lot of technical and medical workers into the
| US every year. There is no "brain-drain" except for the person
| that posted the article FUD.
|
| Keep in mind:
|
| 1. Canada work Visas usually have a 4 month window for you to get
| a position.
|
| 2. The wages are usually much lower than the identical US
| position (after currency conversion)
|
| 3. The incremental income taxes are relatively high
|
| 4. After a few months stay, you will be taxed on residency, and
| not nationality. If you have US citizenship, than you will still
| have to report in your home state as well (usually it is
| whichever is greater that is applied).
|
| 5. After several months stay, you can apply for a Medical
| Services Plan. Note, if you develop some issue while awaiting the
| provincial coverage it is common they will back date coverage.
| However, it is still highly recommended you keep your private
| medical/dental insurance during this transitional period.
|
| 6.Housing is expensive, and difficult to find these days. It may
| take some time to find a place if you have a large family.
|
| 7. Do a search to learn about TFSA, RRSP, and CPP. It will help
| you retain your earnings.
|
| 8. Due to the recent stressed medical system over several years,
| it is now rather difficult to find a doctor in some cities. This
| should be dealt with as soon as possible if you require care, as
| it currently takes months to find a GP.
|
| Do feel free to ask questions, as the parts of Canada currently
| not on fire are quite enjoyable. =)
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > 2. The wages are usually much lower than the identical US
| position (after currency conversion)
|
| on the whole I found roughly 40% difference, but usually decent
| benefits.
|
| strong increases in tax brackets mean it's not really useful to
| offer you more money, since the gub'mnt will take more of it.
| meanwhile stock purchase plans or retirement options are
| generous. not great if you don't plan on staying in Canada long
| term.
|
| > 3. The incremental income taxes are relatively high
|
| this, like in the US, will depend on state / province; Quebec
| is the highest, but also offers great bennies, like free or
| low-cost child care / daycare.
|
| > 4. After a few months stay, you will be taxed on residency,
| and not nationality. If you have US citizenship, than you will
| still have to report in your home state as well (usually it is
| whichever is greater that is applied).
|
| you do not have to have a home state as a US citizen. if you
| need a home state, look into PO boxes in states without an
| income tax, like TX, FL, or WA.
|
| > 5. After several months stay, you can apply for a Medical
| Services Plan. Note, if you develop some issue while awaiting
| the provincial coverage it is common they will back date
| coverage. However, it is still highly recommended you keep your
| private medical/dental insurance during this transitional
| period.
|
| this is true. usually you have to be in province for 3 months
| before you can use the provincial healthcare. make sure you
| have private insurance coverage until then.
|
| > 6.Housing is expensive, and difficult to find these days. It
| may take some time to find a place if you have a large family.
|
| not true, generally was easy to find. if you live in the GTA or
| Vancouver you may have to go pretty far out, however. if you're
| looking for something large, cheap, and close -- you're gonna
| be holding your breath for a while.
|
| > 7. Do a search to learn about TFSA, RRSP, and CPP. It will
| help you retain your earnings.
|
| The only real takeaway is that the US IRS hates the TFSA, but
| RRSP are generally okay. The Canadian government will not be
| cool with you adding money to US retirement accounts.
|
| Figure out what an FBAR is, and if / when / why you need to
| file them.
|
| Also look into PFICs and penalties for holding Index funds,
| ETFs, or holding companies. It's not illegal, just a huge PITA
| with expensive overhead.
|
| Taxes will usually be a non-issue since you will subtract your
| Canadian taxes (usually higher) from your US taxes, which will
| result in little to no taxes; capital gains can get messy
| though. But you still have to file, and you probably want a
| cross-border specialist if you're north of 100k USD.
|
| > 8. Due to the recent stressed medical system over several
| years, it is now rather difficult to find a doctor in some
| cities. This should be dealt with as soon as possible if you
| require care, as it currently takes months to find a GP.
|
| Did not ever have any problems in Calgary, Vancouver, or
| Edmonton; can't speak to the eastern parts of the country. Care
| will also be different if you're in a big city, 2nd tier city,
| or small town, and often not in the ways that you think.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| > If you have US citizenship
|
| then it doesn't apply to this case, since H-1B visa holders are
| on this vis because they are not citizens
| arroz wrote:
| Laid off canadian work permit holders don't have access to open
| work permit in canada
|
| Meanwhile, laid off US work permit holders do if they move to
| canada
|
| Wtf? This is so fucking stupid
|
| Not only this, but Canada is already having issues with their own
| laid off people and their own housing bubble
| jxi wrote:
| Creating new avenues for immigration is one way to try to plug
| the housing bubble problem (fresh new capital flowing in).
| Problem is I don't think it will work, and they'll instead
| attract even more extra mouths to feed and bring further social
| problems.
| manojlds wrote:
| > Canada has launched a bid to attract techies working in the USA
| on the notorious H-1B visa, by offering them the chance to move
| north.
|
| If I move from Seattle to Toronto, I am going south.
| lordloki wrote:
| Yet still entering a colder climate.
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Why is Canada rushing all these visa initiatives? They've
| experiencing sizable issues with fraudulent student visas
| (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-64988228) which could
| be resolved with something as simple as having universities
| submitting paperwork to the immigration agency. Can they really
| handle reviewing 10,000 more cases on an expedited basis?
| soligern wrote:
| [dead]
| emmanuel_1234 wrote:
| I benefited from a similar program a year ago, and although I
| have no regret, I feel that some honesty might help other.
|
| First and foremost, the Canadian tech scene is nothing like the
| US, Europe, or Asia where I'm coming from. Tech jobs are rare.
| The flagship tech employer is Shopify and they just recently
| downsized.
|
| Second, salaries are garbage, especially for migrants. There is a
| term for this situation called "Canadian Experience": employers
| claim that because one does not have experience working in
| Canada, they deserve a crappy salary while they acquire it. This
| is of course bullshit. It got so bad that it's actually been
| addressed by the government and made illegal, at least in
| Ontario[0].
|
| Finally, the cost of life is absurd, with respect to income. In
| Vancouver or Toronto, rents are completely out of control, and
| buying is out of the question unless you have some serious funds,
| especially with the recent hike in mortgage rate. Price of food
| surged dramatically in the past months as well, and although I
| have a decent job (in terms of distance from the median salary),
| I don't go out nearly as much as I would want because it's too
| damn expensive.
|
| Now, Canada is a great place for normal humans to live in,
| especially with a family, and again I have no regret. But right
| now, it's not a good place to make it in tech.
|
| [0] https://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/policy-
| removing-%E2%80%9Ccanadian-...
| paxys wrote:
| Canadian cities have become as or more expensive than their US
| counterparts but have a _way_ worse employment and salary
| situation. I don 't see how this current environment is favorable
| for immigration. If anything it will make the problem worse.
| Where is the new housing going to come from? Who is going to
| create the new jobs? And if you don't have any jobs for skilled
| immigrants to fill, what exactly are they going to do in your
| country?
|
| And no, don't start with the usual "they will create a new
| Silicon Valley!". That's not how it works.
| mikece wrote:
| Collect welfare (or is it called "social insurance" north of
| the border?).
|
| In actuality I expect there to be a rise in "mid-shoring" of
| technical work to Canada rather than overseas (same time zones,
| less appearance of selling out since it's sending work to
| Canada, not a "real" foreign country).
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| The hardest thing for me to grasp about Canada is the massive
| amounts of government land, which is forests, which can become
| lumber AND to build cheap housing. A McMansion for everybody.
| Aren't many US homes built with Canadian lumber?
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| 1. No there's no room. Many of the existing urban centres are
| pretty much "built out" and no more McMansions for everyone.
| Maybe we could build an apartment for everyone, and a
| townhouse for many. This is the core reason why prices have
| spiked up so much.
|
| 2. There's actually not a lot of lumber. Mills are closing
| and lumber towns are dying.
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/canadian-
| cen... https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2023/01/18/Running-Empty-
| BC-Fore...
|
| 3. People and the courts have come to realize that the
| "massive amounts of government land" are not actually the
| government's to give away. In many cases these lands are
| unceded by indigenous First Nations who are wrestling back
| control of their title and natural resources. All of this
| means that future use of the land is more complex than it may
| seem.
| luxurytent wrote:
| You need to pay for all the supporting infrastructure (roads,
| power, fire services, etc. etc). Not that simple :)
| FpUser wrote:
| They did not say if those wonderful visas can be in time
| converted to permanent residence. Hopefully they would let them
| apply for permanent residence from inside the country while being
| on work permit.
| bonadrag wrote:
| I don't know how this does not exacerbate the housing problem in
| Canada. It's terrible here. I own a rowhouse in a decent
| neighborhood of a middle-sized city in Canada. Prices have
| doubled since 2017. People moving to the same unit as mine have
| Teslas, Mercedes, BMWs. These people are making upwards 200k in
| combined income. The situation is dire here.
|
| My household income sits comfortably in the top 5% earning
| bracket and there is no way we can afford a bigger home even with
| a substantial equity in our current house. We've been looking
| into places 40, 50 minutes outside of the SUBURB we live (not
| downtown) and the prices are slightly lower but not enough to
| justify the move. Tell me how this will happen the situation of
| Canadian families here?
|
| The strategy of pumping immigrants into the system is not
| sustainable. At some point, you need to have a sustainable
| strategy with a TFR > 2.1. We need babies, not immigrants.
| martythemaniak wrote:
| It's almost as if making it expensive (development charges) and
| largely illegal to build housing could result in an increase in
| prices. But yeah, let's blame the bad immigrants and get rid of
| them, they're not good immigrants like yourself.
| bonadrag wrote:
| > It's almost as if making it expensive (development charges)
| and largely illegal to build housing could result in an
| increase in prices.
|
| I don't live in a major city, land is not a problem here,
| building permits is not an issue.
| pixel3234 wrote:
| Increase density. More people per room > more profit > more
| bubble! Cut unprofitable people, around 4% of all deaths are
| from euthanasia.
|
| I really do not understand why people still can have any
| illusions about Canadian government after last 3 years.
| ne0flex wrote:
| Very much agree. I'm a Canadian that moved to the US for better
| career / pay. Working in finance / VC, I thought I'd be able to
| buy a house in Ottawa after a few years. Even making upwards of
| USD $150K + bonus, I can't justify buying a home there to move
| back. My parents purchased a home in Ottawa for ~$250K around
| 2011 and their neighbor recently sold their house for $1.2M.
| Also, Canadian salaries are, for the most part, garbage
| compared to the US. My friend is programmer in the US makes
| almost as much as I do. Meanwhile, his brother is also a
| programmer for the same company but in the Canadian branch,
| doing similar work but his salary is closer to CAD $90K. The
| whole immigration thing in Canada honestly feels like an
| attempt at wage supression. The local Walmart in Ottawa is now
| like 60% Temporary Foreign Workers working the bottom jobs for
| minimum wage, though I guess their visa is tied to employment
| so they're willing to accept some abuse. I wonder what effect
| this no-job, no-worries visa will have.
| lushdogg wrote:
| I made the same misassumption when I moved back to Ottawa.
|
| Got laid off in 2020 during Corona. Jumped ship from private
| to government. Went from 185k US to 120K CAD.
|
| Substantial drop in purchasing power and ability to buy a
| house. I love my country but it feels like it has become
| openly hostile to staying in middle class. Scary stuff. I can
| provide more details if anyone is interested.
| tivert wrote:
| > My parents purchased a home in Ottawa for ~$250K around
| 2011 and their neighbor recently sold their house for $1.2M.
|
| Holy crap, I'm speechless. That's some bubble.
| LegitShady wrote:
| its not a bubble if they keep bringing in half a million
| people per year to keep the pressure on housing and
| healthcare high. As long as you have desperate people
| looking for housing there will be pressure to keep the
| costs up. The government doesn't care because the real
| estate numbers pump up the GDP numbers as they make life
| unlivable for middle class and lower, so the numbers look
| good even if the results are bad.
| refurb wrote:
| Canada never had a housing correction in 2008, despite a
| similar run up in prices like the US.
|
| If you think the recent US bubble is bad, imagine adding it
| on top of the 2008 bubble (minus the crash) and you have
| Canada.
|
| Before the most recent correction in Canada, the average
| sale price in Canada was _double_ that of the US. Let that
| sink in. A country with lower wages, higher taxes, no 30
| year fixed mortgages had an average sale price of _double_
| the US.
| mcast wrote:
| That type of home appreciation happens in larger US real
| estate markets as well, assuming you're willing to put a
| few hundred thousand into renovations. Everything has shot
| up tremendously post-COVID.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Nothing in the U.S. compares to the Canadian housing
| bubble
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I guess because Canada only has like... 6 large cities?
| (1 million+ people)[0]
|
| edit: also... not only a matter of size. But a lot of
| areas in Canada are just way too cold, so ppl just don't
| want to be there?
|
| I'm in Vancouver, lived in Toronto for a year, but I
| don't see anywhere else besides Vancouver that I would
| like as much as here - for the green areas, mountains,
| ocean, and milder winter and summer. Toronto weather is
| bad, either too cold, or too hot.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_po
| pulation...
| dangerwill wrote:
| It's not a function of density, there are plenty of
| incredibly dense cities in Europe and Asia that don't
| have anything like the price inflation of Canada. Canada
| has a) not been building nearly enough housing (same
| story as the US, UK, Australia, NZ, etc) to keep up with
| demand and b) their version of fannie mae/freddie mac is
| fully part of the government instead of a private/public
| thing. In 2008 the Canadian government just allowed
| people to borrow more to keep home prices intact instead
| of the US where there was a big drop as the bottom of the
| market fell out.
|
| And the Canadian government since has continued letting
| people leverage themselves harder and harder so the
| market doesn't dip. That is how modest homes are selling
| for over a million CAD. The US is in the same trajectory
| but with higher salaries and the dip in 2008 we are just
| 5-10 years behind Canada on this.
|
| See also the UK now allowing for mortgages to be passed
| on to the children of the home buyer, so that the term
| length can exceed a human lifetime, so as to not explode
| the monthly payment.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| I'm not saying that's all the reason. But the thing - and
| another commenter mentioned - is that you kinda HAVE to
| live in one of those few cities if you want to work in a
| top company, or don't hate your live because of the
| winter.
|
| Whereas in the US you have way more options.
|
| We are building in Canada, but because of local
| regulations and just the fact that everybody wants to
| live in those few 3 or 4 major cities, it's way more
| difficult. Prices in other cities are WAY more
| reasonable.
| dangerwill wrote:
| Japan has 3x the population of Canada (125 million vs 38
| million). The corridor from Toronto to Quebec is about
| (eyeballing this) 50% of Japan's land area, with the
| greater metro areas of Vancouver, Winnipeg, and Calgary
| probably adding up to another 15-25% of Japan's land
| area. If you had Japanese style land use you could fit
| 2-3x more people in the existing large metro areas of
| Canada
| kneebonian wrote:
| > See also the UK now allowing for mortgages to be passed
| on to the children of the home buyer, so that the term
| length can exceed a human lifetime, so as to not explode
| the monthly payment.
|
| This is horrifying that anyone even considered this. That
| is 100% a straight up return to serfdom. If things get
| that bad I suggest we take a page out of the French
| revolutionaries and the IRA on the proper way to respond.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > This is horrifying that anyone even considered this.
|
| The mortgage can be passed on to children, they aren't
| being forced on them.
|
| My sister got lucky when my dad died that they let her
| assume the mortgage they took out together on their
| house. Not having that option would have been difficult
| for her, because she really wouldn't qualify for one by
| herself, and the payments on the home were less than it
| would be to rent something equivalent.
|
| Actually, why not make this an option: children can
| assume the mortgages of properties they inherit from
| their parents? Because it isn't automatic right now, even
| if they are joint on the mortgage already.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| > See also the UK now allowing for mortgages to be passed
| on to the children of the home buyer
|
| Are you sure that's true? I googled it it and it looks
| like the Johnson Government floated the idea but I can't
| see anything saying it's now a thing. And we've got two
| Prime Ministers since then.
| dangerwill wrote:
| Ah sorry, I remembered the news about this plan but the
| latest is from 2022 so maybe that never got implemented.
| And ha, I once heard someone refer to 2022 as the year of
| the three Prime Ministers
| TMWNN wrote:
| >I guess because Canada only has like... 6 large cities?
| (1 million+ people)
|
| More than that, if you want to get to the top of your
| industry, _all_ major companies (and their jobs) are
| based on Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver (plus Edmonton
| and Calgary for oil /gas). In the US, depending on the
| industry, it's entirely possible to get to the top of
| your field while living in (say) Denver, Dallas, Orlando,
| Charlotte, or Las Vegas.
| [deleted]
| whywhywhydude wrote:
| I wonder why Canadians always look at housing from the demand
| perspective. What about supply? Canada is big. Unless everyone
| is trying to live in Vancouver and Toronto, there is more than
| enough space to build houses. Do you not have enough
| construction workers to build houses?
| bonadrag wrote:
| That is an excellent question.
|
| As usual, there are many factors that contribute to the
| current housing situation. On the supply side, I feel a major
| issue is lack of qualified workers. And I am not sure
| immigration can solve this problem easily unless you are
| prepared to accept lower quality housing. It is not a
| coincidence that specialized trades like electrician, heavy
| machine operators, roofers are not immigrants. The standards
| are higher here. In the developing world, standards are much
| sloppier. So it isn't simply a "plug-and-play" situation.
| There are other issues though. I know that input prices have
| skyrocketed.
|
| To me, the focus on the demand side is becuase it is easier
| to solve whereas the supply issues are more structural.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Are the standards for electricians, heavy machine
| operators, roofers somehow higher than software
| engineering, such that immigrants are more than capable of
| software engineering but apparently not trades?
| theironhammer wrote:
| There's no people in those places in Canada because there's
| no jobs. And the climate is harsh. Canada is not as big as u
| think it is.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Yeah biggest misconception about Canada. It may be the
| second largest country by surface area but an enormous
| majority of all of that land is unsuitable for housing
| development due to either 1) literally being unbuildable
| ie. tundra or sheer mountain or bog 2) enormously more
| valuable for agriculture (ie. all the prairies).
|
| There's places where sure yes it would be technically
| possible to build some new town but it's so cold and
| miserable that no one would want to and there's no local
| economic reason to put such a town in such a far flung
| place. Ultimately we probably will though if the population
| continues to increase at such a pace.
| preommr wrote:
| You don't understand.
|
| There's layers of rot that have created an untenable
| situation. The past few years Canada has become all about
| taking shortcuts and juicing numbers as much as possible. Bad
| decisions and incompetence create a feedback loop where we
| dig even deeper. If we built more houses, it would devalue
| the rest of the housing market - just for a start, it would
| wipe out the retirement plans for millions. It's not going to
| happen. It's a depressing downwards spiral where there is no
| easy exit. Not to mention that Canada wouldn't be able to
| execute that kind of plan because different parts of the
| government are trying to do different things.
| xienze wrote:
| > Unless everyone is trying to live in Vancouver and Toronto
|
| They are, pretty much.
|
| > Do you not have enough construction workers to build
| houses?
|
| I don't think most people understand what's going on with
| Canada. Relative to their population size, the number of
| immigrants they're bringing in is absolutely insane. 500K+ a
| year with no signs of slowing down. And those people all need
| housing TODAY. Canada needs to commit to an absolutely
| massive, never-ending nationwide construction project to keep
| up with demand.
| lushdogg wrote:
| As someone who recently moved back to Canada I echo this.
|
| This is an existential issue.
|
| I own two houses, both mortgages paid, make 150k as a
| family and would need to save for decades to put a down
| payment on a detached home in a far away suburb of Ottawa.
|
| People who didn't own a house a few years ago bought too
| much house for fear of being priced out of the market and
| now their mortgages are coming up for renewal...can't pay
| it so the banks are doing 50-90 year mortgages!!
| tenpies wrote:
| Actually the quarterly numbers came out today.
|
| Year over year, Canada grew by 1.2 million new residents.
| That's 20% higher than Trudeau's already absurdly high
| target of 1 million new residents.
|
| This is an engineered crisis in the making.
| renewiltord wrote:
| The truth of the matter is they're fighting very hard to not
| build anything. In Vancouver, they tried to suppress First
| Nations people's rights to build apartment blocks because
| they didn't want anyone to build homes. It's the same story
| as in California, and they have the same explanations:
| starting with the foreigners and techies, and then going down
| the list.
|
| The fortunate thing is that the First Nations have rights
| over their land
| https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/vancouver-real-
| est...
|
| The unfortunate thing is that others don't.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Lots of people look from a supply perspective. There's
| significant and growing political appetite for broad rezones
| and liberalization of housing rules.
|
| However regardless of near term future policy that would
| enable more home development, interest rate hikes have soured
| the lending environment and caused housing development to
| plunge.
|
| It may well be that we don't have enough construction workers
| too.
| LegitShady wrote:
| People are moving from toronto and vancouver, selling their
| houses there for a million, and then going to other cities
| and overpaying for houses there. That brings up the cost
| across all of canada. On top of the excessive immigration
| that is putting a huge strain on housing and healthcare. It
| has provided a massive upwards pressure on housing prices
| across all of canada.
|
| And no, canada does not have the capacity to build housing at
| the rate immigration is bringing people in. half a million
| per year is a small city each year, mostly going to areas
| where work is available.
| refurb wrote:
| There is plenty of cheap(er) housing in Canada, but everyone
| wants to own a single family home in Vancouver or Toronto.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| I agree with you, but not sure on the conclusion.
|
| The housing problem needs to be addressed if we have more
| immigrant or not. The renting prices doubled in Vancouver, I
| have no idea how people are living there right now, given the
| median income
| rdevsrex wrote:
| Well then you know which party to vote for if that's one of the
| most important issues for you. Or at least, which one not to
| vote for.
| theironhammer wrote:
| There's no one to vote for. All the parties favour lots and
| lots of immigration.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Note that housing is a provincial jurisdiction, so your
| provincial and municipal votes are the ones that matter, not
| your federal votes.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| Sort of, except that the Federal government controls all
| sorts of things that influence housing development, such as
| taxation and significantly contributes to infrastructure
| spending.
|
| When we look at the last time an enormous amount of
| apartments were being built in this country, through the
| 60s and early 70s, the Federal government _was_ deeply
| involved both in directly subsidizing coops and non-profit
| housing and also through tax expenditure which aided market
| housing. There were a great deal of federal tax incentives
| to build market housing, many of which no longer exist.
|
| Basically Chretien got the Feds entirely out of housing
| during the austerity budgets of 1993, housing construction
| plunged for decades and decades and now we seem to somehow
| have an enormous shortage.
|
| The Feds also are in control of Indigenous reserves, so a
| failure to build housing there is their fault.
| Fervicus wrote:
| Sad truth about "democracy" - people keep thinking that the
| other party will fix their problems but it's always more of
| the same. Rinse and repeat.
| bonadrag wrote:
| > Well then you know which party to vote for if that's one of
| the most important issues for you. Or at least, which one not
| to vote for.
|
| No major party that I know of have a coherent strategy to
| solve the housing crisis and the TFR issue. None. They all
| have contradicting ideas embedded in their policies. Usually
| it is a mix of more incentive to own property (e.g.
| incentives to first-buyers, incentive to construction
| companies, etc) while also increasing immigration to record
| levels, what changes is the flavour of immigrants they
| prioritize (different sectors of the economy, more refugees,
| etc).
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| Here is what the article is actually about in case you can't
| decipher it from the title:
|
| _Canada has launched a bid to attract techies working in the USA
| on the notorious H-1B visa, by offering them the chance to move
| north.
|
| The offer, announced on Wednesday as part of the nation's first
| ever tech talent strategy, means H-1B visa holders can move to
| Canada without having a job waiting for them._
| new_user_final wrote:
| If you have American H-1B visa, you can move to Canada to work
| without having a work permit in Canada.
| mabbo wrote:
| These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should be
| desperate to have.
|
| The majority of costs a person will typically have on a country
| are their initial K-12 education, and their health care costs
| later in life. Immigrants like these will never cost the
| government that first major cost.
|
| At the same time, they are far more likely to have higher than
| median salaries when employed. That means higher taxes paid.
|
| So from a purely economic point of view, an H-1B immigrant is a
| perfect profit center for government taxes.
|
| Meanwhile a Canadian who gets their K-12 education here, gets a
| highly government subsidized post-secondary degree, then moves to
| the USA to work and pay taxes there is a huge loss, economically.
| bilekas wrote:
| It's also not a big risk at all as the US has basically already
| vetted them by way of the H-1B visa application. Really it's a
| win win and as you say, minimal cost.
| octacat wrote:
| If we trying to maximize profit for the government - that's
| correct. On another hand, extra people would make extra
| pressure on the housing market (especially well paid
| developers, especially on the overheated market in Canada).
|
| So, that means inflation and it is bad for the regular
| citizens. If before they needed to work forever to afford their
| own housing, now they would have to work even more.
| moneywoes wrote:
| Hmm curious but wouldn't they also suppress wage growth for
| local Canadians as well?
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| No, unless there is a worker shortage which would push up
| wages in the shorter term but reduce the number of jobs in
| the longer term as companies flee to countries that have
| available workers, or implement automation.
|
| Basically there isn't a fixed number of jobs. As you add
| people you need more jobs to provide goods and services for
| those extra people.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Nothing new there.
|
| Wage growth in Canada isn't just stagnant it's terminal.
| Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote:
| You haven't seen terminal wage growth yet. The salaries I
| looked at in Italy are the same of 10 years ago, within a
| 100EUR (sometimes down!)
|
| Disclaimer: I did move to Canada from Italy, one of the
| reasons was the insanely low salaries for IT
| 5440 wrote:
| Man this applies to me. I got an bioengineering degree and had
| to go to the US to find work. I started at $30K in the US and
| now I'm up to over $350K/yr. Would love to come back to Canada
| but the horrible expereince of applying for over 100 jobs and
| no interviews was disheartening.
| extasia wrote:
| 350? What do you do?
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Purely economic points of view were also used to justify
| slavery. Many times with exactly the same arguments that are
| used for labour migration today.
|
| I've heard your arguments time and time again, and sadly most
| people think like this. Even though any economic advantage of
| labour immigration is mostly reaped by big businesses.
|
| A society has failed completely if it depends on abusing
| foreign labour to function. Let's not pretend that they are
| hiring the foreigners because it would be too expensive for
| them to hire locals of the quality they need. You can either
| side with the employers and think that this is great, or you
| could side with the people and think this is wrong.
|
| I was born in a place were the school children are in the
| absolute top of the world in their knowledge as measured and
| awarded by Pisa. And I know from hiring local people, that the
| youth there are smart, hard working and honest. At the same
| time it is a place where the media together with politicians
| and businesses continuously blast out how there is a "shortage
| of competent labour" and that they need more immigrants. The
| truth is of course that they don't want to pay. I think it's
| just audacious to claim there is a shortage of competence, when
| there is nothing wrong with the stock material. There is a
| shortage of willingness to pay a decent salary for labour. And
| there is a fairly high amount of hatred from older generations
| towards younger generations. A hatred that I have never
| understood, but it is there out in the open.
|
| Nobody has the right to cheap labour. If your business cannot
| turn a profit without paying lower than market rate salaries -
| you are simply a failure. You don't go demanding more
| immigrants so you can cut wages. You don't go demanding child
| labour so you can cut wages. You have to improve your business
| or admit that you are a failure and close shop.
|
| No sympathy for businesses and sectors that cannot survive
| without abusing labour. They are not needed.
|
| The talk about expensive education for native children is
| completely false, and just weird. Children are not expensive to
| educate anywhere in the world. Education turns expensive
| because corrupt practices of the governments that administrate
| education. The same government that then turns around and says
| the country needs more foreign labour because their own
| children are too expensive and incompetent.
|
| Let's compare it with a farm. The owner of the farm notices
| that he can get more milk to sell by not letting the calves
| have any milk, letting them die instead. So soon he has no more
| cows and he goes on buying more cows from another farm. "Great!
| These cows start milking right away, no need to feed them for a
| year like I would have to with those annoying calfs"
|
| And so on the farmer keeps milking his cows dry and just buying
| more from his neighbours. All the while people are
| complementing him for what an economic mastermind he is and how
| horrible those calfs where that were just drinking all his
| milk. That is the idea that has taken hold today.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| There is a typo in the text above that I can't edit. Are
| should be aren't in a sentence.
| x3874 wrote:
| > These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should
| be desperate to have.
|
| People of often having a cultural, religious and moral
| background completely different to more-or-less original value
| Canadians? How will that work?
|
| Oh i guess by appeasing everybody to create that multicultural
| society with less & less identity of its own, just the same
| bland globalized aftertaste. The major Canadian cities beside
| Montreal and Quebec are already taken.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| Not a problem, Canada spent a lot of energy ensuring that
| original value Canadians were forcibly integrated into
| European values.
| tivert wrote:
| > Not a problem, Canada spent a lot of energy ensuring that
| original value Canadians were forcibly integrated into
| European values.
|
| Maybe they're feeling so guilty about that they've decided
| to invite in some more colonizers, to experience
| colonization from the other end.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| What is an original value Canadian? Do you mean:
|
| - the primarily French and British traders with First
| Nations?
|
| - the colonizing religiously oriented Europeans that
| committed genocide (forcibly removing all native children
| from their homes & putting them in schools where many died of
| neglect)?
|
| - the over 600 current First Nations governments?
|
| - the refugees Canada took in, from the Underground Railroad
| to the Kosovo genocide to today?
|
| - post World War II Italians, draft-dodging Americans, a huge
| Irish influx, and before all of that Chinese immigration
| (which primarily built the railroads used to this day)?
|
| Btw, what do you consider original Canadian values? Do you
| mean the Chinese exclusion in BC, which has lasted all the
| way into 1947? The genocide against First Nations people? The
| ongoing neglect of missing and murdered First Nations women?
| The significant Ukrainian population (the largest out of
| ukraine)? The generous refugee policy? The anti slavery
| stance which welcomed Underground Railroad refugees? The
| national railroad (from sea to shining sea) built by
| primarily Chinese labor?
| dudeofea wrote:
| By the same arguments, you can reject American original
| values
| hot_gril wrote:
| Well yeah, so what? America already doesn't care a lot
| which cultures the immigrants are from. They just try to
| make it work, uphold the Constitution, and don't overly
| pander to anyone.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| Yeah, I would also look askance of what someone saying
| that they want to retain "American original values" as an
| anti-immigrant sentiment.
| OldManRyan wrote:
| "Original value Canadians" sounds like a dog whistle to me
| but ignoring that, I grew up in a melting pot city and all of
| the different cultures intertwining ends up creating a unique
| culture in itself. LA is different from NYC. Seattle is
| different from Toronto. All of these cities have many
| different types of immigrants co-mingling but none of them
| are the same.
| refurb wrote:
| [flagged]
| symlinkk wrote:
| They don't co mingle though. They segregate themselves into
| "Mexican neighborhoods", "Indian neighborhoods", etc. They
| marry and socialize amongst themselves.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Even if that was true for all immigrants... So fucking
| what really?
| brewdad wrote:
| Ignoring the inherent racism in your repeated use of
| "they", the second generation absolutely joins the
| "melting pot". Say what you will about Texas, I'm not
| sure I've ever encountered more mixed race/mixed culture
| couples than I did during a week spent in Houston. And
| I've lived in at least four different major US metros in
| my lifetime.
| howinteresting wrote:
| And what is your contribution to addressing that? It is
| easy to call entire groups of people "they", but they are
| people to and maybe the rest of society needs to welcome
| them with an open heart before they'll integrate.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I think you're overestimating how sensitive immigrants
| are to this stuff. Comarriage is way more about
| preserving their family culture than it is about finding
| someone accepting. Religion and spoken-at-home language
| will matter.
|
| Sizeable chunks of some immigrant populations simply
| won't melt, which IMO is fine in a place like Canada or
| the US. They'll still work with everyone else, and I feel
| like profession and class are both way bigger dividers
| than ethnicity anyway. A white SWE probably knows more
| Indian SWEs than white janitors.
| howinteresting wrote:
| Religion is somewhat a concern, but it's completely
| dwarfed by issues around the religiosity of non-immigrant
| populations.
|
| Speaking a different language at home is a really good
| thing. Kids are going to pick up English through
| immersion anyway, so they're going to turn out
| bi/multilingual. That's great.
| hot_gril wrote:
| So, most of my extended family is from the Middle East,
| mostly Christian with some Muslim in-laws. My
| understanding is that those immigrant groups are far more
| religious and traditional than the average non-immigrant
| (though less than the extreme parts), which of course I'm
| fine with cause they're my own. But I'm not sure what
| you're expecting from them.
| howinteresting wrote:
| I'm not expecting anything from them! Just pointing out
| that the actual problem with religion in, say, the US, is
| white Christian nationalism, with fundamentalist Islam a
| distant second.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Oh, yeah. But anything that's only 1% won't have much
| effect.
| howinteresting wrote:
| (By the way, I do think immigrants integrating into
| society is a moral good! I'm very left-wing and it's one
| of my most conservative beliefs. But the burden of that
| should be on the hegemonic/native-born population, not on
| immigrant communities.)
| djkivi wrote:
| Our last Prime Minister called them "Old Stock" Canadians.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Eh, democratic values and norms are not universally held
| and essential to the health of a republic. The proper
| question is whether the inbound population is statistically
| different from the native one; in America, I'd argue
| immigrants strengthen our democracy.
| lanstin wrote:
| The people I grew up with in North Carolina are much less
| committed to democratic norms than the immigrants I
| currently live with and among. As well, those "native"
| folks were virulently anti-intellectual and tormented me
| for loving mathematics and working hard to learn
| mathematics and computers, something very few immigrants
| seem to find sensible.
|
| Many immigrants do come in order to work extremely hard
| to gain prosperity for themselves and their families,
| which honestly seems pretty in line with US values, but
| many come explicitly for the culture of freedom, freedom
| to do and think as they choose without having to
| constantly battle neighbors relatives over every little
| thing unconventional thing they want to do. They have
| given up the convenience of living near family, often
| given up the social status of being top in their society,
| for freedom, as embodied in the US culture of fast cars,
| eccentric geniuses, rock and roll, artistic and
| intellectual freedom and expression, and so on. The very
| living avatars of the US thirst for freedom, free of the
| entitlement and fear of hard work that seems to be a
| common outcome for growing up here.
| suggestion wrote:
| Only dogs hear dog whistles. Nice Kafka trap
| anon291 wrote:
| I don't think it's surprising in all this debate about free
| speech on the internet over the last few years, a lot of
| the 'anti-free-speech' enforcers that Americans complain
| about are immigrants. To be frank, some of them like Vijaya
| at Twitter and Sundar Pichai at Google have expressed views
| on free speech (not the legal concept... the social one)
| that rightfully shock most Americans. And yet, when I've
| asked other H1B holders about how they view 'free speech
| rights' (A very basic American value) many of them seem to
| agree that their ought to be legal limits on non-
| threatening political speech! Most are shocked to learn the
| United States has no laws against shocking the public
| conscience (which are common in Asia and Europe).
|
| Being a second-generation immigrant of Indian-American
| parents myself, I see how different the H1Bs are compared
| to my own family. My family left India because we were
| mistreated. Now, the very people that mistreated them are
| coming here and bringing their regressive values with them.
| We value the rights we have in this country because they
| were denied to us in the old country. We honestly need less
| skilled migration, or if we do have skilled migration, we
| need to show that those skilled migrants are from a class
| that is being oppressed in their own country. The last
| thing we need are high-status foreigners with the means and
| social capital to bring their own foreign values. Better to
| have poorer immigrants, like my own family, who adapt to
| the culture. Moreover, those who fled their own country
| don't need to be re-terrorized here.
|
| So many times my dad has been told to basically go to hell
| by other Indian immigrants because we're not the right
| caste. Once we had a wife of coworkers pretend to feel ill
| just speaking to my mother because of the caste difference;
| in professional environments! Hearing white people speak
| about all these things in the abstract is one thing. Having
| them actually play out is another. To come to this country,
| you should have to prove that you were not a racist,
| casteist nutjob in your own country. And realistically,
| many Indians are going to fail that test.
| quags wrote:
| I was about to respond similarly - original Canadian
| (children of past immigrants) may need to deal with an
| influx of immigrants. Immigration has more benefits than
| downsides especially for aging countries with low birth
| rates and the ability to pull highly educated immigrants is
| a net positive for a country and I haven't got to the
| cultural benefits that they bring.
| knome wrote:
| Yes, this sort of poo-pooing of "multicultural society" is
| little more than a racist dog-whistle dressed up in
| language they hope will sneak by those not watching for it.
| inconceivable wrote:
| white people spent 200 years colonizing the world and now the
| opposite is happening.
|
| sorry you weren't born at the right time to be fabulously
| wealthy for no reason, i guess.
| hot_gril wrote:
| I can understand this sentiment in many countries, but Canada
| is in the Americas, where very few families have actually
| been settled for long. So I don't get it.
| nerdchum wrote:
| > People of often having a cultural, religious and moral
| background completely different to more-or-less original
| value Canadians? How will that work?
|
| Most are not interested in western culture, they come here
| specifically for the salary, while maintaining the culture
| and social networks from where theyre originally from.
|
| And there are 1.5 billion Indians and 1.5 billion Chinese
| people.
|
| How that will work is: as they become the dominant culture
| your country will simply become either China west or India
| west.
|
| In America they let the population of an entire state every
| year of immigrants into America.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| > In America they let the population of an entire state
| every year of immigrants into America.
|
| Caveat: there are some states so sparsely populated there
| are more livestock than people.
| tivert wrote:
| >> In America they let the population of an entire state
| every year of immigrants into America.
|
| > Caveat: there are some states so sparsely populated
| there are more livestock than people.
|
| Not really. The political issues with immigration
| _absolutely not_ do not include finding empty land to put
| them in.
|
| Also, the frontier has been closed for a _long_ time.
| SamoyedFurFluff wrote:
| I'm just saying "an entire states worth of immigrants are
| let in annually" may actually be not a very large number
| because some states are sparse. It is impossible to tell
| if the number reasonable to worry over based on this
| measurement.
| networkchad wrote:
| [dead]
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| > Most are not interested in western culture, they come
| here specifically for the salary, while maintaining the
| culture and social networks from where theyre originally
| from.
|
| This is sometimes true, but irrelevant, because their
| children adopt the local culture and are fully integrated.
| This is anti-immigration red herring.
| nerdchum wrote:
| this is not even remotely true.
|
| their kids are still getting arranged marriages.
|
| their kids are getting their social networks from their
| churches.
|
| their kids are going to culturally specific schools.
|
| Even their neighborhoods are culturally specific i.e.
| Chinatown, Korea town, India town, etc
| olyjohn wrote:
| Right I forgot all people who immigrated from China live
| in Chinatown. All of them. Millions of immigrants, all
| living in Chinatown in one part of downtown.
|
| Fuck you know how dumb that sounds right?
| [deleted]
| nerdchum wrote:
| [flagged]
| safety1st wrote:
| As a patriotic American, I applaud Canada's plan. The H1-B is a
| badly run program in many ways, it is a vehicle for large tech
| and staffing firms to commit graft, entrench their market
| dominance and enrich themselves, by exploiting H1-B workers and
| pitting them against Americans. Like so many things it
| masquerades as beneficial for America but in reality the
| benefits accrue mainly to the small parasite class which makes
| the rules and revolves between Washington and private industry.
|
| If what's needed to shake this program up and shine a light on
| the corruption is some competition from our neighbors to the
| north, sounds great to me. Maybe Canada should extend this
| program to Americans who don't have health insurance, too. The
| resulting surge of expatriates just might force the parasite
| class to rethink America's archaic and corrupt health care
| system as well.
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| what do "these" americans bring for canada?
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| "Raises the IQ of both countries"
| hot_gril wrote:
| "diabeetus"
| mr90210 wrote:
| I am in a similar situation in a EU country, where I just live
| and pay taxes to, my income comes from a company located in
| another country.
|
| The inefficiencies of the country where I live and the quasi-
| xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners (mostly Americans
| foreigners) made me decide to plan to leave.
|
| I agree with your points, and I think that Canada will have to
| work smartly to retain those people otherwise they'll end up
| leaving.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of any
| G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic
| sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are.
| mr90210 wrote:
| Well I am not necessarily saying that they need more
| immigrants, that's up to them.
| skissane wrote:
| > Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of
| any G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic
| sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are.
|
| Australia is even more immigrant than Canada - around 30%
| overseas born.
|
| But I think part of why Australia (and maybe Canada too)
| have less of a problem with xenophobia than some countries
| with less immigrants - greater selectiveness in the
| immigration intake, and skewing it more towards highly
| skilled/educated people.
|
| If you take in 100,000 university graduates from China and
| India, versus 100,000 random refugees and economic migrants
| from anywhere at all - it is unsurprising the former cause
| significantly less social problems than the latter, and
| those social problems tend to fuel xenophobia.
| zirgs wrote:
| Just because someone is an immigrant himself doesn't mean
| that he doesn't hate other immigrants.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Yes, that's my personal experience. Immigrants are more
| xenophobic than those born in Canada.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Of course. But it might mean that the 77% of the
| population that is born in Canada is more
| accustomed/acclimatized to immigrants. They are not a
| weird/rare thing, and so they are accepted/liked by a
| bulk of the population.
| TimPC wrote:
| Canada won't do the work needed to retain them. Talking to
| lots of people it's mostly the combination of unaffordable
| housing (Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US
| does with our two largest metro areas containing 25% of the
| country's population not having non-condo homes under $1
| million) and high tax rates. People have some tolerance for
| paying tax rates in the 42-44% range plus sales tax plus
| property tax if their life is overall affordable, but when
| home prices are staggering high and that life becomes out of
| reach people move somewhere better. You can't fix housing
| when you want to import people faster than you can build
| homes for them (and Canada wants to grow to 100M people over
| 50 years) and you can't lower taxes when you want to pay for
| things without crushing debt and Canada seems to want more
| government programs not less.
| lukas099 wrote:
| > Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US does
|
| I did not know this. Makes me wonder -- what is the point
| at which housing is so unaffordable that people start to
| riot?
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It's called homelessness and the american republicans
| want you to feel like it's because of lax law enforcement
| instead of, you know, the median salary in my city not
| being enough to actually live in the city.
|
| You probably haven't even heard about my city, because it
| has only 60k ish people and still runs into that problem.
|
| "But but but but zoning and developers can't build cheap
| housing because they aren't allowed to!". Funny, that
| didn't stop them from building hundreds of units of
| assisted living facilities right in some of the most
| expensive land they could find. Maybe it's because, in a
| capitalistic system, it's more incentivized to build a
| structure that can charge the state $12k a month per
| resident that they neglect than one that can charge each
| resident $2k a month because they actually have to be
| able to afford it.
|
| Meanwhile grandma doesn't even know where they are.
| randomdata wrote:
| It is unlikely there is such a point.
|
| The Canadian government still holds crown land that they
| will give away for free to anyone willing to settle it.
| That provides an option of last resort. Any location in
| the country that compels one away from free has got to be
| worth it. While one may complain, as people love to do,
| they are still pulling out their purses because they know
| it is worth every penny.
|
| Should the balance change, people will leave for greener
| pastures before worrying about rioting. Canada's whole
| legacy is built on people moving around when certain
| locations become too expensive. Its ancestral people have
| done it over, and over, and over again. There is no
| reason to think this time is different.
| swader999 wrote:
| Really? Where do I sign up for this crown land?
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| there are, no jokes, apps for that.
|
| hope you're comfortable with -40C or lower
| swader999 wrote:
| I know you can buy crown land but I don't see it anywhere
| for free. I can do -40 but I've never seen it that cold
| for very long.
| mr90210 wrote:
| Thanks for the context.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| In my opinion this will only worsen Canada's tech scene,
| compensation bands for tech workers, and the type of work done
| here, while undermining our university system and local talent
| development. It will just push us more in a mediocre "near
| shoring" direction and undermine actual local innovation and
| discriminate against homegrown talent.
|
| Here's why:
|
| Remember that Canadian graduates from engineering/CS university
| programs here can go directly south to the US without much
| hassle under a TN NAFTA VISA. They have a lot of advantages
| over H1B holders.
|
| So what this really ends up being is an _exchange_ between
| local talent -- who will go south to where the salaries are
| much better under TN -- for immigrant talent that currently
| struggles in the US.
|
| Remember that the local talent was developed _under subsidy_ by
| Canadian universities. Our tuition rates are a fraction of the
| US private universities -- while being very high quality. And
| while they 're not free, they are highly funded by the gov't.
| So... indirectly, we are subsidizing US tech employers with
| Canadian taxpayer dollars.
|
| I've heard numbers as high as 75%, 80% for the number of e.g.
| University of Waterloo (highly respected CS/SWE school)
| graduates who go south after graduating.
|
| Meanwhile H-1B type candidates who come up to Canada will
| likely be doing it only as a stop-gap before returning to the
| US; because compensation here is on the whole not competitive
| with the US, the US was the destination they likely had in mind
| in the first place, and the selection of employers and
| interesting companies here is far worse.
|
| And this will only _worsen_ the compensation gap between here
| and the US by flooding the market with talent; which will
| thereby encourage more of our own homegrown talent -- who wants
| to get fair compensation -- to go south ... along with a bunch
| of these H-1B holders. Vicious circle.
|
| The structure of things are such that Canada has already simply
| become on the whole a "landing pad" for talent before they
| relocate to the US. This only further entrenches that.
|
| While I'd say this was not the case for Google Canada (where I
| worked before) it is the case for most other large US-based
| employers. And the local companies are on the whole choosing to
| underpay and take advantage of fresh-off-the-boat talent from
| overseas at lower cost.
|
| Most shops here aren't doing much of interest, and the VC
| community here is fairly insular and conservative. The kinds of
| businesses that will generally succeed here will be places that
| can take advantage of large work forces of 'meh' imported
| talent, while the high quality talent finds ways to get to
| Silicon Valley.
|
| It's also not a great deal for the immigrants who come here;
| they will find that cost of living here is terrible while
| compensation rates are lower. There's already a growing
| recognition/bitterness among many that the Canadian gov't is
| selling an image of prosperity and potential to skilled
| immigrants that it can't deliver on when they arrive. And it
| used to be that at least one could hope one's children would
| prosper, but the state of the real estate market here is such
| that most will never able to own a home or get out of debt.
|
| That said, remote work may change this somewhat for some. At
| least it has for me, giving me a wider pool of (American)
| employers to choose from.
|
| All in all, I don't think this is much of a good move for
| Canada. Canadian employers need to learn how to compete with
| the US for quality talent by offering quality interesting work
| with better compensation that matches the insanely high cost of
| living in cities like Toronto or Vancouver -- cities with Bay
| Area real estate prices & rent but with compensation ranges far
| lower.
| kneebonian wrote:
| > The kinds of businesses that will generally succeed here
| will be places that can take advantage of large work forces
| of 'meh' imported talent,
|
| I smell another SAP in the works.
| stickyricky wrote:
| We should shift our perspective on our native-born citizens.
| Because they're such a massive economic drain we should _stop_
| investing in them completely. I know it sounds radical but hear
| me out. We can realize higher economic utility for our society
| if A) we stop all investments in non-skilled, non-working-age
| citizens and B) export those people who are a burden on our
| society (children, the elderly, the sick, people who enjoy EDM,
| you get it).
|
| In this way Canada can achieve higher economic utility for
| itself. I'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is
| brought in on a temporary basis. They are imported after their
| post-secondary education and exported maybe 10 years before
| their retirement. In this way we avoid all the costs associated
| with having "people" in our country and instead we reap the
| economic reward of their labor!
|
| I guess I shouldn't say "our" country. I would be exported
| fairly quickly... But! To those glorious (and brave) few on the
| executive committee entrusted to leading Canada Inc. through
| these difficult times, the society they get to inhabit will
| undoubtedly be the economic envy of the world!
| swader999 wrote:
| We already have some of the most progressive euthanasia
| programs in the world. No need to get more creative than
| that.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| To be fair, those euthanasia programs are only used when
| someone is either terminally ill or is a healthy-ish
| 31-year-old who can't afford housing.
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/assisted-
| s...
| goatsi wrote:
| The person in the article applied because of health
| problems.
|
| >Denise said she hasn't cancelled her MAID application
| because she still suffers from painful chronic health
| problems that haven't been properly handled.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| She's not going around doing cartwheels, but in a
| civilized country she wouldn't be applying for medically
| assisted dying. Her health problems are, at least
| arguably, manageable in fairly straightforward ways via a
| rational medical system.
|
| She'll never have healthy-millionaire quality of life,
| but this isn't what medically-assisted dying is meant
| for.
| goatsi wrote:
| In this case what she recognized as the treatment is
| managed by something other than the medical system. I
| would assume this is the same in other places, unless
| doctors in Europe can write prescriptions for apartments.
| TurkishPoptart wrote:
| Holy shit. Financial reasons should not be a factor in
| choosing to end one's life. WTF Canada?
| sampo wrote:
| _" Canada prepares to expand its euthanasia law to
| include those with mental illness"_
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64004329
| kneebonian wrote:
| Don't forget the veterans who've asked for ramps.
|
| "Canada Veteran Affair's department: Finishing what the
| enemy started!"
| ROTMetro wrote:
| But do you have Carousel?
| jrace wrote:
| Care for a person dying of Al's and tell me how progressive
| our Euthanasia program is.
|
| This has nothing to do with the article.
| ben_w wrote:
| > dying of Al's
|
| Given the current zeitgeist, I feel there's only a 70%
| chance that's an autocorrupt of Alzheimer's.
|
| Or did, until I saw the alternative font in the comment
| box and realised that's a lowercase L not a capital i.
|
| My mum died of that. Technically liver or kidney failure
| from dehydration, but that in turn was from refusing food
| in the care home and not having the awareness to get
| liquids separately.
|
| I think it was worse for us than it was for her, overall,
| though there were a few occasions where her self-
| awareness of the nature of her condition caused her
| unhappiness.
| teolandon wrote:
| More likely that it's a autocorrupt of ALS.
| amrocha wrote:
| It's the conspiracy theory du jour now that these people
| can't complain about vaccines anymore, don't bother
| engaging with it
| hezralig wrote:
| There is a far gap between the conservatives fixated on
| vaccines and the people pointing out that they have a
| physical handicap and otherwise want to live but are not
| being given disability benefits to pay for rent and food
| and feel forced into signing up to be euthanized.
| amrocha wrote:
| I'm not disagreeing that there's problems to be solved
| around how to support our sick and disabled.
|
| But the recent outrage over it is definitely an
| overreaction, and is being brought up by the same people
| that were complaining about vaccines and masks 2 years
| ago.
| mabbo wrote:
| I wholeheartedly appreciate your response.
|
| Make no mistake, I'm a hippie leftist even by Canadian
| standards. My argument is one I like to use with more right
| wing friend who oppose immigration.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| What about your hippie leftist friends who are begging for
| the government to pause or slow immigration (other than for
| refugees) right now?
| [deleted]
| geodel wrote:
| The response would be _My heart goes out for ..._ because
| when heart goes out, no further action or difficult
| decision is required.
| brewdad wrote:
| Ooh. Secular "Thoughts and Prayers". I love it!
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| So the point your making is that the government shouldn't
| concern itself with increasing the number of citizens that
| are net contributors to the system?
| JimtheCoder wrote:
| I can't be the only one who had to read this a few times
| before I realized it was sarcasm...
| goodpoint wrote:
| On HN?
| xracy wrote:
| I think, in your response of sarcasm you are brushing over a
| lot of valid points the OC is making.
|
| They're not saying that we should get rid of natural-born
| folks. They're just saying that often times the people who
| most want their nation to not allow other folks in, don't
| appreciate all of the things that those other folks provide
| for them. i.e. Immigration is subsidizing a lot of the things
| you probably enjoy about your life, and we should probably be
| considering it more as a blessing than a curse.
|
| Nobody is trying to replace you. They're just trying to help
| you, and provide a better opportunity for their children once
| they've bought into the same system your parents bought into.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| > Nobody is trying to replace you. They're just trying to
| help you
|
| LOL
| [deleted]
| nottorp wrote:
| Who was it that wrote "A Modest Proposal", Jonathan Swift?
| weard_beard wrote:
| A modest proposal. The back-ronym for it should be S.W.I.F.T.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I 'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is
| brought in on a temporary basis_
|
| This is how the Gulf economies work. (Also the Vatican, but
| for different reasons and at a different age.)
| [deleted]
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It's precisely the immigrants who come to a country like
| Canada, education already completed who pay for the
| investments for others. An adult Indian programmer costs the
| Canadian taxpayer nothing but contributes immense amounts,
| and is even more likely to start a business than a native.
|
| This notion that Bob from Podunk rural Canada with an IQ of
| 80 competes with an immigrant with a PhD makes no sense. The
| latter finances the welfare of the former. You need to create
| wealth first before you can redistribute it and keeping the
| strongest wealth creators out of the country is one of the
| stupidest damage you can inflict on yourself.
|
| This sarcasm drenched replacement fantasy is the exact
| opposite of reality. Only if you have a strong economy you
| can continue to maintain public welfare.
| AwaAwa wrote:
| Canada Inc.
| curiousllama wrote:
| This is an elite comment
| babyshake wrote:
| And a computer could be set and programmed to accept factors
| from youth, health, sexual fertility, intelligence, and a
| cross section of necessary skills. Of course it would be
| absolutely vital that our top government and military men be
| included to foster and impart the required principles of
| leadership and tradition. Naturally, they would breed
| prodigiously, eh? There would be much time, and little to do.
| But ah with the proper breeding techniques and a ratio of
| say, ten females to each male, I would guess that they could
| then work their way back to the present gross national
| product within say, twenty years.
| throwaway41029 wrote:
| [flagged]
| TheCapn wrote:
| >sexual fertility
|
| You think our government respects people taking time to
| rear offspring? Of course not! They're not contributing
| their labour to our economy while being parents so we've
| structured the incentives to start families in such a way
| that they're driven back to work ASAP. Strictly speaking:
| having children is bad for our labour force and should be
| avoided.
| Loughla wrote:
| This is the paradox of the child in modern society.
|
| In terms of across the board consumption, there is
| nothing as productive as a modern child. Clothes,
| consumable goods, travel sports, recreations, hobbies,
| and diversions all lead straight to the consumption that
| is so vital to our economy.
|
| And yet, with sicknesses, evening activities, and other
| problems, there is nothing that disrupts an individual
| worker's productivity as a child.
|
| I'm not sure I am smart enough to come up with an
| equation, but, it's in there somewhere to tell us whether
| a child is a net positive or negative influence on our
| Economy than the other.
| bhouston wrote:
| > there is nothing that disrupts an individual worker's
| productivity as a child.
|
| I have two kids and it isn't that bad at all. Very small
| loss of productivity for me except when I took parental
| leave for 3 months. I have grandparents that live nearby
| and they can help with sickness and other babysitting
| though.
| asadm wrote:
| It's this line of short-term thinking that has brought us
| to population collapse we are just starting to see.
| [deleted]
| f38zf5vdt wrote:
| For all those taking this seriously, the parent comment was
| sarcastic and this comment is almost a direct quote from
| Dr. Strangelove about how to repopulate the Earth after a
| nuclear apocalypse.
| Terr_ wrote:
| This is one of those situation where I wish there was a
| good loan-word like "schadenfreude": The dilemma of
| choosing whether to explain a joke/reference for those
| who aren't getting it, versus playing along and extending
| it.
| [deleted]
| Terr_ wrote:
| First the US has to solve the Mineshaft gap, doctor!
| rnk wrote:
| No fighting in the war room!
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| It's the Gig-economy model of citizenship and social welfare
| and it'll take Canada by storm
| geodel wrote:
| Fully agree on it. Kids are another great source of _profit
| center_ that have not been fully utilized. Also we need to
| explore if un-exportable olds can be mined for parts. That
| would another win-win.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Don't worry, red states are loosening child labor laws as
| we speak.
| rnk wrote:
| That's an actual true statement though, you are breaking
| our sarcastic train of thought.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| _The children yearn for the mines..._
| coding123 wrote:
| Favorite comment all year.
| robofanatic wrote:
| > B) export those people who are a burden on our society
| (children, the elderly, the sick, people who enjoy EDM, you
| get it).
|
| This is so ridiculous! Export where?? Isn't it what Hitler
| tried to do?
| pyuser583 wrote:
| This works really well places like Saudi Arabia and UAE.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| You kid, but it's a valid argument. I've known a good few
| Canadians over the years who went down to the U.S. for work
| experience and some have even lost their PRs because of some
| newer policy requiring that they spend half their time in
| Canada. It's something that really backfired hard. I'm
| actually really sad and disappointed for Canada that it is
| like this. Historically it's much easier to leave the country
| than enter it if you're a skilled person.
|
| This is a big deal. Back in the early 2010s, software
| developers moving to SF pretty much willed into existence the
| tech industry up there. Before then, companies would start in
| SF and move down to the valley. If skilled folks want to move
| to your area, it can be a boon, and if I'm not mistaken,
| Canadian tax policy is better suited to redistribute the
| gains from that than U.S. tax policy.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| > some have even lost their PRs because of some newer
| policy requiring that they spend half their time in Canada.
|
| Not a new policy. Gotta put in your time as a PR to qualify
| for a citizenship (that mostly can't be taken away from you
| ever).
|
| It anything, the physical presence requirements have been
| diluted because politicians realize they're more likely to
| get your vote if they have you citizenship.
| glerk wrote:
| > Canadian tax policy is better suited to redistribute the
| gains from that than U.S. tax policy
|
| Nothing attracts profitable businesses and high earning
| individuals more than a tax policy optimized to
| redistribute those gains.
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| That may be so but the policy doesn't have to make it
| worse.
| JCharante wrote:
| How can you export the people who are a burden? You can't
| leave them stateless.
| wyldfire wrote:
| I've got an even better idea.
|
| "A young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a
| most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether
| stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that
| it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout."
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| In fact, it's a well used strategy to use buses or other
| types of transportation to move undesirable people out of
| your area into a different area.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-
| interactive/2017/dec/...
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| Yeah but that works because New York, Chicago,
| California, and Texas are all the same country.
|
| If you kick out people you don't like and expect them to
| go to different countries it will end similar to those
| migrant boats in the Mediterranean.
| AndrewKemendo wrote:
| The link literally shows people sent to multiple
| different countries
| tejtm wrote:
| We do have those Starlight Tours ...
| stickyricky wrote:
| I have two words for you. Tundra. City. That's right; we
| did it. We took the Canada you love and made it _more_
| Canada. Up to _twice_ as cold as the previous generation of
| cities. More that _six_ times as remote. No other
| competitor is offering this kind of performance. I want to
| be clear this is a _generational_ leap over the
| competition. We're at least five years ahead of other major
| countries. And, boy, you better believe we patented it!
| 13of40 wrote:
| I'm picturing a rail line that just goes north, and in
| every town along the way the people are a few years older
| than the last. You can still live wherever you want, but
| the subsidies for your age group make it a sweet deal to
| keep moving down the line toward Centenarian City. Known
| for its large glue factory and landfills.
| peteradio wrote:
| Finally my patent for cowcatchers that work _inside_ the
| train will pay off!
| petre wrote:
| Sounds a lot like Snowpiercer.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| This already exists, and is the CN rail line to Hay
| River. The young folk eventually float down to Edmonton
| or Calgary.
| 10000truths wrote:
| He's being sarcastic.
| tivert wrote:
| > How can you export the people who are a burden? You can't
| leave them stateless.
|
| Sure you can. The only reason nations avoid allowing people
| to become stateless is an appreciation of the burden that
| places on those people. But if we're pursuing a modest
| proposal where the government shifts its perspective to
| focus on "realize[ing] higher economic utility for" itself,
| that becomes less a concern.
|
| At the very minimum you can "export" those low-economic-
| utility people by sticking them them on a barge and towing
| it to well into international waters where the currents
| will take it away (and if you're a nice government, just
| outside the territorial waters of some other country).
| peteradio wrote:
| As you know, its impossible to prove a negative, so who's
| to say they won't wash ashore a luxurious beach resort
| where they will be welcomed with daiquiris and sexual
| favors?! I say give them this once in a lifetime chance!
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| >"The majority of costs a person will typically have on a
| country are their initial K-12 education, and their health care
| costs later in life. Immigrants like these will never cost the
| government that first major cost."
|
| Something about this is horribly depressing. It's bad enough
| that the private sector is doing everything humanly possible to
| maximize profit.
|
| It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship is if
| government officials and elected representatives see the
| cultivation of those born in the country as more expensive and
| burdensome than just bringing people in. And, it sounds like
| the government is more interested in higher salaries for new
| arrivals than longtime constituents.
|
| And it's not like this is sustainable either. All these much
| more _profitable_ immigrants are going to become settled and
| have their own children, who will then become just as
| _expensive_ to educate.
| vkou wrote:
| > It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship
|
| There's a pretty important point to citizenship. If you have
| it, you can't be kicked out.
| geodel wrote:
| > So from a purely economic point of view, an H-1B immigrant is
| a perfect profit center for government taxes.
|
| It is just _all things being equal_ and they are specially not
| equal in this case. If they were so great countries producing
| them would have used them for no-downside profit but it is not
| happening. US being hub of thousands of high tech companies
| also not finding much use of them lately.
|
| I guess good on Canada for finding such a profit booster in
| times of economic downturn.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Canada does have an issue with brain drain. It's kinda funny
| how the US has awful K-12 education but world-class university
| and post-grad opportunities, so immigrants come here once
| they're almost ready to be productive.
|
| H-1B and other immigration paths make sense if the goal is to
| collect the most tax money. But the country has to (at least
| somewhat) work by the will of its people. Even many immigrants
| who have gained citizenship are opposed to easing the
| immigration policy.
| slt2021 wrote:
| >US has awful K-12 education
|
| US has awful public K-12 in most of School Districts. Private
| schools are very good, but cost just as much as college.
|
| What I understand is that anything good in America costs
| $$$$. And all the free stuff is the same quality as a free
| couch on a sidewalk
| hot_gril wrote:
| Yeah, I'm thinking of private schools too, but not many
| people go to them. Otherwise I would say the education is
| decent. End of the day, average American graduating grade
| 12 probably didn't get much. Everyone I know from other
| countries loves the US except for the K-12 public
| education.
|
| There are (or were?) second or third world countries where
| private is the majority and only _really_ poor people go to
| public.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Free couch may have bedbugs which will literally suck the
| blood out of you.
| slt2021 wrote:
| yeah and your kids can be shot to death at any public
| school in the US
| hot_gril wrote:
| I did go to a private high school that had better
| security, but that required driving further, which
| probably more than negated the safety benefits.
| anon291 wrote:
| The US K-12 system is great. Unfortunately, the students
| and parents are not.
| theironhammer wrote:
| What makes u think they'll stay?. First chance they get they'll
| move back to the USA because the salaries are that much better.
| owenwil wrote:
| Doubt it. It's not only about money, and Canadian salaries
| are improving dramatically. I moved to Canada in 2019,
| already have permanent residency with plans to get
| citizenship this year. There are many non-monetary reasons to
| live in Canada (healthcare, Childcare for $10/day, etc).
| [deleted]
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| * remote work for US firms is an option. I've done it as a PR
| in Canada.
|
| * free healthcare, but only if you're in the CAN 51% of the
| year; they track this now
|
| * strong immigrant cultures, esp. in areas like Vancouver or
| Brampton
|
| * 5 years to citizenship, and then able to get NAFTA TN visas
| to the US, but still have a Canadian fall-back
|
| * reasonable flights to warm parts of the US, without having
| to live in Sheriff Joe's AZ or Meatball Ron's Floridian
| Dystopia
|
| * winters can be rough but 1st world means they're tolerable,
| and that's a downside that can be worked around
| anon291 wrote:
| "Meatball Ron's Floridian dystopia" has one of the highest
| share of immigrants living there of any us state. 21% of
| the state is immigrants. Compare to 27% California, and 23%
| NJ/NY. Given that NJ/NY and CA have the two largest cities
| in the country which are natural destinations, I actually
| think florida looks all the more impressive. Miami is
| large, but not LA / NY large.
|
| Look... we get you don't like him, but his state is home to
| more immigrants than most of the country, and pulls above
| his weight. How about we let the immigrants decide what
| state best suits them?
| xbonez wrote:
| 5 years to Canadian citizenship is a strong reason to stay.
| Indians on H1B in the US are looking at about 7-10 years for
| a Greencard, and then an additional 5 years after that for
| citizenship.
|
| As a datapoint: I immigrated to the US in 2008. After 5 years
| on an F1 visa and 10 years on an H1B, I'm still at least 10
| more years away from being freed from the immigration and
| visa hassle.
| TMWNN wrote:
| So when are you planning to move to Canada?
|
| No?
|
| Could it be because you and I both know that FAANG
| companies' Canadian offices are basically places to stash
| those who cannot and will not ever get US visas, plus the
| occasional native Canadian who does not want to move to the
| US for family reasons?
| hot_gril wrote:
| You could've simply asked why he prefers US citizenship
| over Canadian citizenship without being aggressive.
| amrocha wrote:
| You're both underestimating how many people would hate to
| live in the US, and overestimating how high salaries in
| the US are compared to Canada
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > and overestimating how high salaries in the US are
| compared to Canada
|
| As an American STEM worker in Canada: salaries are
| definitely higher in the US. Not even close in some
| cases, easily a 40% difference for high-end roles. And
| while COL is high in SF or NYC, it's just as crazy in
| Greater Toronto or Vancouver but the salaries have not
| kept up.
|
| Make no mistake, you can still do pretty well, but I
| could probably double my salary if I moved back to the
| big US East Coast city that I'm from.
|
| Long-term I'm not optimistic about the US economy and
| culture, and my wife wouldn't be a fan, so I'm willing to
| miss out -- but sometimes it stings knowing what options
| are out there.
| Dig1t wrote:
| >but sometimes it stings knowing what options are out
| there.
|
| Yeah I made the sacrifice and lived in the Bay, crammed
| into a hacker house for a few years.
|
| It totally sucks, but working with all those smart people
| and stashing the money completely changed my life.
|
| Definitely a sacrifice I'd make again
| TMWNN wrote:
| First, your answer has nothing to do with my question to
| xbonez about why, despite his being stuck in the US H-1B
| morass, he did not mention planning to take up this
| offer.
|
| Second, your supposition of my under/overestimation has
| nothing to do with the factual composition of FAANG and
| other US tech companies' Canadian offices. As I said,
| they are a) mostly people who cannot and will not ever
| get US visas (i.e., those who didn't make the first
| hurdle that xbonez was lucky enough to cross), and b) a
| few native Canadians who for one reason or another don't
| want to move to the US.
| amrocha wrote:
| Again, literally not true. There's plenty of people that
| would hate to live in the US, and much prefer Canada.
| Plenty of immigrants. Those people work in the Canadian
| offices.
|
| I don't know if you know this, but the rest of the world
| considers the US to be kind of a terrible place. Sure, it
| might be better than home, but Canada is way better than
| both.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Are you saying it's harder to get Canadian citizenship,
| and that's the only reason people go to the US instead? A
| lot of my college friends were Chinese-Canadian-Americans
| alleging that Canada was just their stepping stone to the
| US, but that's only my experience.
| TMWNN wrote:
| > A lot of my college friends where Chinese-Canadian-
| Americans alleging that Canada was just their stepping
| stone to the US.
|
| Basically, yes. According to the Canadian government <htt
| p://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2010002/article/11287-
| ...> (table 1), for every two Canadian-born people moving
| to the US, one person born outside the US or Canada moves
| from Canada to the US. Given that during 2001-2006 20% or
| less of Canada were immigrants
| <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-
| quotidien/221026/g-a00...>, that implies that a Canadian
| resident born outside the US or Canada is about 50% more
| likely to move to the US than a Canadian native.
|
| I've heard that New Zealand is similarly used by those
| seeking to move to Australia.
| TMWNN wrote:
| > I don't know if you know this, but the rest of the
| world considers the US to be kind of a terrible place.
|
| Shouldn't you save Reddit-tier comments like this for
| /r/worldnews or /r/politics?
|
| Meanwhile, in a survey of scientists from 16 countries
| <http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-
| global-bra...>, the US is the top destination from 13 of
| the 15 others and the #2 choice from the other two.
|
| >Sure, it might be better than home, but Canada is way
| better than both.
|
| Sorry to shatter your illusions, but historically, every
| year four Canadians move to the US for every American
| going the other way. According to the Canadian
| government, this has not changed in the 21st century <htt
| p://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2010002/article/11287-
| ...>.[1] According to Reddit, Texas is basically one step
| from Nazi Germany, but Texas is those Canadians' fourth-
| favorite state <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/201
| 0002/t/11287/tbl002...>; if you exclude Florida and its
| retiree-heavy flow, it is their third.
|
| From the Canadian-government analysis:
|
| * "Canadian-born persons who emigrated to the United
| States between 2000 and 2006 were relatively young", with
| a median age of 31. Unsurprisingly, "Nearly two-thirds of
| recent Canadian emigrants to the United States were
| employed".
|
| * They are also younger than Canadians in general:
| "Lastly, Canadians who emigrated recently were also
| generally very young compared to the Canadian population
| where the median age according to the 2006 Census was
| 39.5."
|
| * Canadian migrants have become younger in recent years,
| implying that retiring is further decreasing as a cause
| of migration: "While the median age of all Canadians
| residing in the United States was 49 in 2006, the median
| age was only 31 for Canadians who emigrated between 2000
| and 2006. In addition, many of these recent emigrants
| were of prime working age: over one-half (approximately
| 53%) were between 20 and 44 years of age. Only around 10%
| were aged 60 or older."
|
| * While retirement was an important factor for Canadian
| migrants to Florida and Arizona, those states only
| received under a quarter of all Canadian migrants to the
| US, with correspondingly higher median ages.
|
| According to that above-mentioned survey, if you are a
| Canadian scientist, there is a 16% chance <https://www.re
| ddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/37lgxg/the...> that
| you will move to the US. That's not "16% of all Canadian
| scientists that move out of the country move to the US".
| Let me repeat:
|
| *16% of _all_ Canadian scientists move to the US.
|
| * They're also likely to be among the top Canadian
| scientists, too.
|
| By comparison, 5% of all American scientists move to
| another country, of which 32% go to Canada, so about
| 1.6-1.7% total. Since the US has nine times more people,
| that means that in absolute numbers the 1.7% of American
| scientists is about equal to the 16% of Canadian
| scientists, but there is no reason to think that the 1.7%
| makes up the top tier of American scientists; why would
| the best move north of the border? In other words, the US
| is receiving the best of Canadian scientists in exchange
| for an equal number of its non-best.
|
| [1] It is true that from 2010 to 2012--during which the
| Canadian economy genuinely performed better than the US's
| --70,000 Americans moved north while only 20,000
| Canadians moved south
| <http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-
| politics/americans-mov...>, but this still puts the per-
| capita ratio considerably in the US's favor.
| mywittyname wrote:
| > There's plenty of people that would hate to live in the
| US, and much prefer Canada.
|
| For what reasons?
|
| Having worked with a lot of Canadians over the years,
| I've discovered that a significant number of them have
| this very negative perception of the USA that is not
| accurate. I can see a lot of these reasons being based on
| incorrect assumptions, especially when considering how
| educated upper-middle class people live.
|
| I spent a lot of time in Toronto about 7-8 years ago and
| I couldn't imagine living there as an American.
| Everything is so expensive (housing in particular),
| traffic is terrible, the weather sucks, and my role in
| Canada paid like 25% less. The food was pretty good, but
| that's about it.
| morvita wrote:
| I am a US citizen who moved to Vancouver from the Bay
| Area three years ago.
|
| I took a small pay cut when I moved (from ~135k USD to
| ~125k CAD, after a few years of raises I'm over 140k CAD
| now), but certainly not cutting my salary in half. Yes,
| Canada has its issues, but I'm overall happier living
| here than I was in the Bay. We have a regional train
| system that runs every 3-6 minutes instead of the 15-20
| you get from BART and better accessibility to the
| outdoors (I can get to a ski mountain on the bus). I had
| better accessibility to healthcare in California, but
| here I don't have to worry about being out thousands of
| dollars for healthcare if I get laid off.
|
| I work for a smaller tech company founded and
| headquartered in Vancouver, but I've seen the big tech
| companies making huge investments in this city over the
| last couple years. Amazon is in the final stages of
| building a new tower that will house 6000 employees [0]
| and Microsoft recently moved into 75,000 sqft of office
| space and is working on another 400,000 sqft [1]. The
| tech industry in this city is booming and it's certainly
| not all driven by companies stashing employees who can't
| get US visas.
|
| [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-
| columbia/amazon-canad... [1]
| https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/microsoft-vancouver-
| office-b...
| hot_gril wrote:
| Can totally understand wanting to leave the Bay Area for
| a Canadian city or any other developed place. Personally
| I went to San Diego instead, and I'm happy with that.
| morvita wrote:
| I really liked San Diego when I visited, if I was going
| to return to the US, I'd seriously consider San Diego.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Yeah it's definitely an A-tier part of the US. I would've
| settled for pretty much anywhere outside the Bay Area,
| but SD is even better than the nice parts of LA I used to
| live in.
| jxi wrote:
| The problem is that for a productive H-1B holder in the US,
| they have no incentive to move to Canada if they're already
| doing well. Canada's wages will be less than half of what they
| would get in the US and healthcare in the US is better if you
| have good insurance.
|
| What's more likely to happen is the people who take Canada's
| offer will be the ones that were let go for performance reasons
| or have other productivity or efficiency issues.
| dukeyukey wrote:
| Or those from the wrong country with extreme green card
| waiting times, those who roll the wrong lottery number, or
| were working at companies that went under.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| While I would agree with you in an otherwise normal year, in
| the year of layoffs, this policy may be the kind of fast-
| thinking that actually makes sense.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Supposedly they get 90 days to find a new job. That's
| probably enough time to find something better than what
| Canada offers.
| rajataghi wrote:
| It's 60 calendar days.
| hot_gril wrote:
| Hmm, that is cutting it kinda close.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| All statements are true. The thing that is glossed over and
| usually just dismissed is the impact on locals and impacts
| those immigrants have on wages and unemployment rate.
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| Have worked with quite a few H1-Bs with absolutely no special
| skills. Large off-shoring firms soak up quite a few of them for
| people coming out of degree mills.
|
| The only advantage to businesses is that these people are
| modern indentured servants, due to their immigration status
| being dependent on their employer. I'm all for getting rid of
| that but I also think there should likely be a smaller number
| with a salary based bidding system (e.g. if you aren't paying
| in the 80th percentile or above for a person in the industry of
| that age, you're not getting H1-Bs, and yes age not years of
| experience since the latter is easily fudged). Otherwise, it
| simply continues to be a way for companies to suppress wages.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| If the visa does not require sponsorship from a company (like
| the current H1-B does), does that help reduce the 'indentured
| servants' part and lessen the appeal of it for certain types
| of companies?
| elzbardico wrote:
| It is always a matter of perspective. As a tech worker, the
| average H1-B worker you know is probably close to the average
| of the other tech workers you know like you. But you have to
| compare their skills and education to the global average of
| society to understand the benefit they bring.
| nottorp wrote:
| You need no salary rules. Just need to allow them to change
| jobs at will. Salaries will sort themselves out.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| How small do you think the number should be?
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| These days H1B is strictly a wage suppression tool and filled
| with low skill workers from India based degree mills and body
| shops. Actual skilled workers are coming in on L-1 or O-1
| visas.
| grimgoldgo wrote:
| That is patently false. Plenty of skilled engineers come
| from around the world on H1B visas.
| phone8675309 wrote:
| The parent post doesn't dispute that - it's just adding
| that in addition to the plenty of skilled engineers part
| there are also a bunch of low skill workers from degree
| mills coming as well.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Even if that was true, that would be absolutely fine.
| Getting one Jensen Huang, Satya Nadella, Lisa Su, Sundar
| Pichal, etc. would make absorbing 10,000 or even more
| low/mediocre skilled workers along with them worthwhile.
| The technological and economic benefits makes it a no
| brainer.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Elon Musk himself was H-1B at some point.
|
| without H-1B america would not have Elon (for better or
| worse)
| shiftpgdn wrote:
| Jensen Huang emigrated at the age of 4, Lisa Su at the
| age of 3, Satya and Sundar both came over as part of
| college visa programs. I don't see what that has to do
| with mass importation of low skill workers to hammer down
| high middle class wages in the US?
| renewiltord wrote:
| Can you describe what happens after one graduates after
| coming here on a "college visa program"?
| [deleted]
| gourabmi wrote:
| They might have moved here as part of college visa
| programs but they needed H1B to work and build their
| skill set. The college visa (F1/ J1) does not come with a
| work authorization beyond 3 years.
| slt2021 wrote:
| 3 years is a recent thing (from 2008), for Sundar itis
| likely was 1 year OPT and then H-1B
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| There are hundreds of thousands folks, who came here for
| college, are still on h1b. They have been in this limbo
| for 10+ years.
| Alupis wrote:
| It's not as false as some might want to believe.
|
| The issues are complex - but one of the side affects are
| indeed artificial suppression of wages for citizens.
|
| We have software titans bursting at the seam with
| imported labor - yet our domestic universities are also
| churning out more CS graduates than ever before. Some of
| these graduates are indeed from foreign countries - but
| not all.
|
| It's very hard to believe companies need to import labor
| for commoditized software engineering positions when
| there are plenty of available workers already here.
|
| We should be importing top-tier talent - the types of
| folks that are working in complex fields, inventing new
| fields, developing things that haven't been done before,
| etc. We should not be importing basic CS graduates and
| filling basic SE jobs.
|
| H1B's are often cheaper to hire, and do not enjoy the
| same mobility freedoms a citizen does. In some ways, they
| are beholden to their sponsor company, and whatever wages
| that company offers - which may not necessarily be market
| wages.
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| Clearly H1Bs are suppressing wages as proven by the fact
| that software engineers have seen wages rise more than
| any other job profile in the country for over the past
| decade.
|
| Oh wait.
| Alupis wrote:
| Imagine where those wages would be without a glut of
| H1B's...
| slt2021 wrote:
| there would be fewer/no startups and fewer jobs with less
| wages, as H1Bs themselves create jobs via startups and
| product development at traditional companies.
|
| if you carefully look at silicon valley companies (even
| large ones) - most of product R&D and IP and innovation
| comes from immigrants. Native born americans are mostly
| working in admin jobs like HR, Admin, Sales, Operations,
| Finance, etc
| Alupis wrote:
| R&D is exactly who H1B is supposed to be for - ie. highly
| skilled, specialized, and educated positions. Not regular
| SE jobs.
|
| If you look at your Googles, your Facebooks, your
| Microsofts, you will find a glut of H1B's working regular
| SE jobs, such as maintenance and feature development.
| That's exactly who H1B's are not supposed to be for - and
| that is the issue.
|
| Mega corps laying off huge engineering teams while
| simultaneously importing more H1B's tells you everything
| you need to know. Follow the money, as they say.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Most companies call a significant amount of their SWE
| work as R&D. R&D isn't always "inventing totally new
| things" but rather closer to "an investment of resources
| in which there is some amount of novelty and for which
| the outcome is uncertain". A lot of SWE qualifies for
| that, even software that we'd consider fairly mundane and
| un-exciting.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| H-1B is for regular skilled immigration, those with
| bachelors degrees or equivalent, e.g. regular software
| engineer jobs. For more highly skilled, specialized, and
| educated positions there exist O-1, EB-1, and EB-2 NIW
| visas.
| slt2021 wrote:
| you are wrong because H-1Bs pay just as much as regular
| SWE jobs by law (companies file LCA)
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| Guarantee it's below average at most outsourcing firms.
| They may play games like advertising a position as a
| "junior engineer" but require 10 years of experience and
| then bill clients for a senior engineer but, knowing the
| billing rates for several vendors, there's absolutely no
| way they pay market rates.
| slt2021 wrote:
| I am all for cracking down on abusers and scammers,
| especially body shops.
|
| but it is not the reason to get rid of the entirety of
| H-1B program, as some people advocate here.
| Alupis wrote:
| This thread is about suppressing wages...
| slt2021 wrote:
| How is paying the same == suppressing?
| gxs wrote:
| >> most of product R&D and IP and innovation comes from
| immigrants.
|
| Would love to see your source for this fact, genuinely
| curious.
| slt2021 wrote:
| Source: my eyes. Literally work day to day with
| immigrants in product R&D role.
|
| Also you can check names on patents files by google or
| other tech firm
| mannerheim wrote:
| Just as much reason to believe it would be lower than
| higher. There aren't a fixed number of jobs. A talented
| engineer who comes to America can go on to start up his
| own company (and there are many examples of this
| occurring), creating many more high-paying jobs for other
| engineers. A company that fails because they can't hire
| enough engineers puts the engineers they do have employed
| out of work.
|
| I don't claim that H1Bs have the effect of increasing
| pay, but rather that their effect on pay is non-obvious,
| and any assertion that they do depress wages should be
| backed up by evidence.
| Alupis wrote:
| > Just as much reason to believe it would be lower than
| higher.
|
| That seems like some wild calculus. Fewer people willing
| to accept lower pay and be stuck at a specific company =
| higher pay. There's no other way to make the math work,
| particularly for extreme-demand positions like SE.
| mannerheim wrote:
| > I don't claim that H1Bs have the effect of increasing
| pay, but rather that their effect on pay is non-obvious,
| and any assertion that they do depress wages should be
| backed up by evidence.
| slt2021 wrote:
| without H1Bs silicon valley would not exist in its
| current form (it would be more like in 80s-90s)
| Alupis wrote:
| That's a lot like saying agriculture wouldn't exist in
| it's current form without importing cheap labor that can
| be (and is) abused. It's still wrong.
|
| The H1B game, as it's played today, is a relatively
| modern invention, and was not used to build startups into
| mega corps anyway.
| slt2021 wrote:
| American agriculture would not exist without seasonal
| workers from Mexico, farmers love their H-2B visa for
| seasonal workers (oh, the irony)
|
| Especially Americans working at John Deere, Dow Chemical
| and all the food processing
| slt2021 wrote:
| this is demonstrably false, if you ever bothered to look at
| the actual LCA filings from DOL.
|
| btw these indian body shops are already abusing O-1 and L-1
| visas en masse as well, so your latter statement is also
| not 100% true
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| Fixing one loophole is not mutually exclusive with fixing
| the rest...
| slt2021 wrote:
| I am for fixing loopholes, instead of getting rid of the
| entirety of H-1B program as some people advocate here.
| bubbleRefuge wrote:
| Agree. The fix is to allow them to be "free agents" like
| every other participant in the economy. Allow markets to
| determine their value.
| JustLurking2022 wrote:
| In theory yes but if the premise for why we allow
| disproportionately large immigration from certain
| countries is that we're bringing in unique skills, and we
| decide that premise is flawed, then it would also be
| cause to reevaluate the immigration policy.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| The H-1B situation is also a problem for people who come
| from overseas to study for their degrees in the U.S. They
| get F-1 OPT, and join US companies that then cannot retain
| them because of the over-subscription of the H-1B.
|
| It's also bogus to say that H-1B is more problematic than
| L-1B for body-shopping: all the well organized body-shops
| do massive amount of intra-company transfers.
| the_svd_doctor wrote:
| If you're already in the US and eventually want a GC
| (typical Us graduate), both of those are not very good
| option and H1-B is better bc of its dual intent.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Then theoretically, these changes for H1-Bs should both
| protect them from the indentured servitude, and by removing
| that leverage, remove the motivation for H1-B abuse.
|
| If companies can't bring someone over that they can overwork
| and underpay at threat of deportation, they'll rethink the
| MBA-brained "optimizations" and be forced to create a more
| resilient workforce rather than a loose collection of people
| to rugpull every time the rate of profit increase dips by
| .0004%.
| varispeed wrote:
| It's not as simple. My country (UK) has skilled workers visa
| that has wage requirement set often at half the market rate for
| given job. For instance, company can pay a software developer
| as little as PS35k.
|
| Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are
| a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from
| underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc
| and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in
| education.
|
| This also creates disincentive for locals to learn these in-
| demand skills.
|
| If you combine this with the fact that companies can rent out
| these cheap workers at PS500 or more a day, while avoiding
| paying taxes it is a poor deal that only benefits big
| corporations.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| >Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you
| are a native
|
| We can go abroad to study it for much cheaper. Alternatively,
| foreign nationals can come to study here: they'll pay twice
| as much as us to do so. Our higher education is subsidised.
| Likewise, we don't have to work in this country. Immigration
| is not a one-way system.
|
| The number of companies that can sponsor a Tier 2 Visa is
| limited. Those that do have to pay PS1000pa for each
| individual they sponsor. The individual themselves will have
| to pay >PS600pa to subsidise the NHS for you and me.
|
| We no longer have the Resident Labour Market Test - it was
| abolished because unemployment rates were extremely low - but
| most people who have passed the 2 year curfew to be allowed
| to take an employer to tribunal are in a job where their
| employers first had to prove the job couldn't be filled by
| local talent.
|
| Perhaps the government should update the SOC code for
| software engineers to be higher. They determine the going
| rate to hire into these 'skilled occupation' roles.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if somebody starts
| suggesting this. Since the rulers have determined that it
| is better to hire foreigners as it is so expensive to
| educate locals, then it shouldn't take long before a
| business genius comes up with the idea to send all native
| children to these foreign countries at birth, to be
| educated for cheap and then sent back to work. I mean, it
| only makes business sense, doesn't it?
| iamflimflam1 wrote:
| I'm sorry, but have you really honestly been impacted by
| this?
|
| Have you applied for a job and been told that they don't want
| you because there's a cheaper immigrant available?
|
| Have you had a job and been replaced by an immigrant?
| varispeed wrote:
| Yes. I see fewer offers coming up and at lower rates.
|
| I also saw a few jobs of colleagues not renewed and
| replaced by immigrant teams supplied by a big consultancy.
|
| If this trend continues, I'll be looking at retiring early
| or moving overseas.
| mikece wrote:
| Yes: his wage is artificially depressed by "market
| conditions" due to the willingness of foreign workers to
| make less. This is especially harmful to entry level
| developers who haven't had time to build up a
| niche/profitable specialty.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| I do not see this "market conditions" in the UK.
| red_admiral wrote:
| I mostly agree but 'half the market rate' glosses over a lot
| of things.
|
| For example, according to WhatUni [1], the average computer
| science graduate salary after leaving uni is PS27K. Even
| after a year or two of pay increments, the average (median?
| not sure) CS graduate could be earning less than the PS35K
| threshold. It's not just the "unis" that deserve double
| quotes with this kind of salary range: Exeter is Russell
| Group, but the same site says their graduates have a PS28K
| average starting salary.
|
| Staying with Exeter, their 2023 pay scales [2] have postdocs
| starting at PS31K, and lecturers in the PS40K-50K range; by
| the time you're earning double of PS35k, you're well into
| associate professor territory.
|
| Sure, you won't get a good senior developer for PS35K. But if
| your business model is lots of juniors and high churn, you'll
| get plenty of people in that range.
|
| [1] https://www.whatuni.com/degrees/computer-science-bsc-
| hons/un... [2] https://www.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexe
| ter/humanresou...
| varispeed wrote:
| Now consider that why would company hire a CS graduate for
| PS27k, if they could get a seasoned developer who will be
| happy to work for PS35k and get the foot in the door? Also
| see that the threshold for a web developer is only PS26.8k.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| PS35k is the minimum, average salary for skilled visa holders
| AFIK is much higher (there should be some stats but cannot
| find now).
| stickyricky wrote:
| Please won't you think about the economic utility of this
| arrangement? There's more to life than "concern" and "care"
| for your relatives, neighbors, and the "next generation".
| What about money? We can make _more_ money this way. I know
| _you're_ not making more money but have you considered that
| you just didn't work hard enough? Maybe if you immigrated to
| Bangladesh you could re-tread tires while you studied
| computer science. One day you might earn yourself an H1-B
| visa in the UK. I hear that's a nice country.
| mrangle wrote:
| [flagged]
| shyn3 wrote:
| It's actually part of our national immigration strategy.
|
| If you have 2 kids you can get to Canada faster especially
| school age.
|
| If you have over $500k you used to be able to get into Quebec
| and drive into Ontario.
|
| Since 2010 the goal was 100m in 2050
|
| Right now we need farmers.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> Right now we need farmers._
|
| What for?
|
| As a Canadian farmer I struggle to grow my operation
| because there are 100s of other farmers lined up in front
| of me, champing at the bit to do the same, with not enough
| resources to go around. I could more than double the size
| of my operation without breaking a sweat. I spend most of
| my days working in tech because there isn't enough farm
| work to do. In fact, nearly half of all farmers in Canada
| have an off-farm job, with 68% of them working full-time
| off the farm.
|
| Those who have bitten off more than they can chew likely
| think we need more farmhands, but they could also downsize
| and let other farmers pick up the slack.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| What's the difference between a farmer and a farmhand?
| Like, why do you work in tech instead of being a farm
| hand on your surplus time? I assume since you are
| experienced, they'd offer you a good salary? Or is the
| matter not that they need farmhands, but more that they
| need cheap labour to exploit?
| randomdata wrote:
| A farmer owns a farm business. A farmhand works for a
| farmer.
|
| While it is not completely unheard of for farmers to also
| be farmhands, there is difficulty in that the farms will
| generally share the same busy seasons. Meaning that your
| employer will want you on the job most especially during
| the times you will want a vacation to work on your own
| farm.
|
| For me, it is also questionable how much I want to help
| out the competition. While farmers are generally good
| spirited and try to work together for a greater good,
| there is still only so much resources to go around, and I
| want to see my business thrive. I'd jump in and help in a
| pinch, but to make it a career...
|
| But it is also true that tech will pay me more than other
| farmers will. That certainly seals the deal.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| That's what I'm getting at a little bit. Everybody wants
| to be the business owner and then demand that cheap
| labour should materialize, ready to work for them.
| Ideally working just during the season when they're
| needed and then get lost.
|
| They need a constant stream of desperate people to abuse
| in order for that business model to work out - and I
| guess that's why farming historically has been the main
| industry for slavery. Or a family business where the
| profits of cheap labour one day ends up in the hands of
| the labourer when he inherits the farm.
| mrangle wrote:
| I'm sure that what you typed here is non-sequitur. Taxation
| is not government profit. If you have the ability to print
| unlimited IOUs for other people to exchange for goods and
| services, and you recapture a portion of what you
| distributed through taxation every time a transaction
| occurs, did you "profit"? No. You shrunk supply to raise
| the value of your IOUs. Taxation of domestically derived
| income is almost entirely a money supply mechanism. The
| government doesn't need to create more salaries to do this.
| They could simply encourage higher salaries (like
| tightening immigration), and if that wasn't enough they
| could raise taxes. They have other mechanisms of shrinking
| supply, as well. While tax money is also redistributed back
| to various government functions, governments commonly print
| non-tax money to fund their functions.
|
| Labor pool immigration, in the context of an abundant labor
| pool, is what it has always been: weakening of labor
| bargaining, undercutting of market salary, and a separate
| slew of political motivations.
|
| 100m by 2050 reads like incoming feudalism. Best of luck
| with it.
| dkjaudyeqooe wrote:
| How do you think governments fund themselves? Though taxes on
| consumption and income, as well as other things.
|
| All immigration is GDP positive and incrementally increases
| tax income. On the other hand they increase the costs of
| providing services and infrastructure, but that is not
| connected to immigration per se, but economic and population
| growth. Unsurprisingly if the government makes money it also
| incurs expenses.
|
| If you don't like immigration, say so, but don't try to blame
| them for government finances. Locals having children has the
| exact same effect, but it's even more expensive for the
| government. But in wealth countries people aren't having
| enough children, so immigration policies are used to maintain
| growth. You could do without them, but your economy would
| tend to shrink or stagnate along with the level of population
| over time.
| mrangle wrote:
| Your logic is that governments depend on funding themselves
| by recapturing money that they print for circulation?
| That's adorable. They do recapture money by way of taxes
| and redistribute it to themselves, but they aren't limited
| in their self-funding by recaptured domestic currency.
|
| Your immigration GDP logic isn't accurate. Immigration only
| increases GDP insofar as it increases foreign currency
| influx to Canada. Does it do this? Sure. But not in the
| prior implied rate and manner. More people making less
| domestic money doesn't magically increase GDP.
|
| Blaming my critique of "more domestic labor = more
| government profit" talking point, typed without a hint of
| irony, on anything else is lazy. Especially combined with a
| warning not to critique that point.
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Yes Canada is a mediocre country which will do great with the
| vast majority of mediocre Infosys talent. I think US will
| benefit in the long run getting rid of these h1bs.
| throw123123123 wrote:
| If only you applied the same logic to americans
| ufish235 wrote:
| Mediocre citizen checking in - I would never live in the US.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| I would never live in the US, but I'm free to be angry at
| what the last 20 years of provincial and federal
| governments have done to this country -- especially the
| under-regulated real estate market which is out of control
| relative to the rest of the G7 and driven cost of living
| through the roof.
|
| Not so much for me as I'm mostly mortgage free at this
| point, but for my kids someday, I despair.
|
| That, and underfunding the health care system and
| underbuilding infrastructure
|
| It's a corrupt and mediocre country. But it wasn't always
| like this. And no, I don't blame Trudeau. Both major
| parties and the entire corporate & political class are
| implicated.
| muzaffarpur wrote:
| Jeez, you're so full of yourself. These people do what
| buiesness demands them. I keep hearing this thing over and
| over. Let's say they are cheap and medicore yet they replace
| astronomically intelligent people. So who is medicore and
| expensive with no merit?
| grimgoldgo wrote:
| I've never seen someone get mad at Canada like that. Did
| Canada hurt you?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| You must not have talked to many people who live in Canada
| then. Lots of people here in tears over how this country
| has fucked them over.
| amrocha wrote:
| What? Do you live in an alternate reality?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| No, I live in Vancouver.
|
| We have posts like this one several times a week in our
| subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/14
| 98ksd/does_any...
|
| People in that thread are saying their retirement plan is
| MAiD (the new Canadian assisted suicide program). People
| talk about being depressed, sobbing regularly over how
| unaffordable things have gotten.
|
| There are more posts like this in every major BC city
| subreddit as well as /r/britishcolumbia and /r/canada
| hot_gril wrote:
| I work for a FAANG company where highly-paid full-time
| engineers will still complain in a similar fashion (yes
| even mentioning suicide occasionally). Moral of the
| story, a small chunk of people will always complain.
|
| I've got nothing against Canada, but I do prefer the US.
| amrocha wrote:
| Yeah, I lived in Vancouver until last year too. I'm aware
| of that kind of post, and many of my friends who recently
| graduated from uni worry about that too, but it's a
| stretch to claim they're sobbing and depressed and in
| tears over it.
|
| Second, nobody is saying their retirement plan is
| euthanasia other than as a joke, or a dogwhistle.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| No, people in software are currently _mostly_ not at that
| breaking point (though they might get there). Maybe even
| most fresh graduates in (most) other fields whose
| optimism hasn 't been crushed by the unceasing grind of
| day-to-day life with no progression.
|
| I assure you a lot of people do break down over how
| hopeless it feels here. And I don't even think people are
| joking about MAiD as a retirement plan (and the people
| relying on MAiD as a retirement plan are also the people
| who support MAiD)
|
| It's the people in their 30s who have no savings (I'm one
| of them). People in their 40s who work for <$24/hr and
| have had to rent at near-market for the majority of their
| time, for one reason or another. People who have been
| paycheck to paycheck despite busting their asses every
| day, and maybe even getting a bachelors degree that did
| nothing for them (again, I realize CS grads have been
| relatively unscathed here to date)
|
| Vancouver has gotten much worse even in the last year, in
| terms of homelessness, mental health issues, rent prices,
| and overall affordability, so maybe if you moved away > 1
| year ago you aren't even aware of how bad it's gotten.
| squalo wrote:
| I don't think Canada replacing its native workforce with H1Bs
| who got purged from jobs in the US will do much, if anything,
| to change the problems in the US. H1B staff are so entrenched
| now in companies like Mastercard, Chase, Citi, BofA, etc that
| they are the ones that do the technical screening and
| interviews. As long as those companies can easily get fresh
| approvals for H1bs (and they give lots of money to elected
| officials to retain that privilege), the only "qualified"
| people these H1B screeners will pass are other H1bs.
| [deleted]
| hugocbp wrote:
| That is going to be interesting, but not in the positive sense of
| the world.
|
| A lot of tech workers affected by the rounds of layoffs last year
| are still struggling to find other jobs, specially the most
| junior ones. I've been personally trying to help some friends and
| ex-coworkers and it is brutal out there. Right now there doesn't
| seem to be a lack of tech workers, at least not in Vancouver.
|
| Canada housing situation is also not that great and with no signs
| of improving.
|
| At first glance, it looks like those measures will only serve to
| devalue the tech salaries even more (already at a considerable
| discount over US ones) and make the housing situation even worse.
| I don't expect most people using the new visas will want to live
| in the countryside, specially considering if they come without a
| job lined up. The majority will likely want to come to Vancouver,
| Toronto, Montreal.
| preommr wrote:
| > Canada housing situation is also not that great and with no
| signs of improving.
|
| Real estate musical chairs is pretty much a central pillar of
| the Canadian economy. Like 1/5 people live in the GTA, and 1/59
| workers in Toronto is a real estate agent. The numbers would be
| hilarious if they weren't so sad.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| A graphical representation of this poster's point:
|
| 50% of Canadians live below this line -- https://twitter.com/
| ianbremmer/status/1600907559216390146?la...
| hotpotamus wrote:
| If you have a surplus of workers and a deficit of housing, it
| would seem like a chance to re-skill the workforce into
| construction, wouldn't it? Instead of the blue-collar workers
| learning to code, maybe the tech workers can learn to weld? Or
| am I being ridiculous?
| octacat wrote:
| Reskill workforce into the bank workers ;) Constructing more
| means housing prices go down, which would piss off the
| banking sector and people who has several houses (or even at
| least one sometimes). It would piss off for sure people who
| has less than one house (i.e. already existing mortgage
| contracts).
| caskstrength wrote:
| > If you have a surplus of workers and a deficit of housing,
| it would seem like a chance to re-skill the workforce into
| construction, wouldn't it? Instead of the blue-collar workers
| learning to code, maybe the tech workers can learn to weld?
| Or am I being ridiculous?
|
| I don't think that the lack of construction workers is the
| main reason for current crazy property prices in the western
| world.
| hugocbp wrote:
| That is what happens, at least locally and temporarily.
|
| Some of the people I know that have been laid off mid-2022
| and end-2022 and still haven't found another tech job have
| been driving for Uber, delivering for Doordash, doing
| cleaning and basic construction jobs to get by.
|
| Those are completely different occupations, though, and
| appeal to people with probably different personalities.
|
| The Housing problem in Canada is complex and not easy to
| explain in short sentences, but I can basically assure you
| that lack of construction workers is not the main reason it
| exists.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Vancouver software dev checking-in. I'd say that your
| assessment is on the optimistic side. Was laid-off 3 months
| ago, prospects are non-existent, rentals (if they're anything
| like last time I had to move) are non-existent, and studio
| condos start at around $500k if they're old. If I'm forced to
| move when my landlord's mortgage is up for renewal, I have no
| idea what I'll do.
|
| So ya, seems like a pretty in-coherent policy change. The only
| way to compete seems to be to just look to other countries.
| version_five wrote:
| > At first glance, it looks like those measures will only serve
| to devalue the tech salaries even more (already at a
| considerable discount over US ones) and make the housing
| situation even worse
|
| That's exactly the point, but they call it "addressing a skills
| shortage" and there is a huge entrenched interest in keeping
| the property bubble going higher and higher. Mortgage rates
| should be slaughtering house prices, more scarcity is the only
| way to keep them high.
| tenpies wrote:
| > there is a huge entrenched interest in keeping the property
| bubble going higher and higher.
|
| Just to paint the picture, in Canada:
|
| * Prime Minister Trudeau is a trust fund kind with rental
| income
|
| * Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Freeland, has
| _four_ mortgages
|
| * Housing Minister Hussen literally purchased another rental
| property recently
|
| * 1/3 of all Liberal MPs have rental income in their
| disclosures
|
| What Trudeau is doing to Canada is what my friends and I call
| the Slum Lord's Delight scenario:
|
| * Flood the country with people who will need housing, while
| offering them no warning of just how unaffordable things are.
|
| * Do absolutely nothing to increase housing supply. Add as
| many new taxes, fees, and regulation as you can to ensure new
| supply declines.
|
| * Do everything you can to allow younger Canadians and new
| immigrants to borrow more and pay more for housing. Your
| solution to affordability is helping them borrow more, not
| reducing prices.
|
| * If anyone complains about immigration, call them racist.
|
| * If anyone complains about housing, blame the provinces and
| municipalities (whichever level isn't Liberal).
|
| * If anyone thinks of protesting, go Trucker Protests /
| Tiananmen Square on them
|
| I would not be surprised if Trudeau achieves a China-esque
| market before he's eventually removed or self-exiles, meaning
| a market where people never actually own the land, but rather
| have long term rentals (under a different name) of the
| property from a State owned company or monopoly.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| You're leaving out the fact that the Conservative party is
| basically identical in structural composition and interests
| in keeping the housing market bloated. To the point where
| Pierre stands up in the HoC and goes after Trudeau for BoC
| rate increases... because his boomer constituency needs
| Number Go Up because that's their only retirement option
| after three decades of joint Liberal-Conservative policy.
|
| It's a pyramid scheme, and actually the Cons were even
| worse for it when they were in power federally, and a huge
| problem with Ontario right now is precisely the provincial
| Cons in Ontario.
|
| Same sauce, slightly different flavour.
| version_five wrote:
| Yes, that's true on most issues. Other than Trudeau's
| particular abhorrent personality, there is no fundamental
| difference between the liberals and conservatives on any
| substantive issue. They just have slightly different pork
| barrel projects and stupid tax credits.
| morkalork wrote:
| Seems like people are waiting to sell because of the high
| rates instead of settling for less.
| RobertDeNiro wrote:
| Its an awful policy, and in the long run will harm Canadians
| more than anything.
| dangerwill wrote:
| As of when I last checked in 2021, Seattle tech salaries are
| 10-20% higher compared to Vancouver with house prices being
| like 33% lower. I imagine this situation holds when you compare
| Toronto to Chicago or Montreal to Boston. Even if the Canadian
| government makes the bureaucracy simpler/less onerous/less evil
| as long as those fundamental conditions exist I don't expect to
| see a mass exodus to Canada.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| According to https://www.levels.fyi/2022/ , Seattle salaries
| are nearly double what they are in Vancouver
| dleslie wrote:
| And if you go farther south, salaries are triple what they
| are in Vancouver. Or much more, if you're senior or
| specialized.
|
| A word of advice: if you have employable skills in tech
| simply avoid Canada; and if you must travel here, then work
| for Americans. They'll pay you much more than anyone local
| will even consider.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Not sure about that. You don't get more pay in the bay
| area, you actually would be paid less because of the
| taxes. Seattle has faang level offices and their
| compensation numbers is a bit lower than their counter
| parts in bay area. But u get lower cost of living and
| vastly lower taxes so you would even earn more. I have
| known many ppl moved out of bay area and I think Seattle
| is one of the top paying locations all things considered
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| There are other subtle taxation differences that could
| really matter by jurisdiction as well (ie. low property
| taxes in much of Canada) and of course low healthcare
| costs (though this matters less for the highly paid tech
| worker).
|
| I mean for parents in Canada they could get $10/day
| daycare in some places as that's ramping up more and
| more. That could be a dramatic cost savings for a certain
| person.
|
| It would be interesting to see someone do a real
| comprehensive look between the countries that touches
| literally every possible cost. I don't think I've seen
| that.
|
| With my own back of the envelope math comparisons, the
| countries did tighten up.
| eliasmacpherson wrote:
| Yeah, further to that:
|
| https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/seattle-senior-
| developer-...
|
| https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/vancouver-senior-
| developer...
|
| perhaps the parent had not considered USD CAD conversion
| rates or looked at a specific role
| afavour wrote:
| I'm honestly surprised it took Canada so long to do this. Always
| felt like an easy win to pluck some talented developers that are
| stuck in purgatory waiting for a green card and bring them north.
|
| Would have been invaluable a few years ago, right now the jobs
| market might not be so supportive of it. But we'll see.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| I think the impact of these things is overstated. Salaries in
| Canada are pretty low compared to the US and cost of living is
| pretty similar. When you factor in the climate, it's hard to see
| how Canada comes out ahead. I'd think Canada would need a
| streamlined visa process just to be in the race.
|
| Also from what I've seen, people often use Canada as a
| springboard to get to the US.
|
| I always maintain that most of the time whatever is good for
| Canada is also good for the US. I have a team in Canada so will
| be good for hiring.
| elzbardico wrote:
| Maybe Canada should consider instead attracting first immigrants
| skilled in the trades to build more houses and medical doctors to
| improve health care.
|
| Pretty hard to attract tech talent with salaries that are way
| lower than American ones when your housing costs are fastly
| approaching NYC and Bay Area levels. Maybe someone desperate
| after the layoffs would bite the bait, out of sheer desperation,
| but this is neither sustainable nor human.
| randomdata wrote:
| Canada brings in a whole slew of medical professionals. But
| provincial regulation often does not allow them to practice.
| Hence the doctor driving a taxi trope. Housing, also being a
| provincial matter, is another area where the provinces and
| Canada run disconnected.
|
| For those not from Canada: The Canadian government and
| provincial governments operate independently, in parallel,
| taking different areas of concern. They are considered equals,
| so there is no means for one to supersede the other. While the
| areas of concern are clearly defined, reality often sees
| matters cross into both, so you get such strangeness when one
| hand wants to do one thing and the other hand wants to do
| something else.
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _Canada 's new tech talent strategy_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36506854 - June 2023 (59
| comments)
| MPlus88 wrote:
| [dead]
| tho3i23o4i23423 wrote:
| [flagged]
| Kareem71 wrote:
| As a Canadian who moved to the US for tech, I strongly advocate
| for any young Canadian with capable means who is reading this to
| leave Canada.
|
| An already broken system is being stacked against you
|
| Housing prices are more expensive in Canada. Health care systems
| are crumbling within Canada. Wages are lower in Canada. General
| cost of living is more expensive in Canada
|
| I was frankly shocked after a lifetime of watching CBC just how
| much my quality of life improved by moving to the USA.
| Cyclical wrote:
| I had the exact opposite experience moving from Canada to San
| Francisco. While wages are much higher, the cost of living is
| not even comparable - anecdotally much, much higher in SF than
| either Toronto or Vancouver (both of which I have lived in).
| Healthcare has been a horrible experience here too, with Kaiser
| putting my through endless levels of bureaucracy in an effort
| to avoid paying for my medication.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| But when did you leave Toronto? Because the situation is
| getting exponentially out of control. The housing market in
| southern Ontario & lower mainland BC is a pyramid scheme.
| When my wife & I first bought our house in Toronto in 2005 in
| a "bad" neighbourhood (Oakwood-Vaughan) it was a bit of a
| squeeze on our dual tech-worker salary, but we were able to
| do it. Fast forward almost 20 years, we would not be able to
| afford what that house goes for unless we financed to like, a
| 35 year mortgage, and my compensation has gone _way_ up from
| back then.
|
| Meanwhile COVID f'd up the health care system extremely badly
| and there's no real commitment from the province to getting
| the funding situation under control.
| thfuran wrote:
| >a 35 year mortgage
|
| Is that much longer than normal in Canada? 30 year is the
| standard in US.
| Tsarbomb wrote:
| No it's not normal, they are talking a bit out of their
| ass. Based on their dates, I'm significantly younger than
| them and yet I was able to afford a house in one of the
| more desirable neighbourhoods with only me being the one
| working in tech.
|
| I'm not targeting the person you are replying to with any
| malice, but since almost all of the major financial and
| business institutions in Canada are headquartered here
| there is an overabundance of people that would claim they
| work in "tech" when in reality they are making a
| respectable but decidedly non-tech salaries at places
| like TD Bank or Thompson Reuters as examples.
|
| The range of possible salaries for devs in Toronto is
| quite large.
|
| Also as an additional anecdote, every single one of my
| classmates who went to the USA and decided they would
| like to start a family, came back to Canada to start that
| family.
|
| That is not to say it is all rosy here. There is an
| overabundance of poor or terrible talent that's been
| shipped in to cover the exodus of Canadian educated
| people chasing better salaries in the USA while business
| leaders and purse string holders are content to celebrate
| their mediocrity while being confused why productivity is
| so low.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The US is by far the most favourable place to be a highly paid
| professional but I do worry about whether it is the best place
| to raise a family.
|
| The level of violence here is just so much higher than other
| countries. Even living in San Francisco where the murder rate
| is half that of the US it is still double that of Europe and
| Canada. There was a gun battle at our local play park a couple
| of weeks back.
|
| The house price / wage ratio in Canada is shockingly bad
| though.
| bequanna wrote:
| > The level of violence here is just so much higher than
| other countries. Even living in San Francisco where the
| murder rate is half that of the US it is still double that of
| Europe and Canada.
|
| The Bay Area is not representative of the rest of the US.
| Crime is out of control in SF proper and the Bay Area more
| generally due to reduced enforcement.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| The Bay Area is definitely not representative of the US as
| it is far safer overall. According to CDC Wonder for 2021
| deaths from assault per 100k population were:
|
| San Francisco County 4.9
|
| California 6.3
|
| USA 7.8
|
| Santa Clara County is safer at 2.7 though I would really
| miss living in a walkable neighbourhood.
| bequanna wrote:
| > The Bay Area is definitely not representative of the US
| as it is far safer overall.
|
| Cherry picking stats doesn't make it true.
|
| SF-proper is one of the worst urban areas in the US.
| Maybe only topped by Philly.
| 121789 wrote:
| That's a bizarre statement. SF has ugly areas but still
| feels very safe. Would feel much more comfortable being
| dropped off in the worst places there vs Chicago, St
| Louis, LA, Miami, New Orleans, Atlanta and a bunch of
| other places
| laurencerowe wrote:
| I'm really not trying to cherry pick stats, death by
| assault / homicide is a pretty good indicator of levels
| of violent crime. SF-proper (i.e. San Francisco County)
| has a huge and highly visible homelessness problem and is
| definitely an outlier on that dimension. But while that
| is unpleasant it is less worrying than actual violence.
|
| The US limits gun control so even in states like
| California that try to do something about it there are
| many more deaths than in countries which actually do
| something about it.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Couldn't you just move outside of the city where is it
| significantly more safe? There are plenty of options between
| living in San Francisco and moving to Europe. I live in
| Seattle, and while there are _plenty_ of problems, I don't
| think it would be a bad place to have a family.
| laurencerowe wrote:
| At least according to CDC Wonder, King County has about the
| same rate of death from assault at 4.8/100k vs 4.9/100k for
| San Francisco County.
|
| Edit to add: It's not just the absolute levels that I worry
| about but the effect that ever present gun violence has on
| society with kids being subjected to frightening active
| shooter drills in schools that just aren't necessary in
| other developed countries.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| What is the process of moving to the USA as a Canadian?
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Find a job that qualifies you for a TN/H-1B visa or become a
| founder and get on an O-1 visa.
| refurb wrote:
| I had a similar experience.
|
| Instead of moving hours away to Toronto or Vancouver (if you
| don't live there), just move the same distance south and you
| can find cheaper housing, higher wages, more job opportunity,
| lower taxes and lower cost of living in general.
|
| It's like a secret power up to your life.
| ppeetteerr wrote:
| Similar experience but my reason for staying in the US is
| purely for the weather and the money. Life in Canada is so much
| more pleasant than any city I've lived in in the US.
| netfortius wrote:
| I love the tongue-in-cheek "Land of the Free" :-)
| ac130kz wrote:
| It's only laughable. A few years ago I was thinking about
| migrating to Canada, and now I see houses priced around 1M CAD
| and salaries that are only 2x the amount I have now.
| david-gpu wrote:
| Houses for only 1M? Where? In Toronto that buys you a two
| bedroom condo. Housing prices are insane.
| Tiktaalik wrote:
| _housing incredibly scarce_
|
| _rents and prices spiking_
|
| "hmm maybe we should make it easier for enormously highly paid
| American tech workers to move to Canada."
|
| I like the idea in general, but the specific timing of this, as
| high interest rates are making house construction _slow down_ and
| fixing the housing crisis even harder, is going to make a lot of
| inadequately housed Canadians very annoyed!
| kelipso wrote:
| Well I guess Canada made euthanasia legal for a reason.
| octacat wrote:
| Good for housing investors though (sarcasm). But yea, it is
| very easy for the government to "improve" economic situation by
| increasing the house prices. First of all, we build less = less
| money spent on the new infrastructure, profit. And if the
| prices go up, everyone who has a house gets more wealthy
| (except they cannot sell that, because they would become
| homeless). Also, makes banking very stable, if everyone knows
| mortgages are "very nice investment".
| safddsfds wrote:
| Great. At least it's going to a US ally.
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