Canada’s tech industry is warning that the country continues to lose its best and brightest entrepreneurs to the U.S., an issue that has taken on new urgency as tariff threats have prompted Ottawa to try to diversify away from the U.S. economy.
This week, various tech entrepreneurs, politicians and economists began to weigh in on data that show just how big the problem has become. According to recent figures, there are at least 517 U.S.-based tech firms with Canadian founders — or, entrepreneurs who were educated in Canada but later left for the U.S. — that have together raised more than US$400 billion.
“The numbers make it clear that Canada’s founders and entrepreneurs are leaving in droves — and they are taking the future value they will generate with them,” said Lucy Hargreaves, co-founder of the business advocacy group Build Canada, who issued a call to action in the form of a LinkedIn essay that triggered an online conversation about the trend.
12 Comments
B1ackmsth@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 4d
The national post is an american-owned rag.
Foxer@lemmy.ca · -4 pts · 4d
Children criticize the source, intelligent adults address the content. Was there something about the content that you disagreed with?
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 4d
Yes. I don't care about "entrepreneurs".
Foxer@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 2d
Then you don't care about Canadian jobs because the vast majority of jobs come from small and medium business in Canada. Those are the entrepreneurs
alsimoneau@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
Let's deconstruct this.
Do you have a number about how many people work for Canadian entrepreneurs?
Which of them are the ones threatening to leave?
What percentage of people work for these ones?
Are they really gonna leave or are they just posturing?
I dgaf if some techbro that employs 5 people leave. The real Canadian entrepreneurs that want to help build a strong Canada won't be so fickle.
Foxer@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1d
1 approximately 5.8 million people, which accounts for 46.6% of the total private labour force. That's not including medium sized businesses which grew from small businesses
2 a lot of them apparently, something like 40% in the trades involving manufacturing and such but for this particular article they're referring to the tech industry which is lost about $400 billion dollars worth. That's quite a lot
3 None, they left. The question is how many would have worked for them and the answer is thousands and thousands
4 The article notes that these are the ones that have already left. We don't know how many more considering Leaving but presumably these ones left others will follow. We do know that several other sectors such as manufacturing, are reporting that many are planning to leave or have already made arrangements.
We're talking about a very large number of jobs and massive amounts of investment money, and not just that but these are extremely high paying jobs. And as I'm sure you are aware these kinds of high-paying jobs and stimulate other jobs within the economy as well
We can't afford to be losing high paying tech jobs and replacing them with Tim Hortons jobs. This is a big deal, we have to make it desirable for companies both tech and other to stay in Canada and right now we're not achieving that
TheAgeOfSuperboredom@lemmy.ca · 7 pts · 4d
These people supposedly leaving clearly prefer working under fascism. Fuck em! Let them leave. Let's make Canadian tech something to aspire to instead of something designed to exploit.
But on a positive note, maybe this will make the government try to get more funding into technology.
Foxer@lemmy.ca · -1 pts · 2d
Not everybody considers Trump Fascism and most people recognize that he's gone into and change years. They're probably thinking long-term. But the fact that they prefer to move to the united states to stay here is more of a commentary about how bad it is here than it is about how bad it is in the states
healthetank@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 4d
I'm not surprised - we've made it quite easy to move between the two countries, comparatively speaking, and one country has an enormous social safety net compared to the other, including all the fees that go along with that. Since its easy to have a US company enter the Canadian market, why would they not base themselves out of the consumer base that's 10x the size with fewer labour laws, privacy laws, and environmental protections? Add onto that the number of rich people and VC present in the US vs Canada that can give startups a skyrocket to success?
That being said, I don't think the way to compete is to lower our standards or offer additional financial payouts/tax breaks. I think we should be enforcing more things like the dropped Netflix tax, forcing foreign companies who want a piece of the Canadian market to give back to the country they're draining money away from.
Foxer@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 2d
But that wouldn't stop them from taking their jobs there and paying taxes there.
healthetank@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 1d
No, it wouldn't. But is the US model one we want to emulate? I'd say no, so I think we need to look at alternative methods that allow us to get our fair share of the revenue from those companies, discourage those companies from leaving to start up elsewhere, and innovate.
Add in more funding and assistance for startups, using the DST and it should help move things along. Maybe low-interest loans to new businesses?
Foxer@lemmy.ca · 0 pts · 1d
Well with the latest collapse in talks hopefully everything's back on the table for discussion