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ta416425

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Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay 6 years ago
  I’m not sure why you’re upset with the CBC over this
Not just the CBC, but they do it a lot. There is this cloying "we've finally made it!" back-slapping the press reliably produces every time a well-known company announces an expansion, no matter how big or small, and really any time some positive PR comes out of the Canadian tech sector. The energy we spend congratulating ourselves for a job well done unintentionally lays bare how provincial we really are.

The reason this is so infuriating is the congratulatory rhetoric rings hollow for many Canadians with US work experience who realize how much better it is, in so many (but not all) ways, to be a tech worker in the US vs. in Canada.

To produce articles with the tone of the OP, you would need to be either myopic or disingenuous.

This is especially so in the context of a company like Google. If you're a Canadian engineer who can get a job at Google, your take-home pay after housing will be dramatically higher in the US than in Canada (if you don't like the lifestyle sacrifices that requires in the Bay Area or NYC, you can do better in umpteen smaller cities). All the while you will have access to better health care, lower wait times, and easy immigration status (TN).

  we’ve been a branch plant economy since the 1960s. A lot of
  this has to do with Canadian temperament and mindset, which
  isn’t particularly entrepreneurial due a dearth of
  leadership from its investor class.
No argument there. Those in Canada who really control the money are overwhelmingly complacent, more interested in maintaining what they have than taking real risks. Much of it isn't self-made, it's just inherited from early 20th century industrialists. Not that many modern self-made wealth stories other than a bunch of people speculating on real estate, literally collecting rent rather than adding productive capacity or consumer surplus.
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Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay 6 years ago

Fact of the matter is good talent can choose between Canada and the US, and it's pretty easy for a Canadian engineer (especially early in their career) to move to the US to work. The US is close to Canada geographically and culturally so of course it's going to be the logical alternative. Especially when the pay is so much better. Of course no one from Vancouver or Toronto will move to Sydney or Berlin for best-in-class career prospects. You go to the USA for that, so long as you're willing to stomach the environment.

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Google's expansion plans show why Canada's tech boom is here to stay 6 years ago

So who in Toronto is paying senior or staff developers with 10 years of experience the local equivalent of >$400k USD (in lower cost cities than NYC/SF)?

I left Toronto immediately after my Master's, but have multiple extremely talented friends who feel they've topped out at well under half that.

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