
Avro Arrow – The record-breaking jet which still haunts a country - pseudolus
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200615-the-record-breaking-jet-which-still-haunts-a-country
======
jabl
Interesting to contrast with Sweden, a country of 10m people, having a
domestic fighter program to this day.

Though at least the current Swedish fighter, the JAS-39 Gripen, uses a lot of
3rd party components like the engine and most of the armaments. Still, an
impressive achievement from such a small country. Will be interesting to see
whether they will create a follow-up to the Gripen, or will instead opt to
participate in some next-generation common European thing.

Also similar to the Avro Arrow story is the British TSR2.

~~~
sbierwagen
Small nations can occasionally do surprising things when they feel like it.
Israel successfully developed nuclear weapons when they only had two million
people in the country.

~~~
tibbydudeza
South Africa was in the same boat in needing a weapon of absolute last resort
... instead of Arab armies we had to contend with soviet supplied cuban troops
on our border.

We had 4 devices by then and developed with help of Israel an intermediate
range ballistic missile based on their Jericho-2.

Fortunately sanity prevailed in the end and the bombs and missile program got
scrapped when a political settlement was achieved.

~~~
heraclius
> weapon of absolute last resort

At least when Israel was developing its nuclear bomb, its neighbours were not
particularly minded to compromise. Contrast, for example, the Freedom Charter
(a fifties document!), which was so studiously nonracial that the PAC had to
split off:

> South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white…that only a
> democratic state, based on the will of all the people, can secure to all
> their birthright without distinction of colour, race, sex or belief

At this point the possible threat was clearly domestic blacks, not nearby
colonies, and compromise with them was clearly quite possible. CODESA didn't
happen earlier because the Broederbond took so long to change its mind—had it,
it could have happened decades earlier.

The SA army was also in conventional terms quite sufficient to prevent any
foreign invasion. Even Rhodesia with P.K. van der Byl and the other ludicrous
types who congregated in Salisbury hotels could manage for over a decade.
Armscor on the other hand was world-leading, and none of SA’s neighbours had
anything like that.

> soviet supplied cuban troops on our border

They were on the Namibian border, which was from 1966 was no longer really
South Africa’s. In any case SA militarily held its own—it inflicted far more
casualties than it suffered and maintained control of Namibia. It seems to
make much more sense to interpret withdrawal as a political decision to cease
the indefensible occupation of Namibia, instead of evidence that a nuclear
bomb was strategically necessary.

------
scottlocklin
The Avro Arrow was a cool plane, but contra my Canadian aerospace nerd pals,
it really wasn't all _that_ impressive. It was a pretty typical interceptor
design of its day; interceptors basically fell out of fashion for obvious
reasons -the Soviets never really developed a proper intercontinental bomber
fleet, let alone a supersonic intercontinental bomber fleet, and the ICBM and
SAM kind of made bombers expensive and irrelevant anyway in comparison. The
last US designed interceptor ... arguably the A-5 Vigilante[1] (otherwise the
F106 Delta Dagger[2]), and arguably pretty equivalent to the Avro Arrow. The
F108 Rapier[3] concept was also interesting; many of its guts ended up in
later planes like the Vigilante or SR-71.

It's amusing that the Soviets kept development of the interceptor for their
PVO-Strany; coming up with very impressive aircraft which have no equivalence
class in the West.

Anyway too bad Canadian aerospace didn't continue, but had they developed the
thing, it wouldn't have been very useful.

[1][https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_A-5_Vigilante](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_A-5_Vigilante)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_F-106_Delta_Dart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_F-106_Delta_Dart)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XF-108_Rapier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_XF-108_Rapier)

~~~
ashtonkem
The biggest contribution by interceptors was arguably the MiG 25 which was
badly misinterpreted by western analysts, prompting the creation of the F-15
to counter the perceived threat.

------
tolien
See previous discussions, e.g. [1, 2].

The Arrow was extremely ambitious and many of the technologies it used didn't
exist and wouldn't for decades (e.g. fully active missiles, pulse doppler
RADAR). The era of high-and-fast bombers was followed by low-level nap-of-the-
earth flying and ICBMs, so the Arrow might have been an incredibly expensive
white elephant if it had even been finished.

1:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21989392](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21989392)

2:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256068](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15256068)

~~~
hn_check
Russia's nuclear strategy still relies upon flying Bear bombers to the launch
box and deploying cruise missiles. NORAD still sorties fighter aircraft to
intercept these bombers somewhat regularly. Obviously not bombers _actually_
launching cruise missiles, but ones doing test runs of the same.

It would have had a critical role for decades.

~~~
tolien
Cool, but the Tu-95 now carries missiles like the Kh-55 with a range of 1600
miles while the Arrow was expected to have a range of 360 nmi. The Bear could
have dropped its missiles and been long gone before the Arrow got anywhere
close to it, never mind that the Sparrow II never worked.

~~~
nickff
The KH-22, with a range of 300 miles would be a more fair example, as it would
have been a contemporary of the Arrow (1960-1980). The KH-55 was first
produced in 1981.

~~~
tolien
Yeah, I was going to mention the Kh-20 (similar period, 240-370 mi range) -
the Kh-22 was used (AIUI) in an anti-shipping role so probably wouldn't have
been used in a scenario where it would be intercepted by an Arrow.

~~~
nickff
You're correct, I meant to put in Kh-20, and made a mistake, but will leave it
as-is. Here are the Wiki pages for any other readers:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-20](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-20)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-22](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kh-22)

------
andromeduck
One of my profs used to say that when it came to science Canada had a bronze
medal mentality. We also cancelled a supercollider program in because it was
more politically expedient to spend the modest grant required on low income
housing for the more politically influential eastern provinces and did
absolutely nothing to protect Nortel as they were slowly picked apart by
Chinese intelligence.

[https://www.bcbusiness.ca/ubcs-particle-accelerator-what-
cou...](https://www.bcbusiness.ca/ubcs-particle-accelerator-what-couldve-been)

[https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-
dow...](https://nationalpost.com/news/exclusive-did-huawei-bring-down-nortel-
corporate-espionage-theft-and-the-parallel-rise-and-fall-of-two-telecom-
giants)

~~~
csours
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superconducting_Super_Collider)

The US has one too.

~~~
valuearb
Hey cancellation of the Supercollider enabled me to hire my best engineer
ever. So not a total loss.

~~~
csours
Story?

~~~
valuearb
He was a Japanese nuclear physicist working in the SSC, who had written some
amazing graphics filters in his spare time. We hired him (cost $25,000 in
legal fees to get him a work visa IIRC) and he instantly became one of our
most valuable engineers. His products sold millions of dollars and supported
probably a dozen of our employees.

Funny part is his English wasn’t very good, so I never even had a full
conversation with him. Great guy tho. Makes me want to tell my republican
friends, do you want super talented people making things in Asia, or here?

~~~
csours
I knew a guy who worked on the SSC. I was a teenager, and he was a friend of
the family, so it's not like we got into depth or anything. He was of the
opinion that cronyism killed the project. People brought their unqualified
friends on board and drove up the cost.

It was pretty cool to see some bits and bobs from the project, like flat
braided wire.

I also worked on some relocated houses that were moved off of the track of the
SSC. They spent a LOT of money preparing the area.

------
pjkundert
What haunts Canadians is that we developed world-leading aerospace
_capability_ , which was discarded in an instant.

These engineers and technicians scattered to the wind, becoming leaders in
dozens of successful aerospace projects, worldwide.

Canada returned to being hewers of wood an drawers of water. The specific
details and capabilities/problems of the Avro Arrow are secondary.

~~~
valuearb
It’s like saying the US lost when it canceled the Space Shuttle. Both projects
were massively expensive failures that never met operational requirements.

at least Canada canceled theirs before it drove the cost of space access
through the roof and killed 17 people.

~~~
nikitaga
The difference is, US is replacing the shuttle with (privately made) US
rockets. The transition is not complete yet, but ultimately both the
manufacturing capability and profits are staying in the US. Can't say the same
for Canada.

~~~
valuearb
I can capture all the wild stallions I want, but as soon as I open the pasture
gate they will be gone.

The idea isn’t to temporarily feed them with some completely uneconomic
project. You want to give them reasons to stay long term. So why is Canada
such a poor place to build technology companies?

------
tixocloud
Sadly, this story continues to have a modern day version in the form of poor
government support for domestic firms. Canadian education and talent is
incredible and arguably world class but with greater opportunity in the south,
many choose to leave. Perhaps some may have come back with the US politics but
I doubt there's a mass migration back to Canada.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ibm-shared-services-
contrac...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ibm-shared-services-
contract-1.4658682)

~~~
ChuckNorris89
You can say the same about Europe generally having a great and free education
system but the best and brightest move to the US.

~~~
gambiting
I honestly don't understand or know anyone who would move to the US now. I
have a few friends who were considering it but it's a very firm no at this
point, and they all had offers from the big firms in Silicone Valley. Sure,
your compensation in UK or Germany won't reach the stratospheric levels of US
programmers, but as a competent engineer you can easily reach _very_
comfortable levels of living, buy a house, brand new car, afford to have a
couple kids and save some money for fun. And you won't have to deal with the
insanity of American healthcare, immigration or politics.

I grew up thinking that my dream would be to move to US one day - nowadays
there probably isn't an offer that would make me move there.

~~~
govg
Isn't housing in the major EU cities (London / Paris / Berlin ) all very
expensive and comparable to SF / NY in terms of multiples of average
programmer salary? The healthcare is definitely a big advantage though.

~~~
umanwizard
Why is European healthcare an advantage for people in professional software
engineering jobs? All such people have health insurance in the US.

~~~
ChuckNorris89
Because it's not all about you. It's about your parents, your friends, your
family who are not _:gasp:_ software engineers, and it's nice not having to
worry about them going bankrupt or homeless if they need x life-saving medical
procedure or they loose their job.

~~~
perl4ever
It can be impractical to take your parents, your friends, and your extended
family along with you to another country. It's certainly far more difficult
than getting a job there as a software engineer, particular because of
countries preferring to allow highly skilled, educated, and/or paid people in
preferentially.

------
martythemaniak
You know what haunts me even more? That 60 years later, we still spend time
and effort talking about this instead of doing anything.

Sadly, Canadians don't have the appetite for ambitious projects, whether
military, civilian, terrestrial, space etc. Even when costs are reasonable
(think of putting up $1billion in prize money to spur private investment
X-Prize style) people will not tolerate attempts at risky things.

~~~
drchiu
Yup. Another good examples are Nortel and BlackBerry. The government in Canada
needs to be supportive about developing global leaders in expertise.
Healthcare, once considered a world’s top, isn’t really today, but many
Canadians still retain to the idea it is.

~~~
wenc
As a Canadian living in the U.S., I noticed a subtle thing that comes up when
we Canadians lament the lack of global leaders in business. We often
instinctively say "the government ought to do this or that" (I do this too).
Whereas Americans tend not to bring up the government at all -- they go
straight to private capital and get it done.

I'm a big government person (especially for society-wide services like
healthcare, public health, education) but in business, I've come to realize
that it's not helpful to have the mindset of relying on the government.
(exception: defense, which almost always needs government funding. But almost
everything else does not.)

I had a friend who was running a nascent high-tech commercial business and he
spent a large chunk of his time writing proposals for government grants. Money
is money, of course, but it's a little strange to me that even business people
in Canada rely so much on the government instead of just going to the capital
markets. And what's worse, a lack of government programs in a particular area
is interpreted as a constraint. This should not be.

The 2nd largest company in Canada by market cap right now is Shopify, and it
succeeded with no significant government support. We need to shift our
people's mindset to not default to invoking the government -- instead we need
to encourage non-risk-averse capital investment into bluesky projects from
private parties. It is true that we are not awash in capital, being a small
country and all, but we have enough (we're 16th in the world in GDP/PPP). Much
smaller countries in northern Europe with smaller GDPs have done better than
we have in establishing global business leaders.

~~~
vikramkr
I think we might not bring up the government in america because our government
has not really had a problem getting big things done and has helped us lay the
foundation for what the private sector has since built on. For all its faults,
the government helped drive nuclear power, the space race, the internet, and
biotech. I dont know where the US would be without the bomb, apollo, arpanet,
and the human genome project. We had a private sector able to pick up from
there to carry on the next steps, but our success is rooted in literal
moonshots by out government as well. And we can argue all day about whether
the private sector could have done all that more efficiently or whatever, but
the fact of history is that the government did it. And, it did it in a way
that involved the private sector through contractors etc that seeded talent
outside government agencies and gave the private sector a good launching off
point.

~~~
jbay808
I think GPS also belongs in that list of government-developed revolutionary
technologies.

~~~
vikramkr
I grouped that with the space race

------
tromp
> told to destroy the blueprints

What on earth compelled them to order that? That's just so barbaric. As if
they were trying to destroy evidence of a crime.

Surely it makes more sense to preserve them?! You might even try to sell or
license the design to recover some of the $250m invested?

~~~
sidewndr46
My understanding is they weren't actually destroyed, the order was given but
not obeyed.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saved-avro-arrow-
bl...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/saved-avro-arrow-blueprints-
ordered-destroyed-1.5416554)

~~~
austhrow743
The article we're commenting on specifically mentions the blueprints being
saved.

------
Nimitz14
> “The Arrow was an extremely high-performance, hi-tech fighter,” says Coles.
> “Its designers had made very few compromises to keep its costs down, and it
> was very much the 'gold-plated' solution.”

Sounds like this is a cautionary tale of what happens when you do what some
people here suggest; doing everything the 'right/best' way, instead of
realising that being engineer means making compromises.

------
arvinaminpour
I remember our high school history teacher taking us to an aviation museum in
Toronto. They had a section of the plane out on display and it was a beautiful
piece of work.

But I'll never forget the way the tour guide described the story of the arrow
and the hurt in his voice as he recanted the decision to scrap the plane.

For that generation of Canadian aviation geeks, it was truly a gut punch.

~~~
catalogia
There's currently a full-size Arrow replica on display in Toronto, at the
_Canadian Air and Space Museum_. I haven't gotten a chance to go there yet,
but the _Canada Aviation and Space Museum_ in Ottawa currently has an original
nose section on display, which I believe is the largest surviving piece. I can
attest to the later being a very good aviation museum all around; I recommend
it to anybody who's interested in that sort of thing. The nearby Diefenbunker
museum is also very cool if you're interested in cold war stuff.

------
Theodores
Amy of YouTube 'Vintage Space' fame was who the BBC went to for the nuts and
bolts of the article. She is Canadian and more into space than aviation. She
is not a fan of the Space Shuttle so that isn't 'vintage Space' as far as she
is concerned.

Her YouTube channel and book are recommended.

------
aerostable_slug
Something I'm not seeing a lot of mention of was the fact that the Canadian
aerospace program was absolutely riddled with Soviet spies.

I don't have references in front of me unfortunately, but if you choose to
believe me, a good amount of the American resistance to the Arrow program had
to do with direct technology transfer to the Soviet Union via their thorough
penetration of the Canadian aerospace program. The Arrow represented a conduit
of American aerospace knowledge directly to the Soviets, and had to be
stopped.

~~~
stevofolife
Source please

~~~
aerostable_slug
_But until then his assignment was to become Soboloff so convincingly that
nobody would ever suspect he was a Soviet spy. Eventually, he was given
responsibility for managing five recruited agents, including a Communist Party
of Canada member from Toronto who worked for the company developing the Avro
Arrow and provided its engineering schematics to the KGB._

[https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-spy-named-gideon-
bo...](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/the-spy-named-gideon-book-tells-
story-of-russian-illegal-sent-to-canada-and-betrayed)

That said, as noted I don't have references I can share for what I learned.
Believe it or not.

------
m23khan
Yes, as Canadian, Avro Arrow does leave a "What if..." thought in my mind but
having said that, I am proud of my countrymen as we have achieved quiet a lot
since then (given our tiny population and difficult logistics):

Canada Space Arm, Blackberry (RIM), Bombardier
aircrafts/subways/streetcars/trains, de Havilland aircrafts as well as other
aircrafts
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_of_Canada%27s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_of_Canada%27s_air_forces)).

As to why was Avro Arrow scrapped - sure there are explanations and the
leading ones tend to indicate external political pressure coming from USA but
I am not bitter at the reasons behind it because it is one thing to be cross
at the decision but I don't have any clear idea as to actual reasons and the
thought process of our leaders at the time.

~~~
valuearb
It was scrapped because it was doomed to be a bad fighter plane. Speed isn’t
everything. The Vigilante, Delta Dart, etc all were expensive failures because
you need a lot more than speed.

------
sungam
Interestingly the cessation of Arrow development presented a huge opportunity
for the Apollo program which actively recruited these highly trained engineers
for the moon landings (this is discussed in detail in Charles Murray's
fascinating history of the Apollo program).

------
mzakharo1
How about Canada funding Geoffrey Hinton's research in machine learning.
[https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/04/17/how-a-
toronto-...](https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/04/17/how-a-toronto-
professors-research-revolutionized-artificial-intelligence.html)

Arguably, one of the most improtant breakthroughs of recent history, funded by
Canadian citizens/taxes. This has much bigger social/economic impact,
especially since we can outsource the job of overspending on military to our
neighbours, and attempt to build a more socially just society on money saved.

------
kelvin0
Oh, and let's not forget about Hydro-Québec's innovation with an all electric
motor-wheel(early 90's!). Way ahead of it's time, and canned for suspicious
reasons.

[https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https:/...](https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moteur-
roue_d%2527Hydro-Qu%25C3%25A9bec&prev=search)

[https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moteur-roue_d%27Hydro-
Qu%C3%A9...](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moteur-roue_d%27Hydro-Qu%C3%A9bec)

~~~
jacobush
The usual problem with wheel motors is unsprung weight, and the 90s was before
batteries had decent energy density.

It sounds like something like a Prius, but with serial hybrid instead of
parallel hybrid like the Prius was.

~~~
sudosysgen
This is not true. Wheel motors have a ton of advantages in applications where
unsprung weight isn't a big issue - electric bicycles and motorcycles for
instance.

Wheel motors can also be surprisingly light as they can use the rotation in
order to create cooling, and reduce a lot of rotational inertia which can be
almost as bad as unsprung weight.

The prototype was also a plug-in hybrid, which was very doable at the time.

There is a reason why hub motors are so amazing in so many applications right
now.

~~~
coryrc
The context was clearly conventional automobiles. Nothing going over ~30 mph
will ever be economically competitive with wheel motors instead of inboard
motors. The physics are such that this will forever be true. Any materials
advancement will improve both technologies and wheel motors can never catch
up.

~~~
kelvin0
The prototype they had was on a modified 90's Intrepid.

[https://youtu.be/er8ufDV87nQ](https://youtu.be/er8ufDV87nQ)

[https://youtu.be/jHmxJPTWD-M](https://youtu.be/jHmxJPTWD-M)

It had comparable of not superior acceleration to it's original combustion
engine.

~~~
coryrc
And cost more and had worse handling. There's no advantage.

~~~
sudosysgen
Except being electric and costing essentially nothing in maintenance?

Also, the handling characteristics were really not as bad as claimed from most
all experiments conducted.

------
polskibus
For a moment I thought this is about some combination of Apache Avro and
Apache Arrow for data serialization purposes.

~~~
cangencer
exactly!

------
smichel17
> _In a move which shocked Canada, the cutting up of the Arrow prototypes took
> place in front of the silent factory. The moment was captured in a grainy
> black-and-white photograph which continues to haunt Canada._

Is it just me or was this photo not included in the article? I tried a quick
search but didn't see anything obviously it, either.

~~~
barbegal
You can see it in this article [https://www.thesilo.ca/canadas-original-black-
friday-cancell...](https://www.thesilo.ca/canadas-original-black-friday-
cancelled-arrow-was-cutting-edge-1950s-jet-interceptor/)

~~~
smichel17
Thank you!

------
mymythisisthis
Cancelled in 1959. Many of the Canadian engineers moved to the States and
worked on the space program.

~~~
dmix
As is tradition.

------
gandalfian
They still have their own CANDU nucleur technology which is impressive for a
country their size. Britain basically have up on theirs.

~~~
goalieca
Well actually, we started selling that off to SNC and it's rotting now..

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/aecl-sold-for-15m-to-snc-
la...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/aecl-sold-for-15m-to-snc-
lavalin-1.985786)

~~~
andromeduck
at least we still have a few SMR startups like Terrestrial

[https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/](https://www.terrestrialenergy.com/)

------
rkagerer
_...a lot of the people who made the critical decisions in the Apollo-era were
Canadian._

Was it easier for non US citizens to work in Aerospace in those days? e.g. I
hear people gripe SpaceX can't hire internationally.

------
Lio
This story reminds me of the British space programme which Tony Benn cancelled
because he couldn’t see the point of it.

...that was just before people started launching communications satellites.

------
johnmarcus
Just me, or is that Starscream?

~~~
aidenn0
I don't remember any pure delta-winged Starscream, but that doesn't mean there
wasn't one.

All of the Starscreams I remember have prominent horzontal tail surfaces (the
one I owned as a kid was very F-15ish but he's also been patterned after the
Su-35, the F-16 and the F-22.

------
redis_mlc
> The record-breaking jet which still haunts a country

That's no exaggeration. For English Canada, the destruction of those planes
was a trauma that lasts to this day because the Arrow represented the height
of national pride, and their destruction the deepest low.

Similar but lesser feelings for the A220, sold by Bombardier for $1 to Airbus
because Boeing lobbied for a 219.63% tariff on it.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A220)

[https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/news/companies/bombardier-b...](https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/26/news/companies/bombardier-
boeing-cseries-delta-itc-ruling/index.html)

Canadians are polite, but they can kick ass when they want to.

~~~
valuearb
Canceling the Arrow was probably the best thing to happen to Canada. Why tie
up huge resources and your top engineers building a fighter that was far too
expensive and poorly designed for battlefields of the future?

~~~
pjkundert
Yes, much better that these engineers and technicians mostly departed to other
nations, or went on to build canoes or pots and pans, as good Canadians
should.

~~~
sudosysgen
Or now work for Pratt and Whitney Canada, for a wage inferior to that of US
engineers, making engines that we then buy while the profits go to the US.

~~~
908B64B197
I don't see why they simply wouldn't go work in the US if that was the case.
Unless they aren't qualified enough.

~~~
sudosysgen
"just move", basically. This is an absurd argument at the scale of a country,
and even more absurd at an international scale.

If they weren't qualified the industry wouldn't have been poached. Rather,
this suggests that at least at some point they were significantly more
qualified than those in the US.

~~~
908B64B197
They better get used to it: the current government had no problem pitching to
Amazon that Canada was a cheap offshoring destination for engineers[1].

[1][https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-
criti...](https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-criticized-
for-boasting-about-low-pay-of-its-tech-workers-in-amazon-hq-bid)

------
jariel
"but they can kick ass when they want to.

Obviously not when it comes to Arrow, Bombardier, and getting salary parity
with US workers.

I say this unsarcastically as a Canadian.

~~~
ajuc
If you get paid 20% more but spend 20% of your salary on services you wouldn't
need to buy otherwise - isn't it parity already?

~~~
chrisseaton
> If you get paid 20% more

I think you are possibly _massively_ underestimating how much it is possible
to get paid as even an average software developer in the US. Like literally
off by an entire order of magnitude.

I would guess it's more like 100%-400% more for equivalent jobs, and many
people at. Plus your US job covers your healthcare etc.

~~~
holtalanm
doesn't that depend on where you live, though? A Software Engineer in the bay
area gets paid a lot more than a Software Engineer with equivalent experience
in the mid-west.

~~~
chrisseaton
But there's almost nowhere in Canada or Europe where you can get the kind of
$750k packages that you see fairly routinely for normal developers at ultra
elite companies like Google in the Bay Area. How can Canada or Europe really
compete with that?

~~~
myrion
In no small part by not being the US. Currently, no salary would be enough to
motivate me to move there, f.ex.

------
cheez
Canada is a joke and will continue to be a joke until the economy collapses
under the weight of a government run by sissies. (Edit: to be clear, that's
all of them. Not just the current one. The culture of Canada's government is
to be a leech.)

~~~
dang
Yikes! Please don't post like this and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537637](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23537637)
here.

I'm well acquainted with the effect that the Avro Arrow has on Canadian
feelings, especially Canadian engineering feelings. But let's not go
overboard.

~~~
cheez
Proof is in the pudding :-)

