
Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie - gabbo
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/canada-forgot-to-plan-for-its-future-by-leaning-on-oil-and-the-loonie/article28083772/
======
3pt14159
Canada didn't forget anything. We have a diverse economy with common sense
measures like reducing our net debt to GDP, while keeping a fully funded
retirement pension fund (CPP, unlike SS, actually invests in the public
market).

Even the way we do provincial transfer payments is sane. While one industry is
booming (Oil, manufacturing, tech) other "have not" provinces get payments
through the federal government. This brings a measure of stability to the
system.

No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that "Canada
forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's a
ridiculous statement.

Criticizing Canada's action on climate change is warranted, but our federal
economic policy has been quite level headed.

~~~
patrick_99
I'd argue Canada made concerted efforts to support natural resource industries
at the cost of all other industries. Eg. expending massive political capital
with the US to push for Keystone XL. We've hurt our image abroad by fighting
climate change action, Canada even refused to consider asbestos a hazardous
material because there's a single asbestos mine in the country. As soon as
that mine closed we switched to considering it hazardous. These are short
termed, unprincipled policy decisions that help the resource industry at the
expense of the Canadian brand.

~~~
fche
"expending massive political capital"

Luckily, political capital is a fiat currency and can be created or destroyed
by the CBC in moments.

~~~
wavefunction
How many Americans (US + Mexico + South)/Europeans/Asians/Africans watch the
CBC? I think the parent was referring to international political capital.

~~~
fche
Sorry: I should not have implied that the CBC is the only one with a royal
charter for political capital minting/disposal.

------
plehoux
"If the Canadian government is serious about long-term growth, it must focus
on how it can build cities and policies that attract people and businesses.
But we have not been headed in the right direction on this front."

YES!

I live in Quebec city and there is a rampant idea in the population that the
status quo is the only way forward. More petroleum exploration, larger
highways, big government mining investments/subsidies initiative like 'plan
Nord', big fat houses in the suburbs that you can spin after 2 years for 20%
gain... we never allow ourselves to think outside the box.

I'm glad the US is 'embracing' successes like Space X, Tesla, Uber, AirBnb,
... to really show us what innovation looks like. You CANT innovate if your
mind live in the status quo.

With the $CAD drop and the rise of remote work we should also expect a massive
brain drain... although it's anecdotal, my brother just accepted a job (remote
from Quebec) for a US-based company at double the salary he would have got
from a local one. That can't be good for locally-made innovation.

Refs: [http://www.petrolia-
inc.com/en/corporate/projects/anticosti-...](http://www.petrolia-
inc.com/en/corporate/projects/anticosti-project)
[http://plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/](http://plannord.gouv.qc.ca/en/)

~~~
nickspacek
Agreed with the harm to locally-made innovation. In my city (Fredericton, NB)
the tech industry has hade (seemingly) more and more bigger companies
(Raytheon, Siemens, Salesforce, IBM) setting up shop and bringing better
wages. It's a double-edged sword. We have a pretty interesting startup scene,
but those smaller companies (startups and consultants) are now finding it
harder to compete with the salaries and benefits the large companies can
offer.

~~~
serge2k
That's the only way to really drive salaries up though. Which is the only way
to retain talent when it is so easy to cross the border and start making a
whole lot more.

------
HorizonXP
I've been saying this to my circle of friends and family for years. The stark
contrast between Toronto and Silicon Valley is mind-numbing. And the short-
sightedness of our politicians and society is infuriating. I cannot understand
why people think it's ok to rely on banks, resource companies, and
manufacturing to hold up our economy. We need to invest in growth sectors. It
may not create a ton of jobs immediately, but the potential payoff could save
us. If you're not growing, you're dying.

I'm reaching the point where I need to hire developers soon. I'm worried about
what kind of talent I'll be able to find, simply because most people worth
their salt are already employed, or work in the Bay.

Remote is an option of course, but it adds a lot of complexity that most
early-stage startups can't manage well.

I'm seriously considering going back to SV.

~~~
jordigh
Not to play second fiddle to Toronto and Vancouver, but here in Mtl we have a
fairly lively startup scene and some bigger players like Ubisoft, Google, and
Bombardier as well. I frequent our Montréal Python usergroup, and I'm
routinely impressed by the calibre of the presentations and the work that
people are showing off.[1]

If you want talent, it's certainly available, and it's cheaper than SV.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/MontrealPython/videos](https://www.youtube.com/user/MontrealPython/videos)

~~~
sirkneeland
Montreal has a fairly decent cluster of game studios, does it not?

If nothing else I'm hoping they're hard at work making the next Deus Ex game
at Eidos Montreal :)

~~~
jordigh
> Montreal has a fairly decent cluster of game studios, does it not?

Yeah. I work close to Ubisoft, and there's a cluster of startups around its
offices. At lunch hour, all of the local eateries are full of hacker types.

------
patrick_99
It seems like the effect of the low dollar is already helping the tech
sectors. Companies like Shopify make their money in USD while salaries are a
bargain. American companies like Amazon are expanding their offices in Toronto
and Vancouver. The brain drain is real though. I feel like there's a problem
when police officers make more than most software engineers.

~~~
turnip1979
Agreed on the brain drain. Toronto is a major (and expensive) world city. From
talking with friends, 100K (Canadian, that's 70K US) is the ceiling for
intermediate to senior developers. Junior devs make a lot less ... 50-60K
(that's 35 to 42K US)!

That said, free healthcare counts for a lot. Also, as a dev in a Canadian tech
company, you are probably not going to see as much stress and volatility as
your average Silicon Valley company.

The high property prices are messing up lives of young people who don't have
rich parents. In my friend circle, I can see it as a key source of strife
among married couples. Buying a house ties you to a city .. even if you get a
better offer some place else. I don't think real-estate is being recognized as
the beast it is. The last Bank of Canada rate decrease seemed only about oil
prices and oblivious to the flames in YVR and YYZ housing.

Sigh ... what a mess :(

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Having worked in Toronto's tech scene for almost two decades I just have a big
'meh' response to it.

I now work at Google in Kitchener, and commute from a hobby farm near
Hamilton. Quality of life is outstanding. I dread ever having to work in
Toronto proper again.

The startup scene in Toronto is a clique. The quality of management talent is
sad. After working as employee #4 in a Toronto startup, I jumped ship to work
for a late stage startup HQ'd in NYC and the contrast in their management
skills and treatment of employees was night and day. Working at a 'hip'
company in Toronto they expect you to feel blessed and to take intense
sacrifice on their behalf just because you have the privilege of working for
something that isn't a bank or insurance company. Meanwhile compensation lags
significantly behind what you'd get elsewhere in NA.

And then the rest of the non-startup scene in Toronto is primarily large
financial companies, and the work is soul crushingly boring.

~~~
cal5k
As a Toronto-based startup founder, I'm sorry you had that experience! (Shit,
how Canadian of me... Apologizing for other people)

In any event, I think for the first time there's a really good cohort of
Toronto founders with American-style vision and ability to execute. I don't
think we're too far from seeing a couple of unicorns in Toronto that will help
to build a stronger ecosystem. And yes, where necessary that means importing
American management at great expense.

Toronto has a lot going for it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, as you can
attest, but I think it's as good a place as anything to do something great.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
With the CAD being low there might be a window where a lot more American
capital invests here. Until the price of oil climbs again.

In general it seems like VC-funded companies that go through acquisition here
get a far weaker deal than similar companies in the US. And the employees a
lesser share of the pie. Maybe that's changing now, but unless the capital is
there to invest, I can't see how.

~~~
cal5k
It's improving. The capital is there, you just have to think globally fairly
quickly.

We can always whine about how things in Canada are never as good as in <x>, in
this case the Valley, but overall it's actually pretty good. I guess the
secret sauce is to just get on with doing what you'd do regardless of your
circumstances. I personally am not motivated by whether or not I'd get a 30%
boost on an eventual exit if we were in the US.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
As an employee trying to pay off a mortgage and save for my kids uni, that 30%
is important to _me_. So for recruiting good talent (not claiming I'm good
talent, but whatever) I'd think it matters a lot.

------
cmrdporcupine
We had a gov't for 10 years full of "Calgary-school" (Canada's right-wing
ultra free market economic ideologues coming out of the University of Calgary
econ/poli-sci program). They were overwhelmingly driven by an oil and gas
agenda. From the gov't down to mutual fund investors, everyone was treating
our economy like a one-trick pony, all oil and gas.

If you listened to people talk, Alberta's oil sector was supporting the whole
economy. Snarky message board comments from people from out west (where I'm
from originally, BTW) making comments about Ontario being a "have-not"
province being propped up by the superior entrepreneurial hard-working western
oil sector.

Meanwhile through all of this as a % of GDP, exports in manufacturing were
_still_ triple those of oil and gas. Ontario's beleaguered auto-sector was
still the primary export in the country. Followed by agriculture and other
sectors.

I said it at the time, and now it is obvious. They were lying through
ideological teeth, and telling a story to the country about resource driven
prosperity which was factually incorrect. And it has led to our country as a
whole inheriting many of the problems Alberta as a province has been plagued
with for decades: highly cyclical, with a political culture verging on
corrupt, and environmentally dirty dirty dirty.

And I'm afraid the new gov't is only half-heartedly interested in remedying
any of this.

Ontario and Quebec could be the "Germany of North America"; the deliberate
assassination of our manufacturing and engineering sectors by everyone from
federal gov't officials to fund managers has been disgusting. We have a heavy
infrastructure debt, are saddled by decades of ideologically-driven
mismanagement, and an ineptitude at actually getting anything done.

~~~
green7ea
I'm from Quebec and I have to agree with you that it could easily be north
america's Germany. There is a lot of very talented software developers in
Montreal but a lot of them leave to get higher salaries or work for foreign
companies that love the very low, government subsidized wages [1].

If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local
companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous. Right now,
profits are our biggest export. Not only that but the government insists on
propping up big, mismanaged companies like CAE and bombardier time and time
again [2] instead of investing in startups.

[1] [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-far-
wi...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/how-far-will-quebec-
go-to-nurture-its-video-game-industry/article14645301/) [2]
[http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/bombardier-
corporate...](http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-milke/bombardier-corporate-
welfare-trap_b_4705751.html)

~~~
btilly
_If the government invested all that money in small to middle sized local
companies instead the province would be so much more prosperous._

How exactly is anyone helped by money taking a round trip through the
government rather than the same thing happening through free markets? You've
made the cycle slower, you've made the recipients dependent on government
bureaucratic decisions (who are not well-incentivized to decide well), and
have reduced incentives for efficiency. And you've gained nothing.

Don't get me wrong. Government has important roles to play in our economy and
society. We need government to create basic infrastructure, create regulations
encouraging public goods, provide a stable system of law, and so on. But
unless you are serving some legitimate purpose, channeling daily economic
activity through the government is a net loss compared to doing the same
through private enterprise.

Quebec being full of people who believe that the economy _should_ go through
the government seems to be its second largest economic mistake, and one it is
still making on a large scale. People like you complain about the predictable
results of this mistake, but don't see that it is a mistake.

Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101. That made your province so
hostile to anglophones that 1/3 of them "voluntarily emmigrated" within a few
years. (The ones I know are inclined to dispute how voluntary that emmigration
was...) They took with them the headquarters of many major companies, the
associated jobs, and the general economic activity that would have come from
those professionals spending locally. This is why, for example, The Bank of
Montreal is now headquartered in Toronto.

There is a collective blind spot in Quebec to the true cost of this for your
society. Major companies need to have a stream of professionals moving to
their headquarters from elsewhere because that is how you move up in the
hierarchy. If you have made professionals unwilling to move to Quebec (for
instance by forcing their children to receive education in a language they
don't speak), companies have to choose between moving headquarters or losing
their most valued employees to competitors.

It proved to be cheaper to move headquarters. And they did. Quebec's economy
has never recovered from this. (Though you did adjust your ethnic ratio by
enough that you nearly managed to get a 50% vote to secede in the 90s...)

~~~
guiomie
"Quebec's largest mistake was, of course, Bill 101" ... I thought it was the
almost won referendum that drove this exile, not Bill 101.

My impression is that if you lowered the income tax in Quebec (much higher
then Ontario), most probably more professionals would be willing to work
there, english or french or any other language.

I agree with your statement of "Quebec being full of people who believe that
the economy should go through the government".

~~~
dmix
I moved to Montreal from Toronto because of the great urban environment which
I found (and still believe to be) superior to Toronto. The rents were cheap
and salaries were lower, which made me believe running a startup there would
be much easier. From the outside I wondered why everyone from Toronto wasn't
moving there to build companies.

But after a year living there I left - 100% due to the hostility to strictly
English-speaking people.

I hoped my lack of french-speaking ability would only be a minor hurdle that I
could slowly overcome as I grasped the language over the years. But every
single store you go into requires that they start speaking in french first (a
bylaw). I watched _three_ major street protests while walking downtown against
stores who didn't change their globally-recognized retail brand names to
french versions.

Plus I felt a large cliquey nature to the Montreal tech scene. I felt like a
foreigner in my own country. I was happy to go back to Toronto where
multiculturalism is actually fully embraced. Where almost everyone still
speaks their native language first, often remaining in cultural divided in
neighbourhoods, and despite this mixing at bars and events is never an
uncomfortable experience.

Quebec's greatest economic problem is their obsession with cultural
homogeneity.

~~~
guiomie
I've never worked in Montreal, I'm from Northern Quebec, but I got to do
university in Ontario and worked ever since in Ottawa. I got a job offer for a
job in Toronto, and I really like the people and how being French-Canadian
didn't seem like a barrier at all. Finally I declined for various reasons.

I always thought Quebec's problem were with the it's socialist approach and
how taxed Quebecers are, thus professionals flocked away, but your experience
has made me realize a different reality. I guess we aren't as welcoming if
you're not french ... ?

~~~
dmix
It's the small things. Imagine having to apologize in every single store that
you don't speak french well, even though you start the conversation speaking
english or weak french.

Or feeling the hostility of older Quebecers who think I'm just another
anglophile who didn't spend the time to learn their language. I heard many
people casually complain about the American kids who came to the universities
and never tried to speak french.

Before arriving I heard lots of rumours about how Quebec people aren't
friendly and I was quick to ignore this as a stereotype. But going to many
tech events I found it difficult to network. The image that has stuck in my
mind of these occasions is finding many small tightnit groups of people packed
together at bars or venues, who seemed to have known each other for years, and
seemingly disinterested in the people around them.

I never experienced that in Toronto or SF.

> I always thought Quebec's problem were with the it's socialist approach and
> how taxed Quebecers are

Bringing up Quebec in Toronto (which came up often moving there) the first
thing people talk about is the people's attitudes, not socalism. I've actually
never heard people talk about their socialist tendencies outside of the news.
The only political stereotype that came up was that the tendency of Quebec
people to complain about the government not giving them enough money/support,
while simultaneously not contributing as much as Ontario economically.

------
guiomie
The scary part in my opinion is: "Housing is the only thing keeping the
Canadian economy afloat."

This more an anecdote than an argument, but I know quite a few people who can
barely pay their mortgage or have crazy margin debt (with mortgage) in Canada.
I doubt their situation will get any better soon. There is this mentality
around here that owning a house is a must or you are some kind of loser.

~~~
seanmccann
The way that housing is keeping the Canadian economy afloat is that homes have
appreciated a tremendous amount over the last 10 years. In Calgary it's over
2x in 10 years or 9% per year.

In Edmonton and Calgary I can echo that there is a strong social influence in
buying real estate. Owning a home is expected. With homes appreciating over
9%/year for 10 years, people assume that that will continue into the distant
future.

------
Almaviva
I've seen enough agreement that I think it's worth pointing out. The dating
market for men in Toronto is terrible, at least if you're not in the
mainstream attractive subset: over 5'10, have all your hair, have easy social
charm and confidence. I don't know exactly why this is but anecdotally women
are extremely selective and have it ingrained deeply to never settle for
anything (and they're not happy about not finding "good enough" men either).

I can live with lower pay but after years of nothing but female rejection I'm
really tempted to run to the US just for this reason. (Again, only
anecdotally, but the way I'm treated by women in social settings is night vs
day anywhere but Toronto.)

~~~
beachstartup
you are feeling the same frustration many men in large cities feel these days.
look around on the internet.

all i can say is, don't expect different results if you keep doing the same
things. it's on you to produce the outcomes you want in your life.

~~~
Almaviva
> look around on the internet.

I know the places you're talking about, and I can't stand them because they're
dehumanizing and hypocritical. But believe me I've looked, and in my
experience a disproportionate number of these men are actually from Toronto!
I'm not saying men don't feel like this elsewhere, but it was surprising to me
how this city sticks out.

[http://www.returnofkings.com/58796/15-reasons-why-toronto-
is...](http://www.returnofkings.com/58796/15-reasons-why-toronto-is-the-worst-
city-in-north-america-for-men)

(Edit: I don't endorse the above article, it's demeaning and ridiculous, but
I'm using it as an example of how this city often comes up in "worst of"
discussions.)

~~~
beachstartup
sounds like you should move. i'm sure you won't though.

~~~
Almaviva
If you've lived in Toronto and other major cities and can relate your personal
experience, I'm interested. About your generic self help, less so.

~~~
beachstartup
my experience is that you should move.

------
S_A_P
I was recently in Calgary. I found the people there friendly, polite and nice
just like all the Canadian stereotypes suggest. I would love to live up in
Canada, but HOLY HELL is it COLD! I couldnt deal with that. I was just in
Calgary, I cant imagine Edmonton, Red Deer or the like. Is it just as cold on
the east coast? I would imagine it has to be.

Signed, Someone from Houston, Tx

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Southern Ontario where the bulk of the Canadian population lives has basically
the same climate as Chicago or Detroit. It is cold in the winter and
blistering hot in the summer with a 170-ish day growing season. If you don't
consider those places to be brutally cold you wouldn't consider it that way
here. In fact the areas on the north shore of Lake Ontario have a milder
climate (due to lake effect) than those of upstate NY to the south of us.

I grew up in Alberta. It is cold and dry and has a short summer. I prefer the
weather here even if the summers can be a bit too humid and hot for me.

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
Upstate NY here, and we get the worst weather in the US from Canadian winds
and lake effect snow. For half the year it's always windy, always cold, always
snowy, and always so, so gray.

But aside from that it's a great place to live. Land is cheap, you can get
good local food anywhere, and we're safe from nearly every natural disaster
you can think of. Just bring a jacket.

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Seems like many Americans near the border have this perception as Canada being
the 'source' of their cold weather.

In reality the bulk of the nastiest storms here in Ontario come over the lakes
from northern Michigan, which is, yes, north of us. Look on a map, most of the
heavily populated areas of Canada are as far south as northern California. The
parts that are north of the 49th are much less populated.

Yes, periodically there is a nasty cold front coming down from Hudson's bay,
but the prevailing winds and weather patterns are west to east. So most of our
weather blows over from the midwest U.S.

The really nasty awful cold weather last year for example, hit the U.S.
midwest harder and nastier first.

~~~
mdm_
I see elsewhere in this thread you mention you live near Hamilton. Well, I
work in Hamilton and commute from Niagara, and that puts you and I south of
the following: Washington, Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, and Maine, 2/3rds
of Oregon, Idaho, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont, and New Hampshire, 1/2 of
Wyoming, Michigan, and New York.

------
gabbo
It's crazy and upsetting to watch Canada squander the talent its great
engineering schools produce, especially given the low cost.

I left Toronto 8 years ago for the US but have close ties to home and keep
regular tabs on the labour market. Even at 1:1 CAD:USD, before factoring in
increased cost of living in Toronto (vs. where I am, which is not SF), I'm
making close to double what I'd hope to fetch back home. If I really bust my
ass and kill it where I am, the disparity is only going to grow.

Once you account for other factors like the increased cost of everything and
the general rarity of high-paying tech jobs, returning to Toronto feels like
too much of a risk: even if I were to strike relative "gold" and make
$120k-140k+ CAD as a senior engineer (a far cry from what I get how), what
happens when I move on to something else? A close, highly-talented friend of
mine has one of those jobs but feels trapped and doesn't even know where else
he could go.

I love that the Toronto startup scene is growing and maturing and I have
friends who are really working to, but I fear what's going to happen when
funding in the US begins to contract. SF, NYC, and Seattle all have profitable
"anchor" employers which will continue to bid for talent even when startup
funding won't sustain high tech salaries. Toronto has small branch offices of
American companies and some banks (I'm skeptical about the latter). Is there
much else?

As far as I can tell there just isn't as much good work. I want to go home
some day, but as someone who was fortunate enough to land a good tech job in
the US: returning is a massive step down in pay for: fewer choices of work, a
more fleeting labour market, a less ambitious environment, an expensive city
with overpriced real estate, and a public transit/commute crisis which might
not get materially better before I retire. I really do love the place though.

tl;dr I'm an exceptionally fortunate Canadian spoiled by great career
prospects in a major American tech hub and find it hard to justify returning
home :(

~~~
slededit
Inequality really works both ways. Canada is a much better place to be if you
make under 60k/year. Its also a much better place to be if you fall on the
work to live side of the coin. The flip side is you'll get less aggressiveness
both at the corporate and employee level and the pay to match.

I think its largely cultural. Theoretically Canada should be more welcoming to
entrepreneurship. You don't have to worry about your health insurance when you
quit and start your own company - and the safety net limits your fall in the
case of failure. The government also heavily subsidizes new startups.

But entrepreneurship is generally looked down upon in a way that isn't true in
America. A failed startup in the US is chalked to "at least you tried" whereas
in Canada its looked upon as a moral tale of the risks of chasing childish
dreams. This goes throughout society - from raising capital to what your in-
laws hassle you about over the dinner table.

~~~
gabbo
Totally agree. The sad thing is I'm not even entrepreneurial in the
"aggressive unicorn chase" sense; I'm just a lucky guy with a rewarding and
enjoyable large tech company job with good pay and work/life balance. It feels
like getting anywhere near what I have now, just in Canada, would be so much
harder.

------
graeme
I run an online business in Canada (both products and services). I virtually
never take Canadian clients now, since the exchange rate has shifted markedly,
and Americans tend to view $100 USD the same as Canadians view $100 CAD.

I know a few others with cross border operations and they're also shifting
towards US markets.

I noticed product sales to Canadians also dried up, as my products are now 40%
more expensive.

------
tahssa
It's more like Canada is sticking to the same old plans and is failing to
adapt to a future where its economic cycles no longer work.

Canada has what's known as Dutch disease. When the loonie is strong the
natural resource sector booms since they get more value in return for selling
these assets, however the services and manufacturing sector tend to fall off a
cliff since labour cost become too high.

Historically the Ontario govt has banked on this cycle. When the loonie rises
and Ontario crashes then govt spending increases to compensate. When the
loonie crashes and employment increases, tax revenue increases and then they
payoff the debt from the crash. Ditto can be said for Alberta using the
opposite scenario.

The federal tax transfer system adds additional funding mechanics to level the
playing field between provinces.

That all said, everything has become very different. Oil has crashed due to
external forces and the loonie has crashed too. That's fine, but I think govt
is trying to figure out why the manufacturing services sectors are not gaining
traction as they historical would (which is because other countries are now
more equipped to compete within Canada and are still much cheaper... Example
Mexico has taken all the auto manufacturing work). At the same time housing
prices are 30 to 50% overpriced and the energy sectors nose dive is not a
typical down cycle, it's a long term structural change.

I'm probably wrong, but my spidey senses are telling me that Canada is going
to go through a rough time and will continue to do so until the govt models
these structural changes to compensate. If the Canadian govt jumps into a
thoughtless spending spree (which is the current plan) using the old economic
model then in 5 to 10 years Canadas outcome could be dire.

[Edit: removed "Greece 2.0" as it highlighted aspects that could not compare
to Canada's circumstances.]

~~~
tahssa
Care to explain the downvote?

~~~
graeme
Might be the Greece 2.0 prediction. I was with you till there. Greece's debt
was in Euros, which the Greek government didn't control.

So Greece had no option to devalue it's currency in response to a slowing
economy. Whereas Canada can devalue currency (as we're doing). We have the
additional benefit that our debt load is in our domestic currency, so we don't
face the debt appreciation challenge many countries face when they devalue
their currency.

I think Canada's in trouble, but the Greek situation is fundamentally a
different type of problem.

(I didn't downvote)

~~~
tahssa
I thought that Greeces problems stemmed from excessive govt spending leading
to a situation where the tax revenue could not compensate for the debt load
with a consequence of either bankruptcy or bailouts from other countries. At
least that's where my comparison starts and ends.

~~~
graeme
That's true. But it's only true because the debt load is in Euros, and Greece
doesn't control the value of the Euro.

If you're a country with currency control + debt in your own currency, it's
basically impossible to have that same kind of crisis.

(You can have other problems, but they wouldn't be so intractable as what
Greece has.)

------
dang
Diversification of Canada's economy so that it isn't so dependent on
commodities has been talked about for years, and successive governments have
long been blamed for not doing it. That makes it worth asking whether
governments have the power to do this in the first place. What examples are
there of it having been done successfully?

------
Tiktaalik
I accept the premise that the government spent too much time and effort
focused on the resource sector, but this article, like all I see on this
subject, is extremely vague on what exactly the government should be doing to
create a better environment for tech companies in Canada.

------
sushirain
The article mentioned brain drain, but more specifically, Canada let Hinton,
Lecun, and Sutskever go... :)

------
prolepunk
Boo-hoo.

Same newspaper that endorsed Conservatives, whose economic policies for the
past decade was to put oil sands above everything else, the government under
which we saw Canada withdrawing from Kyoto and generally have terrible
environmental record, is now having seconds thoughts when oil tanked as well
as other commodities tanked dragging loonie with it.

Boo-hoo, sir, boo-hoo.

Refs: their endorsement -- [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-
debate/editorials/the-t...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-
debate/editorials/the-tories-deserve-another-mandate-stephen-harper-
doesnt/article26842506/)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
The Canadian bourgeoisie (yes I'm using that word) has a deep split in
orientation -- resource extraction Calgary school vs a more established Bay st
money, "Laurentian elite." With the collapse of oil price, the strength of the
former has waned in favour of the latter, hence the Liberal party has hegemony
instead of the Reform.

The Globe has for the last 15 years at least been schizophrenic about which of
these two camps it supports. Its editorial board is a little different from
the rest of the content in the paper.

------
she_moves_on
> No rational economist can look at the situation in Canada and say that
> "Canada forgot to plan for its future by leaning on oil and the loonie" it's
> a ridiculous statement.

Many "rational economists" have made that statement. Even the head of the Bank
of Canada himself has suggested it is regrettable that our currency is so tied
to oil. He can't openly criticize gov policy and so that's about as close as
Poloz can get to condemnation.

Classic hacker news comment. "I must disagree with whatever the post says and
declare that no rational person could disagree with my criticism."

~~~
drzaiusapelord
I love how disingenuous people often use the term "rational." Like anyone who
disagrees must be some irrational loon and there's no room for debate here.
Its sad that even on HN, such namecalling is convincing to many with the
upvote button.

Anytime I see commentary that include words "rational," "logical," or the term
"man of science" I know I'm at least dealing with someone reductionist,
pedantic, and usually extremist or marginalized.

~~~
she_moves_on
I couldn't agree with you more. The only thing I think a rational person
probably wouldn't do is use the words "no rational person" so easily.

(yes I know the contradiction I just made)

