
Canada's immigration website crashes on election night - iamdeedubs
http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/canada-s-immigration-website-crashes-on-election-night-1.3152231?hootPostID=14d10ea891a36bd74ea02d19ec7cf954
======
grownseed
A few points I think are relevant:

\- I find leaving your country only because you didn't vote for the winner is
rather cowardly, you can still do something about it, we're not quite talking
systemic harassment yet...

\- as a friend of mine pointed out, Canada is not a consolation prize for
disgruntled americans, it's a real country, with its own real people and its
own real problems

\- having just aquired my canadian permanent residence after years and lots of
money, it was a harrowing process. Clogging the already dysfunctional
immigration system en masse as a whim is not just stupid, it's insulting to
people currently going through immigration, and downright threatening to
people who are in very real danger

If you're a disgruntled US citizen, I can understand your frustration, but
please don't take this lightly.

~~~
halite
> having just aquired my canadian permanent residence after years and lots of
> money

Slightly off topic:

I've been through the process as well and accept the frustrations but I didn't
not think the costs were unreasonable. I only had to pay CIC application fees.
How was the process harrowing for you? Not defending the frustration, just
curious I guess.

~~~
arcticbull
Compare it to US immigration also, where I got 6 years and easily over $20,000
in employer-paid costs in, and didn't even get to the green card stage.

[EDIT] Overstated cost, ran the numbers it's $20-25K.

~~~
kogepathic
That's ridiculous.

I moved to Germany from Canada a few years ago when I was in my mid-20s.
Nothing wrong with Canada, I was just bored.

I came to Germany on a tourist visa and found a job by sending my CV to random
German technology companies I found via LinkedIn.

The Blue Card (EU equivalent of a Green Card) cost all of 135 EUR and is valid
for four years. The processing time for the Blue Card is around 6 weeks after
application, but I think that's pretty standard for bureaucracy in any
country.

Getting my Canadian Bachelor of Engineering recognized as a German equivalent
degree cost 200 EUR and took 3 months.

You'll also need one biometric (passport) photo, which if you use a machine at
any of the train stations will cost around 6 EUR. You can use the remaining 5
photos for things like getting a German driver's license, health card, etc.

I paid ADAC around 40 EUR to "translate" my Canadian driver's license into
German, and then around 50 EUR to exchange it for a German Führerschein.

Total visa/admin cost for a comparable life in Germany: 450 EUR

Now, I have spent around 3000 EUR for language courses over the past several
years, but I'm getting pretty fluent in German, so I'd consider it money well
spent. If you were more self-motivated I'm sure you could study the language
by just getting the textbooks and watching YouTube videos.

------
colmvp
Canada seems appealing to Americans until you realize you could be earning
more in the U.S. while spending less on a bunch of other things.

Don't get me wrong, I love living in Canada and I mostly don't miss living in
Bay Area, but most of my friends lament the fact that their salary and career
opportunities are a joke compared to what they could have in the U.S. (even
adjusting for cost of living).

~~~
M_Grey
Canada would be an odd choice for many reasons, but is probably attractive for
the combination of proximity, and cultural/linguistic similarities. For me,
I've been looking at Ireland, Denmark, or the Netherlands for a while, and I'd
say they're looking far more attractive today than yesterday.

Besides, money isn't everything. There is something to be said for not having
to deal with the insane evangelicals, bitter uneducated whites, and insane
levels of violence too. Not to mention the impact this will have on the
SCOTUS, and how incredibly screwed up healthcare is.

~~~
tuna-piano
If you didn't read the newspaper, how many of the negative things you
mentioned would actually impact your life? Would you even know who was
president for the last 4 (or the next 4) based on the impacts to your life?
I'd guess not.

Just live your life and be happy, vote when you can but don't let what you
don't control make you sad.

~~~
enjo
After two or three conservative justices are appointed the court your life
will be mega affected. Are you gay? Kiss gay marriage goodbye. Right to
privacy ? Gone. Wanna buy or own a sex toy? Those were illegal in many states
until a progressive court put an end to it. A conservative court will
absolutely reverse that.

This is a huge deal.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Serious question from a non-American: What are the checks and balances on
Trump? He has the presidency, House, Senate, and can tilt the supreme court.
He's got a mandate to take action against the media and free speech on the
internet. What's left?

If Clinton won, the republicans would probably have held one or both houses,
which seems like significant checks on power even if she could have a more
friendly supreme court than Obama.

~~~
gph
The check and balance is that he has to get all those people to agree with
him. Certainly on major issues where he aligns with Republican philosophy that
might happen. But he's not a dictator that can do as he will tomorrow. If he
decided he wants to transfer the entire U.S. treasury into his personal bank
account he wouldn't be able to.

Certainly I doubt our founders thought an entire political party would control
every single branch of government. But even if it does the only things that
can be accomplished need to be agreed upon by that large group of people. If
the will of the people is to elect a group of people into those positions that
all hold the same philosophy and values, then that's just democracy. It's what
we voted for. I don't know if any party has controlled all three branches of
government at once, but it's not like that negates the principle of checks and
balances

~~~
yardie
You mean where republican philosophy aligns with him. If you've followed the
primaries he has ripped the republican playbook to shreds. They never wanted
him as their candidate and now they can't hide from him. And for a lot of
politicians their success is directly tied to his support.

I think we are closer to uncharted territory than a lot of people assume.

------
anguswithgusto
Montreal startups hiring:

-Transit (transitapp.com)

-Unsplash (unsplash.com)

-Hopper (hopper.com)

-Breather (breather.com)

-Sonder (sonder.com)

-Busbud (busbud.com)

-AmpMe (ampme.com)

-Fuzzy AI (fuzzy.ai)

-Frank & Oak (frankandoak.com)

You can get a pretty nice 1 BR apartment in Montreal for ~$600 US/mo.
Incredible bars, beautiful people, great schools, bike paths, and lots of
outdoor rinks to play hockey in the winter :-)

FYI: Montreal startups operate in English!

~~~
jrockway
But no bikeshare in the winter :(

~~~
anguswithgusto
Unlike SF, we have great public transit! Most startups are a 5 minute walk
from a subway stop, and it's cleaner/less crowded. Few people own cars here.
(But granted, the snow is no joke!)

~~~
angryteabag
As a New Zealander who is unable to move anywhere else due to immigration
laws. I am happy for you, but the Jealousy is real.

~~~
sanswork
Working Holiday Visa depending on your age will get you 2 years in Canada.

------
baby
People are not going to move. After every single election in France people say
they will move to the US, or to germany, or to... I've never seen anyone moved
anywhere.

ps: parts of my family moved out of Hong Kong when it became Chinese again.
But that was quite a different situation.

~~~
M_Grey
I think that's incredibly naive. For one thing, moving from France to Germany
is a huge cultural and linguistic leap. Moving from the US to Canada is really
not.

~~~
superzadeh
I recently moved from France to Germany, and the biggest cultural gap so far
is that people in here respect traffic lights and using a qwerty keyboard.
Otherwise, most people speak English and the lifestyle is similar.

~~~
yodsanklai
Don't they use QWERTZ keyboards?

~~~
lorenzhs
Yes, we use QWERTZ in Germany, but it's muuuch closer to QWERTY than France's
AZERTY (needs shift for numbers!). The difference between QWERT{Y,Z} is those
two keys (Y and Z are swapped), the shape of the enter key (necessitated by an
additional key), and basically all of the special keys. Many of those moves
are due to ä/ö/ü/ß. Meanwhile, AZERTY is very different, and even typing
alphanumerical things requires paying serious attention to key placement if
not used to it.

------
mahyarm
As a Canadian who moved away, I must warn you that Canada has a form of dutch
disease. Resource extraction investments have a much better risk/return ratio,
so the pay doesn't even approach US levels. Thus software doesn't approach the
levels of investment you have in the USA. And you thought SF was bad, wait
until you see what has gone wrong with the housing markets in Toronto and
Vancouver.

I liked Canada and it's sad that I have to live away from my family, but I
would be a fool to stay otherwise.

~~~
hackerboos
I moved to Toronto from the UK, received a solid 25% increase in salary and
cut my rent expenditure in half.

Houses are expensive here but still cheaper than London or SF.

Canada isn't all doom and gloom.

~~~
patrick_99
This. Canadian salaries are low, compared to the US. They're much better than
Europe.

------
peeters
I don't really get the mindset of "if Trump wins I'm moving to X country." The
citizens in all of those countries are much more scared of a Trump presidency
than Americans seem to be. It stands to reason that the best place to weather
a Trump administration is from within the U.S.

I mean, when your guy is threatening to disband NATO, tear up NAFTA (and
rejects free trade as a whole), reinstate torture as official policy,
etc...would you rather live in the U.S. or in one of its allied countries?

~~~
gedrap
As someone from a country which strongly depends on NATO (Lithuania, former
Soviet state, shared border with heavily militarized Russian territory
Kaliningrad), you are spot on.

~~~
drakonandor
Lithuania, another NATO country which contributes about half of what they're
supposed to to the collective defense.

------
ingenieros
I would advice anyone considering moving to a different country to spend some
time studying FATCA. Even if you move out of the U.S you will still be
responsible for filing taxes every single year unless you renounce your
citizenship which is not easy by any means. Foreign banks are required by
FATCA law to pass all your financial information to the I.R.S and in some
countries they will downright refuse opening a bank account for american
citizens to avoid this nuissance.

~~~
mattkrause
It's annoying and maybe a little invasive, but it's not impossible. The FBAR
takes about 10 minutes to fill out and submit, and the bank may want a few
extra forms if you earn a lot of interest.

Taxes are annoying, but between treaties and the foreign income exclusion or
credit, you probably won't be double-taxed.

~~~
spoonie
The US has tax treaties with just about anywhere good want to go, so no
double-taxation. (And no, paying income tax in two countries is not double-
taxation.)

~~~
mpweiher
Unlike just about any other country in the world, the US will tax you even if
you don't live or derive your income there.

Furthermore, also unlike every other country in the world, the US will only
deduct the paxes you paid in the other country from the taxes it thinks you
owe it on income you earn+spend while living abroad. Every other country
considers your tax obligations fulfilled.

~~~
mattkrause
However, you can either 1) Exclude the first ~$100k from your US taxes
altogether, or 2) Receive a credit for taxes paid to the other jurisdiction.

Most places, particularly those where you'd earn a high salary, have higher
tax rates (particularly if taxes cover what would be health insurance in the
US), so the credit often completely cancels your US taxes.

In many places with lower taxes, it's fairly difficult to earn $100K to begin
with, so you're covered there too.

The two situations which are tricky are 1) Earning a lot in a low-tax location
(maybe oil workers?) 2) Having income from a mix of US and non-US sources
(renting out your American apartment?) since your US income gets "bumped up"
to the tax bracket associated with your worldwide income.

------
grizzles
If you need to leave the U.S. consider moving to Australia. (I did) The cost
of living here is high, but the salaries are very high for professionals. If
you are a talented thrifty person - you can save a lot of money fast. Good
surfing too.

For startups. you get about ~50c back on the dollar from the gov't annually.
You don't need to make a single dollar in profit to get that, it is based on
the invested capital.

Feel free to hit me up if you have any questions.

~~~
Rinzler89
Hi grizzles, as a european currently vliving in Austria I am quite interested
in relcoating to Australia for the weather and the people but I'm not sure how
the tech scene is over there for EE jobs like Embedded Software/Firmware
Engineer. I had a quick look on indeed but I wasn't very lucky.

~~~
grizzles
Try seek.com.au. It's the biggest job site here by a big margin. Also I know
someone that is looking for an EE, so you can send me your cv (email in
profile) too if you wish.

------
namank
$20 says the crash is because of all the online jokes about moving to Canada
that contain links to this site.

~~~
symlinkk
Agreed. It's still funny though.

------
nhebb
I don't even know how to respond to this. People die trying to make it into
the U.S. I'm not a flag-waving jingoist, but the the United States is a f'ing
great place to live.

~~~
empath75
It is. It won't be next year.

My original plan was to move and telecommute, but that's kind of fucked
because the dollar is crashing.

~~~
ryanhuff
Why will it be much different next year? I don't see much changing in the
short term besides a new set of characters in the news. Longer term, we'll
see.

------
Tomte
If you're afraid of the US President, moving abroad isn't helpful. His
domestic power is severely limited and checks-n-balanced.

Granted, that only counts for fear of a semi-tyrannical president, not
necessarily for economic concerns.

~~~
MichaelBurge
Republicans won the House and Senate too, and he gets to appoint probably 3
justices to the Supreme Court.

So it'll be a more unified government than you've seen in a long time, which
makes Trump able to get a lot of his platform through.

It's a great time to live in America.

~~~
ant6n
What's that anyway, besides 'building a wall and make Mexico pay for it'?

~~~
sverige
Well, there's putting the brakes on globalization, fewer foreign wars, lower
government spending (and probably some progress on reducing the national debt,
which has increased more in the last eight years more than all of the 232
years prior to that, combined), among other things.

~~~
Brakenshire
Trump's tax plan involves adding significantly to the debt:

[https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/budgetary-
impac...](https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/budgetary-impact-
candidate-trumps-proposals/)

[http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-
trai...](http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-trailguide-
updates-trump-tax-plan-would-increase-national-1476211310-htmlstory.html)

It's the same sort of thing as a lot of left wing policitians favour. Incur a
lot of debt, and then that's going to cause so much growth that you'll come
out smelling of roses.

~~~
DasIch
Left wing politicians tend to do things that are actually useful with that
money though. Trump just gives himself tax breaks.

------
readhn
I stick to George Carlin's advice: I'm in the front seat and I want the best
entertainment. And Trump will deliver the best entertainment of all
candidates! I'm staying to watch this circus, pass the pop corn!

------
nvk
Corp tax in Ontario is 15% and free health care. Dev pay also comparable.

Come over :)

~~~
fgandiya
Cool, how welcoming are they to non Western immigrants? And also recent
graduates?

~~~
a3camero
My wife is a non-Western immigrant (English is her third language). She says
she's never faced any discrimination and many people assumes she was born here
(in Toronto). Non-white people are very common and very accepted in Toronto.

------
meaganc
It seems like it would be more useful for Silicon Valley to just put their
money where their mouth is and declare war. Fund education like crazy, pour a
ton of money into environmental causes and just go nuts. Create a useful
America.

~~~
jitix
Despite the caring face that most startups put up they all have to make money
to survive. Only when they grow really big can they even think of pursuing
social goals and even then they will have opposition from the shareholders.

------
platita
There actually are more options than just the Canadian cities and there's a
site for figuring out your best options:
[http://teleport.org](http://teleport.org)

------
alexbanks
My girlfriend and I (Both software devs) would gladly move to Canada with the
help of a company employing us. Almost immediately. We have little to no
attachment to our current city of Portland.

~~~
Scoundreller
Research TN-1 visas. No labour market assessment required. Need to have a
degree or other significant experience though.

~~~
angryteabag
What is considered significant experience?

~~~
Scoundreller
Re-reading it, it looks like it's "Individuals may be eligible for one of the
TN visa categories that only require a 2 year post-secondary diploma and 3
years of experience".

There's lots of minefields. I've never done it, just familiar with it.

------
kasey_junk
The major tech centers in Canada have major housing price issues. The housing
to salary ratio in Vancouver and Toronto are terrifying.

~~~
nfoz
An exception is Waterloo.

~~~
Daniel_Marcos
But Waterloo isn't a great city to live in. Especially for young
professionals, Waterloo is not nearly as exciting as Toronto, Montreal,
Vancouver.

~~~
spoonie
I think Kitchener-Waterloo (~300k people) punches above its weight. It
definitely feels like a small city, but there are still things to do. Plus
Toronto is 1.5 hours away on a Greyhound bus for about $15. ;)

------
lotsoflumens
If any of you have seen an Ottawa winter, you'll understand that the one guy
on the night-shift there is too busy trying to figure out how fast he can get
to Australia.

~~~
retreatguru
In 20 years Ottawa will be sub tropical thanks to global warming ;)

~~~
lotsoflumens
I totally agree - the problem is that for every degree of warming Trudeau will
raise the carbon tax 5%.

------
patrickg_zill
Do you really want to move to a country whose government can't even keep a
mostly-static-webpage site up?

~~~
freeone3000
The same website handles actual processing of citizenship and permanent
residency applications, such as form submissions, qualification questions, and
so on. It runs a very light client so all of the validation is server-side.
Far cry from "mostly static".

------
0xmohit
No surprises. It runs on Windows with IIS as the web server [0].

[0]
[http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.cic.g...](http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.cic.gc.ca)

------
hueving
Leaving the country over an election like this seems pretty childish IMO. Why
wouldn't you wait until there was, you know, some kind of policy change before
making that kind of massive life decision?

~~~
eropple
Because, frankly? A country that is down with electing somebody who overtly
panders to white supremacists is not a country I really want to be in. A
country that elects somebody who thinks electrocuting teenagers to cure
homosexuality is not a country I really want to be in. I don't need to see
what they will do to know what they have done.

I don't intend to move stupidly, and I don't intend to unless I can better my
situation--but I wasn't even considering it yesterday, and I am now.

~~~
hueving
You are so brave for quitting the moment your political ideals are challenged.
/s

The people that voted in trump represent about 1/5th of the population. How
about sticking around and fucking participating rather than expecting a
political free ride?

------
dmode
I have lived extensively in NL and Denmark. Would give an arm and a leg to
move there again. Need to find a job for myself and wife there

~~~
shostack
What is it like for an American making the move? What were the best and worst
parts?

~~~
dep_b
First paying the heavy Dutch taxes, then having to pay US taxes because you're
still a citizen.

~~~
mattkrause
If you actually did that, you're either making _tons_ of money regardless or
doing your taxes wrong.

------
devonkim
What happened or didn't happen to the people running the site between 2004 and
now when GWB was re-elected? You'd think that you should be shoring up the
website seeing spikes for a while, and it's been over 10 years since that site
crash and populations haven't gotten an order of magnitude higher exactly.

~~~
nathanvanfleet
If it happens once every 8 years I can understand that the wouldn't care much.
Do you expect them to employ expensive services that would cost them a lot of
money to stop that just for one day? It's government, they just live with it.

~~~
devonkim
I've worked in government before and understand bureaucracy but there's a
certain level of quality even they have standards for. Most government sites
aren't massive volume transactions but primarily static brochure type sites
that may need some occasional updates making them suitable for many commercial
CMSes that are well known and easy to optimize. Adding caching for documents
that are almost never updated and adding a CDN layer for the application are
inexpensive compared to writing and even hosting the CMS itself (usually on
rather expensive TCO on-premise infrastructure). Furthermore, this kind of
upgrade helps fulfill use cases of access and availability to government-
provided services that is the spirit of the law in many developed countries,
especially as citizens increasingly reach to online services for their
interaction with governments.

~~~
freeone3000
This site is done separately. Your entire application, from initial contact to
permanent residency or citizenship, is handled through this website, entirely
through submission of electronic forms. While it's basically a form-and-image-
and-pdf-and-docx-grabbing site, that's still a step or two above brochure-and-
static.

------
throw2016
Let's get real. No one is going to Canada. This is just grist and posturing
for the social media mill. But it's still fun.

Trump does not take himself seriously, so why should you. The trump presidency
is going to be a clusterfuck, gaffes galore, pure comedy but hopefully
eventually harmless and the bigger risk is people overreacting.

Seriously nothing can be worse than the sinister and duplicitious behind the
scenes status quo represented by Hilary Clinton and her ilk. This is 4 years
for the entrenched frauds and clowns in politics and media to reassess their
ruling strategies as it appears nearly everyone can now see through their
bullshit and crave honesty and sincerity even if its ugly.

------
danieltillett
Is it good or bad news that the Australian immigration website is still up
[1]?

1\.
[https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/457-](https://www.border.gov.au/Trav/Visa-1/457-)

~~~
simplexion
We already voted in our version of Trump, so we probably won't let you in.

~~~
schappim
But the Yanks don't have a means to oust him like Turnbull did...

------
tacoman
This probably has more to do with Patch Tuesday than the extra 500 page loads
it got.

------
bwooceli
There's more to it than just sour grapes, there are minorities legitimately
concerned about what their future in America looks like, would not be
surprised if they made up a decent chunk of the visitors to that site.

------
partycoder
Canada is not bad if you feel comfortable in that weather.

There are some cultural differences, but at a professional level it is very
similar to the US.

They do seem friendlier though. Much friendlier.

------
seikatsu
Well, [https://teleport.org](https://teleport.org) is still up, for searching
200+ other cities you could move to...

------
retreatguru
I wonder how this might affect startups in Canada? Will it be easier to hire
American programmers? Will more investors come up north?

~~~
dba7dba
How long does it take for paper work to be completed? 1-2 years? And than
what? Trump will almost certainly mess up enough (which Dem have warned about)
to be out of office after just 1 term. And will they go through the paper work
to return to US?

~~~
retreatguru
I think highly skilled and paid jobs are expedited. Above CAD $85k I believe.

~~~
spoonie
I was making $70k as a newgrad in Waterloo back in 2012.

------
ceejay
Before we know it, politicians in Canada will be promising their citizens
they're going to build a wall of their own ;)

------
omribahumi
No one mentioned Tel-Aviv. We have excellent weather, food and beach. Google
and Facebook have engineering offices in Tel-Aviv, and there are lots of
start-ups here.

I'm not sure what's the process of getting a visa though. Jewish people can
get citizenship relatively easy (Jewish state yada yada yada).

Disclaimer: I work at Facebook Tel-Aviv

~~~
diego_moita
> No one mentioned Tel-Aviv

People that fear Trumpist racism are very much the same people that understand
Israel as a racist country.

~~~
omribahumi
I'm not going to get into this discussion. You're welcome to have your
opinion, but I don't think all Trump's objectors are against Israel.

------
chunky1994
The folks over at anonymous were bombarding the site according to some of the
shadier 4chan boards.

------
zxcvvcxz
Serious question - why doesn't anyone talk about moving to Mexico? It's a lot
warmer...

------
reflexive
I haven't heard any of Trump's opponents threaten to move to Mexico... ;-)

~~~
jetblackio
I'm moving to Mexico in a few months :)

~~~
reflexive
Smart - having spent time in both places, I'd hole up in Baja over Lake
Ontario any day.

------
ibrotzky
Coming to Canada? We can help, www.vanhack.com, our focus is helping
international tech talent get jobs in Canada.

Check out our jobs board: app.vanhack.com/jobboard and shoot me an email with
any questions: ilya@vanhack.com

------
bitmapbrother
I've heard a lot of people say, in the U.S, that if this or that happens then
"I'm moving to Canada". It's as if they think Canada would welcome them with
open arms. Think again.

------
SixSigma
What poor risk analysis on behalf of voters.

Same happened at Brexit. Businesses suddenly reacting to what had happened
rather than being prepared for something they had known was a possibility for
months if not years.

------
juliend2
As a Canadian, I want to say that the great country that is the United States
absolutely needs democrat voters more than ever. So PLEASE stay home for the
democracy in your country.

------
tallanvor
I'm seriously considering switching citizenship now - I've lived in Norway
long enough that I can, although I'm not sure how long the process will take
or cost.

------
microcolonel
For what it's worth, I doubt the infrastructure was that good to begin with.
Sites put up by my country's government are only set up to handle normal load.

------
joeclark77
The snarky reply to the "moving to Canada" thing is: why don't all these
California liberals want move to Mexico? It's closer, isn't it?

~~~
middleclick
It's pretty clear what you are insinuating, but Canada is more culturally
similar to the US, and not Mexico. Also not to forget I have to learn Spanish.

------
vivekd
I say we Canadians build a wall and make America pay for it.

------
johnnydoebk
Guys, take me to the first world. I want to suffer, too.

------
Scoundreller
You also get a few more Canadian cents per US$ since the markets closed today,
so your money goes further.

And vacations to Mexico just got 10% cheaper.

------
s0me0ne
I believe it takes like 5 yrs for citizenship anyway, I remember hearing
something like that back in 2005

------
mrfusion
Is this really feasible for Americans? Is it hard to get citizenship? Would
double taxation kill you?

------
danm07
I've lived in LA, SF, Boston, Toronto, and Vancouver.

I liked SF and Boston. Things moved a lot quicker. The cities were more
populated, people were more educated (I was near Harvard / MIT / UC Berkeley )
and unassuming.

I went to college near Toronto, and almost all my professors were American.
They liked Canada for all the reasons I didn't like it. Things seemed to
progress slower than their American counterparts, and people were less wound
up. The downside is that the service quality in the private sector is not
comparable that of the US.

I currently reside in Vancouver. It's beautiful here, but you get lots of rain
during winter seasons. People are friendly. It's expensive if you live near
the city, but where isn't?

Pay is definitely not as good if you're an engineer... Maybe 70 cents on the
dollar. If you're trying to build a software startup, definitely consider
moving your HQ to Canada (or outside of SF!), and keeping a corporate office
in SV for fundraising. There's less competition for engineers, and you'll make
30% more progress per dollar invested.

Technology-wise, I'd suggest Waterloo. Silicon Valley hires graduates from U
of Waterloo only second to UC Berkeley. Perimeter Institute for Theoretical
Physics chaired by Stephen Hawkings is also there. The city is also home to
Institute of Quantum Computing, started by the founder of Blackberry.

D-Wave, one of the major players in quantum computing is based in British
Columbia.

In terms of AI, Canada is a bit of a talent drain. Most of the lead
researchers and professors have been lured to Oxford or Google or wherever.

Venture Capital presence is limited here. Vancouver has only got a handful of
major venture firms. Though, I met a couple of investors from Silicon Valley
investors trying to start something up near UBC. I can't say much about
Toronto.

Quality of living is pretty good here. I can go out for walks during midnight
and not have to worry about getting robbed - something I was never able to do
in LA. Many parks.

Overall, you'd like Canada if you're willing to trade slower pace, liberal
views, colder weather for population size, and American imperialism.

Every American I've met in Canada really enjoyed being here, just as every
Canadian in America I've met really enjoyed being there.

I'm no exception. There's something I love about the narrow Cobblestone
streets in Cambridge, the golden hills in SF Bay Area, the weather in LA. And
oddly enough, I've found that people I've met in the US are more personable
than those in Canada. I suppose that comes with the more unified sense of
national identity that is in someways a fascade.

------
GnarfGnarf
Now they get to find out what labour laws are like for aliens :o)

------
rileyt
Here is a helpful tool I made for anyone considering moving to Canada!

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

------
nathanvanfleet
As if Canada is far enough away. Good luck.

------
unix
China, Welcome you. :-)

------
gnipgnip
Is it just me who is cursing themselves for not shorting USDJPY at the right
moment ?

Damn. Whoever thought being obsessed with the election coverage would be
useful.

~~~
hellofunk
Hindsight.

