Canadian here (who lives outside of Canada but recently did a stint there for a bit) and this will sound negative but f-it. Canadian culture sucks when it comes to trying new things. Canada has some extra safety net but the culture is puritanical and conservative and nobody wants to go out on a limb and try something new and crazy. Not like Americans. Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody. The idea of being an entrepreneur, in the GTA especially, is buying a second house in the suburbs and hoping the housing market continues rising.
The problem of trying to get Canadian tech up to par with the US is much deeper than pulling some tax/incentive levers, I think. There are some really deep cultural issues that I don't think can be solved for a few generations.
Canadian here who worked in the Valley for ~7 years, and currently works for a US-based startup remotely.
You're absolutely right that the culture of respecting changemakers is not as present in Canada. But the SFBA is the world leader here. There probably isn't any place on earth that's more optimistic about innovators.
I don't think this is a culture thing, exactly. It's just that everyone who became rich in the SFBA did so by exploiting trends or innovating – since like, the 1890s. And the USA plowed zillions of dollars into the tech ecosystem in the Bay Area since World War II. Once you have that tech investor class, culture bends a lot towards their way of thinking.
Investors in Canada just don't have that kind of money to play with. Or, they made their money in an old-school industry, like resource extraction, and they flip out at the risk levels in tech startups.
In terms of prevailing national norms, I'd say Canada is slightly more change-friendly than the USA. Think about all the ways that the USA tries to kill immigration, stifle innovation in favor of incumbents, and put regulatory barriers in the way for entrepreneurs.
In contrast, Canada has lots of official policies to support tech entrepreneurship and skilled immigration. Plus, socialized medicine really does make it easier to be an entrepreneur. Politically and culturally, Canada isn't that into retro stuff, or trying to revive earlier, more conservative eras. People think their best days are ahead of them.
It's true that the people in Canada are not super interested in overturning anyone's applecart, for its own sake or just to get rich. That's not as respected here. People are more likely to be interested in innovations that improve the general social welfare. But maybe that's not such a bad thing.
stifle innovation in favor of incumbents, and put regulatory barriers in the way for entrepreneurs
As a Canadian I'm a little shock by this description. Stifle innovation? The gov't ran the phone system in Alberta until the 1990's (or so). There was no innovation because it was determined "that's the job for the gov't, not private businesses" and they did it terribly.
Look at the cellular phone networks in Canada. Nothing changes unless the CRTC OKs it. Those companies would be eaten for lunch without the gov't backing them.
My own experience in the US is that things change much quicker when it comes to innovation. Are their stupid regulations? Sure, but they seem to change pretty quickly down here when people get pissed.
> Look at the cellular phone networks in Canada. Nothing changes unless the CRTC OKs it. Those companies would be eaten for lunch without the gov't backing them.
Not to defend the cellular oligopoly in Canada (because it's one of the worst in the world) but things aren't perfect in the US either.
T-Mobile and Sprint just agreed to merge, which means the US will have only 3 major wireless providers: AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint/T-Mobile.
> My own experience in the US is that things change much quicker when it comes to innovation. Are their stupid regulations? Sure, but they seem to change pretty quickly down here when people get pissed.
The US government just defacto banned (or outright, I can't recall) using ZTE/Huawei equipment in their mobile networks.
Say what you want about the Chinese, and I have no doubt they have ambitions of an NSA-like agency, but the rest of the world is fine to use their equipment and it smacks of protectionism for America to block their use.
I totally agree though that the Canadian government doesn't do nearly enough to encourage competition, and is usually quite content to let an oligopoly remain if it means avoiding foreign ownership.
The US has a fairly high tolerance for weirdness and novelty in general because of its extreme fixation on individualism. Especially so when you compare it to most other high income countries like Japan, Germany, Norway, Switzerland, etc.
People say that a lot but I'm not so sure. Half of my American friends had to move to the SFBA not just for a job, but because nobody understood them back home, or they'd be literally persecuted for being who they were. And these aren't always tiny rural towns.
The coastal cities embrace some kinds of individualism for sure.
And similarly - the reason people don't move back (despite the high housing costs) is usually fear of persecution, or a perceived inability to be their true self, or a perception that they'll be a pariah without any true friends.
That's also why when people do tend to leave the Bay Area, they go to other liberal areas like Seattle/Portland/Boulder/Asheville/Austin/Boston/NYC, even though those areas also have housing crises and the cost of living is rapidly approaching the Bay, rather than places like Mississippi, West Virginia, or Detroit, where their dollars would stretch a lot farther.
I actually really enjoyed living in Ithaca personally, and it had the advantage of being only a 2 hour drive from where I grew up in upstate New York. I moved there after college to try to find a good balance between cost of living and economic opportunity, basically using it as a stepping stone to move to NYC (although I'd consider moving back if I were going to raise a family or wanted to retire).
It was definitely a world of difference from where I grew up, even though it wasn't that far away. My experience in my hometown (Utica) was that it was a constant uphill battle fighting with idiots to try to get sensible policies in place to make the quality of life there better (context: It's a rust belt city with 0 industry or jobs, but a sizable amount of the population there actively makes things worse for themselves). For me, moving to a liberal area wasn't just a tolerance thing, it was a "I want to be around like-minded folks who actually care about improving their city and have the competence to do so". I don't want to come across the wrong way here- there were some people in Utica who really did try to make it a nice place to live, but I always felt like they were drowned out by fools.
Yep. That's why I moved away, although I'd imagine it would be nice for remote work. That said, I'd argue that it's not really that expensive compared to New York, especially if you consider living in less popular parts of the city like West Hill or surrounding towns like Lansing/Dryden.
>That's also why when people do tend to leave the Bay Area, they go to other liberal areas like Seattle/Portland/Boulder/Asheville/Austin/Boston/NYC, even though those areas also have housing crises and the cost of living is rapidly approaching the Bay
Wow, that's true for all those cities? I might have guessed it for Boston and NYC, maybe Seattle too, not so much about the others. But don't know a lot about this area.
It's not a "crisis" in the way the Bay Area is, where there is barely any inventory even if you're a double-Googler household, 3BR homes on 1/4 acre go for $2.5M, and if you're a teacher or other non-tech job you're either living with roommates or have an hour and a half commute. However, Portland/Boulder/Denver/Austin have all seen large increases in house prices, driven largely by Californian housing wealth finding cheaper pastures.
1/4 acre is a large amount for a 3 bedroom house - where I live in the UK a typical plot size in a semi-rural area, from the 70s is about 1/10th acre, for new houses it's about half that.
The best solution to high demand is a land value tax. That applies not just to houses, but to offices, shops, parking lots, etc. This means that land owners have to use their land efficently. If parking triples in cost, so be it. If road tolling is required, c'est la vie.
The proceeds of those tax must then be pumped into the local economy - funding services and improvements, like new bridges, or metro lines, or higher wages for central services (like schools and police)
1/4 acre is pretty normal for middle-class neighborhoods in much of the US. A land tax would have to be pretty drastic to force people to knock down houses, split/combine plots, and build new houses repositioned to be more dense than they are now.
I think a better solution would be relaxing zoning/making new development easier in areas of high scarcity.
A land value tax would make it easier to convince people to do zoning differently.
It's also a feature that it would have a larger impact in areas where land value is high and less impact in areas where land value isn't high (so "most of the US" doesn't really matter).
It would also ensure users of land like wide roads (with on street parking), parking lots, etc, pay their way
The money goes to the local administration, who then can spend it on truly public places like parks, offering tax breaks to businesses they want to attract, subsidising housing, etc, which everyone benefits from.
The value of land is the opportunity cost of not putting it to its best use withing existing planning regulations/zoning.
Its is also the loss of opportunity suffered by those excluded with left uncompensated leads to a net transfer of incomes, capitalised into rental incomes and selling prices, and a misallocation of resources. Housing issues are purely a symptom of this economic injustice.
A Land Value Tax ends that net transfer, which is why the selling price of land falls to zero.
Towards zero, but would never reach zero unless the land was worthless.
If you can make an acre of land in SF generate $1m profit a year, even with a 10,000% LVT it would still be worth $10k. With a more realistic 2% LVT, it would be worth $980k.
However if your acre of land makes $15k a year in profit as a parking lot, a 2% LVT means that you'll sell it to someone who can utilise the space in a better way, rather than make a $5k loss.
That person may build a house, and pay $20k a year in tax, setting a rental value of $1700pcm. Or they may build a 5 home building and pay $4k a year in tax per home, setting a rental value on each home at $350pcm.
If they want a $36k a year profit, then those prices mean renting out a single home for $4700pcm, or 5 homes for $850pcm each.
Zoning laws vary the value of the land of course. Land zoned as 'a park' is pretty much worthless (but not valueless). Land zoned as 'single story house' is worth at least $8m an acre ($2.5m for a house on a 1/4 acre plot). Land zoned as 'multi story' may be worth say $20m an acre.
However at 2% LVT, the single story home will be paying $160k per acre per year. The multi story with 40 homes will pay $10k a year per acre per home. Far cheaper, thus able to attract more buyers.
On top of that, there's a large incentive for residents in single story homes to rezone their area to multi story -- land price increases 150%, they sell up their (current) $2.5m home for $5.5m, making a cool 3M in profit.
If you allow a 1% LVT to accrue as a charge on the value of the home, that's only paid on disposal, there's no affordability problem either. Own a $2m piece of land at age 18, each year 1% of the value gets added as a charge. Die age 108 and 80% of the land value is then taken to pay the back-charges, leaving 20% for the estate.
Proposing it as a sales tax might avoid Prop 13, but continues the problem where new buyers fund the state budget and homeowners/Baby Boomers get everything for free.
Also, schools and local services might not get funded every year, I assume the rate of sales isn't constant.
> Investors in Canada just don't have that kind of money to play with.
The ecosystem [1] that provides dollars to high-risk investments (like tech startups) just doesn't exist on the same scale in Canada. The only players with that kind of money are the federal and provincial governments, which are by nature very conservative.
[1] For example, one source of funding is large pensions and endowments, who take a tiny percentage of their overall portfolio and put it into "high-risk" investments. The funds are so large that the tiny percentage amounts to millions and millions of dollars.
There is the new Canadian SBIR analog (Innovative Solutions Canada [1]) which looks like a big step in the right direction.
It's having some issues getting off the ground though, it just kicked off a few months ago and I think they are way behind handing out funding. There's only been a handful of challenges and not many applicants (I submitted a proposal, which was serialized as a submission number just over 300). They are supposed to be distributing about $100M/yr, or 1% of the federal R&D budget.
The liberalness of Canada is overhyped. The reality is Canada is deeply conservative. It's possible to have universal health care and be conservative, that's only a oxymoron in the US.
To quote this excellent article[1]: "the default setting of the Canadian male: a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might rock the boat. To these types, those who make a fuss are bothersome and ignorant at best, and probably dangerous and destructive too."
I was born in Canada. I went to school in Canada. Only once I moved to the US did I feel like I could express and be myself. That I am surrounded by people who think like I do and value the things I value. Dogmatic adherence to the way it's done, because change is dangerous is the default state of many Canadians. For those who it's not, well, you know them, they're already living in the US.
Honestly I gotta agree with you here, bud. When I was growing up in Canada I had to keep my dreams a secret. If you had any grand goals people thought you were an egomaniacal weirdo. It wasn't until I seriously dated someone here in the US that I realized the difference: as part of the "delving into each others' inner lives" phase of the early relationship, I sheepishly admitted I had dreams of doing some pretty big things. I was greeted with an eye-roll and her saying "everyone wants to do something like that".
Here in the USA it's normal for everyone to have big dreams, and weird if they don't. I think I like it.
As a Canadian who has lived in the US for 1 year (in SF) I have a totally different take away. I noticed that people here are very hard working, almost as they are desperate for success, like if they fail or lost their job they would just die, poor and homeless and healthcare-less.
I found that people in Canada were much more focused on happiness and were more willing to make sacrifices to improve their quality of live, though in Vancouver the housing crisis was a gut check for anyone who's goals include owning a home, or starting a family.
There is money to be made here in the valley, especially in tech, but it is not where I intend to be permanently. I want to retire one day, and I probably can't do that here. I definitely couldn't do that in Vancouver with a local salary.
>> like if they fail or lost their job they would just die, poor and homeless and healthcare-less
Because they could be very easily if they don't have a family safety net. I think that ultimately puts a damper on peoples' productive and creative ability as they tend to then focus more on keeping their job rather than being the most productive they can be for their employer.
> I think that ultimately puts a damper on peoples' productive and creative ability as they tend to then focus more on keeping their job rather than being the most productive they can be for their employer.
You could also look at it the other way. The lack of a safety net is like burning the bridges: it encourages you to be more productive and creative precisely because if you're not, then you've got nothing to fall back on.
I think that works when looking for employment, because there is a wide open field in which creativity is more likely to find a good match. Once people get hired they tend to focus solely, right or wrong, on getting on with the people within their organization which is going to place a limit on their creative output.
> like if they fail or lost their job they would just die, poor and homeless and healthcare-less
Poor people get free healthcare in the US. I'm not sure how you could not know that after decades of that being the case. Medicaid has existed since 1965. Not only has it broadened out considerably, today there is also CHIP and SS disability to further supplement that along with countless smaller programs.
Just Medicaid + CHIP covers 70 million people, about 22% of the US, or twice the entire population of Canada.
The US also has vast housing subsidization programs for poor people.
Before Medicaid expansion, Medicaid was strictly for disabled populations under the age of 65 and below a certain income.
After Medicaid expansion, Medicaid is offered to those with an income of below ~130% of the federal poverty line: roughly $16k a year for an individual. I think we'd both agree that $16k/yr is abjectly poor, and those making even 50% more than that are still very poor.
However, only 33 states have expanded Medicaid. Some of the poorest states in the Union have not expanded Medicaid. Therefore, Medicaid is still strictly for disabled population under a certain income in those states.
To say poor people get free healthcare in the US isn't a true statement. Some very poor people in the US have access to Medicaid, depending on their location and income. Some poor people in states that have expanded Medicaid will still not get free healthcare because, while they are objectively poor, they do not meet the income requirements for Medicaid.
For those with a low income, and without access to Medicaid, health insurance premiums are very high and have deductibles that people would need to take a car loan out to pay.
West coast has always been about experiment wheareas east coast is more conservative. I've always wondered if it was because the Europeans took hold of the East coast first and it was only the more brave who would take on the Westword journey. Perhaps that mentality is still engrained in the culture?
I think Dragons Den vs Shark Tank is a clear example of how much stronger the US is (population is 10x too though).
My dad has a good saying: "what takes three hundred years to accomplish in western Europe takes 3 generations on the east coast, takes 30 years on the west coast".
Not surprisingly they moved out west soon after school and I've been forever poisoned to the east!
Yeah, that's why Germany has maglevs and high speed rail and California can barely get it's own HSR off the ground.
That's a truly awful saying that's emblematic of the stupid prejudices brought about by American exceptionalism and the even more obnoxious (to me) West Coast exceptionalism.
As much as I nodded along with your exasperation at the parent poster's (father's) demonstration of bias, you can't compare long-distance public transportation infrastructure in places with the population densities and growth rates of Germany and California, two extremes in that sense. California has 1/5 more area, with half the population, and that population has almost doubled over the last 35 years, versus a few % growth in Germany.
>you can't compare long-distance public transportation infrastructure in places with the population densities and growth rates of Germany and California
You very much can. Parent didn't ask Californians to build infrastructure in Yosemite or the Death Valley. Heck, not even in Bakersfield.
How's that L.A, San Diego, and San Francisco public transportation infrastructure? Places that, if anything, have more population density than the most populus German cities?
The US mostly relies on air travel, and it's not too inconvenient if you can avoid major hubs like SFO and LAX. The population of those metropolitan areas isn't the problem; it's the distance, as well as the lower demand for travel between them. California is also more seismically active. You can build a passenger HSR system in California, but the cost/benefit is going to be worse than somewhere like Germany.
Distance wouldn't be much of a problem. It isn't much longer than Paris - Frankfurt. Chinese trains cover the distance in 2 hours. It would work from a European perspective, but Europe built most of its networks decades ago. The Chinese aren't just building train lines, they are building entire regions.
Everyone complains how few things can be built in SF or LA, but suddenly having a lot of space available is something negative? Californians have a dream scenario on their hands as the high cost of construction can relatively soon be offset by the huge gains in capturing the global tech market. Something that will pay off for a century. And they should have the money to do it. It is probably one of the best infrastructure investments available anywhere.
I hear this explanation floated around a lot, but I have extreme doubts that it has any bearing in reality. I live in NYC, and it's not that we're adverse to experimentation. Far from it; we mix and match cultures obsessively until the most bizarre "only in New York" moments come about.
Instead, New Yorkers are more likely to call bullshit on an idea when it isn't good or at a minimum challenge it to be better. You don't have nearly the same survival of the fittest attitude in the Bay Area from my impressions, and as a result tons of crackpot ideas end up funded. Admittedly, crackpot ideas in NYC also get funded (Juicero, oy) so I'm not sure if the difference can totally be attributed to New York's adversarial nature.
Mostly what it boils down to here I suspect is that start-ups just aren't as visible because all of the software devs and engineers realized that they could go work in finance rather than a "tech company" and make millions of dollars more. In this sense, lots of New York's innovative spirit gets channeled into problems relating to designing custom ASICs for HFT and trying to outwit the market.
As another point, who claim that the East Coast is averse to experimentation have a marked tendency to ignore counterfactual examples like BBN and Bell Labs. Even Xerox (in Rochester) and Kodak were pretty deep into R&D before they fucked themselves.
I have lived on both coasts and the biggest difference I have noticed is the strength of the elite university caste system in the East. It felt like if you didn't go to a top ten school you had a glass ceiling.
It exists out West too but in my experience so far is less prevalent and is given less weight. People out East often start a presentation, pitch, or interview with where they went to school. Out West I have done a dozen VC meetings and have only been asked once or twice and I didn't get the impression it was a major data point for them.
I've never lived outside of the East Coast / mid-West, but what you're saying sounds feasible. That said, I'd guess that the "who are you? What is your background?" question is more of a Boston thing than a New York thing, since New York doesn't have the Puritan / Boston Brahman caste system. I've known of a number of people who went to state schools or random unknown schools in New Jersey who've done reasonably well here.
I also wonder if the weather has anything to do with the mentality.
Winters in the East Coast are harsh so it forces people to be more 'realistic'. Whereas the sub tropical West Coast gives people an environment to think in more imaginitive ways.
Juicero may have headquartered in San Fran because it was the "cool thing to do", but the founder lives in Brooklyn. I suspect that the San Fran HQ was HQ in name only.
Weather certainly does have an effect on culture. That said, the East Coast vs. West Coast, U.S. vs the World rivalry is mostly contrived, and claims that one area is more innovative than another are dubious. It's reasonable to claim that the Bay Area has more of an engineering-centric culture, but that is likely due to a) Intel and b) the presence of multiple well-funded National Labs within close proximity.
If you look at the case of Leland Stanford, for instance, you'll notice that he maintained pretty deep personal and economic ties with his hometown of Albany up until his death- a lot of his success wouldn't have been possible if he hadn't been able to rely upon his extended family in the East Coast for support.
Stanford University was actually originally supposed to be in Albany, but was the location was switched to Palo Alto- allegedly because people got greedy. Instead Albany got a children's orphanage sponsored by Stanford's wife, which didn't last past the 30s. [1]
So true. I'll give you a poignant example... I was a Canadian exchange student at a California University. I was walking from one class to another when I noticed somebody on a skateboard coming my way on the path.
Just as he was passing I realize it was one of my professors. That surprised me and I turned my head as he went by to take it in. But what surprised me more was that I was the only person who gave a shit that a 50-year-old guy in dress pants and a sweater just road past on a skateboard. That's when I first realized people were much more open-minded.
It took me about 10 years after University to move back to California and I can't imagine I'll ever move away.
I live in the US now, and don't disagree that Americans as a people are more...well, I like the word 'ambitious'.
But I think your characterization of Canada is overly harsh: in Toronto and Montreal I know (and love) misfits just as individual, wild, and free as anyone I met during my years in Brooklyn.
Also Canadian (Vancouver / Victoria), spend a lot of time in SF. This has also been my experience but I'm wondering if its just a big city thing in CAD.
I’m a New Yorker, grew up there and now living in SF. Brooklyn was cool, but it didn’t “get” the kind of experimental intellectualism that’s needed in a tech startup scene. Not ripping on my old hometown. They have the intellectualism but haven’t applied it to tech. If I were to go back to New York, I wouldn’t go into tech, I’d go into finance because that’s where the nerds would be.
If I may, when I visited Vancouver (several times), I couldn’t find a coffee shop culture there. For some reason this seems like a big deal. In Manhattan and in San Francisco, people write in coffee shops and it’s kind of a thing. This seems like a big deal too. There’s more startups that started in a coffee shop than you’d think. Again, it goes towards a certain kind of intellectual experimentation.
I remember this Ted Talk titled “Where Good Ideas Come From” [1] where the speaker suggests that coffee or the combination of coffee and stimulating conversation catalyzed the generation of ideas and the rest is history up to the birth of Enlightenment. It seems like it’s still happening around coffee shops.
When I graduated and tried to find work in Canada multiple firms told me I was "too weird" and "should move to California", so I did and I'm super happy that it worked out the way it did -- but I still feel sad about having to leave my home country to be my authentic self.
My experience in here in the 'States exemplifies your comments "that I am surrounded by people who think like I do and value the things I value".
But this does not lead to healthy social communities. We as a country are drunk on the idea that our friends are people who think and act like us, when this is only part -- IMO, a very small part -- of group chemistry that this outlook overlooks. Group interaction is so much more complicated and beautiful than that. At least in my case, my best friendships are with people very much unlike me.
If you look at the current political situation here we are all banding together along lines of common interests and beliefs, and not things like proximity, or economic need, or other factors. And one wonders why we are so divided, when nobody wants to find common ground...
I hate to use the word diversity but it's as important in life as water, now more than ever.
> we are all banding together along lines of common interests and beliefs, and not things like proximity, or economic need, or other factors. And one wonders why we are so divided, when nobody wants to find common ground...
I believe you are reversing the cause and effect. It is never easy to find common ground. In the bad old days when people could not band together along lines of common interests and beliefs easily, common ground were found by the powerful suppressing the opinion of the powerless, and other times by resolution of war.
I think the appropriate term here is "diversity of thought" which is sort of opposite to the unqualified "diversity" which usually means diversity of genetics and uniformity of thought.
A lot of Canada's GDP seems to come from mining, and some of it seems to come from places that could be disrupted by technology or ecological concerns, so I'm not surprised at resistance to disruption.
Mining is a bit of a paradox. Historically mining companies were the "start-ups" of their day.
When you discovered a deposit you'd stake a claim (e.g. patent) and then seek investors to exploit it (e.g. venture funding). If the discovery turned out to be genuine and the mine was successful the returns would often be extraordinary.
Thing is, a lot of mines fail. Maybe there's resources there but extracting them isn't practical or profitable. Maybe there wasn't as much there as theorized. Maybe it was all a lie.
The paradox is that once you have a successful mining industry built up, people think of those as the conservative play, the safe bet, and are reluctant to go through that process all over again with a new industry.
But can one really count that, at least in the context of how the people understand where their money really comes from? Consider the adage, "Buy land: they don't make it any more."
A growth in the value of land isn't, in and of itself, an actual product, though I do agree the construction is. However, how much of that construction is actually in service of a different industry (i.e. would never have happened but for, say, mining and oil)? Similarly, how much of that real estate value would drop to approximately zero if the industries supporting it disappeared?
I'm sure there's some construction, especially residential, that must be happening just due to population growth, but I'm skeptical if that accounts for even a majority of that number.
My point is that a chart like that doesn't even hint at how much of that "real estate" activity is a direct result of the needs of "conservative" industries. It certainly stands to reason that something like resource extraction is not just land-intensive but is intensive in changes to land ownership/tenancy.
I'm pretty confident that someone who, according to that chart, is in the "real estate" industry who works selling houses in newly-built mining towns knows full well what industry really supplies his income.
I'm pretty confident that residential real-estate activity (people selling houses to each other) in major urban centres (eg: YVR, GTA) eclipses that of mining towns.
If that's accurate, it suggests that Manitoba, which, though known as more agricultural and manufacturing rather than mining, has the same pattern of "real estate" accounting for individual income. Of course, the significant majority of the population is in Winnipeg, but I don't think that qualifies it as a major, on the same scale as Vancouver or Toronto.
Again, I think that even real estate "industry" workers in Winnipeg know their money really comes from manufacturing, just as the ones in Edmonton know their money really comes from oil.
Maybe in the major cities you mention it's not so obvious, but "real estate" still fails to eclipse the sum of all the industries that actually produce something (manufacturing, resource extraction, construction).
I think you're conflating the value of the real estate property itself with the GDP from the "industry", which has to do with property changing hands or tenancy.
(Those charts also fail to show how much of that income is from residential transactions/management versus commercial ones.)
It just doesn't stand to reason that if people entirely stop paying other people to buy and sell each other houses (even if it does account for the vast majority of that 13% of the GDP) that the economy would collapse completely.
However, if housing values collapse due to questionable (or worse) lending practices, as happened in the US around 2008, could collapse the financial system and thereby the economy. It might even increase the GDP of the real estate category, especially as a percentage, at the expense of the finance category.
More importantly, though, I don't think there are any voters that buy the notion that they could, for example, do away with their real industry, such as mining or manufacturing, and replace it entirely with selling each other their houses. Because of that, whatever conservatism they may hold would remain from that real industry, regardless of what category the statisticians put their income in.
Hmmm that is an interesting observation. I wonder if and when more of the GDP comes from Services/Software, it will impact the culture of the country as well?
>I was born in Canada. I went to school in Canada. Only once I moved to the US did I feel like I could express and be myself. That I am surrounded by people who think like I do and value the things I value.
So to escape the uniformity of Canada you left and went to find a place were people think like you and value the things you do?
Isn't that what those Canadians are all about as well? Seeking the company of other similar thinking people?
The really open mind thing would be to recognize that some cultures like to experiment, others not, and both are fine.
This thread and it's comments have been super enlightening. Living in California my whole life has skewed my perception of what is normal with respect to ambition. Ambition is not inherently good, but Eve as a small child we are inundated with messages about success, "hard work" (whatever that means), and reaching
Socially liberal in some ways, but not in everything. 4 states decriminalized and/or legalized marijuana before any Canadian provinces. 2 of them did it years before Canada was even planning to do it. That is very telling of the two cultures.
Marijuana is illegal in every state, because it's illegal under federal law. No province could decriminalize marijuana because no province had criminalized marijuana in the first place. We never had the redundant laws that the US states had.
Summarizing the social liberal aspect of Canada by the legalization of marijuana seems very narrow minded. There are far more important social aspects than marijuana legalization.
Agreed, like I said, "in some ways". Of course, there are more important social aspects, and it's not an in-depth analysis of the two cultures and it wasn't meant to be -- it simply highlights just how open-minded Americans can be and how conservative Canadians can be and that's all it was meant to be.
Toronto too. I've been "caught" smoking weed by the police in Toronto and they literally don't give a shit. That said, not everyone is willing to accept that -- there's a huge portion of very conservative Canadians who think "drugs" are for dropouts and losers (and don't realize the opposite is true too -- nearly half of the most successful people are doing "drugs" too).
I think the conservativeness of Canada is a bit different from conservatives in the USA though. It's less focused on "morality" and religion and more an aversion to change. Which is why I think it's possible for the culture to be simultaneously conservative and OK with things like gay marriage and legal cannabis, neither of which would be conservative positions in the US.
In the political sense, Germany is more liberal than the US (especially economically), but there's this sort personal conservatism that manifests in paranoia about data/privacy, aversion/skepticism around change and technology and risk, less acceptance of weirdness. German culture just feels...rigid. It's stable and very functional, but also inflexible.
Don't forget the incremental perfectionism, which wont allow for a product to ship, unless its polished to a mirror-shine, and at least a year behind any competitor.
And the constant skepticism to anything that is not a physical product. Writing Software in the eye of the layman is something between boring and con-artistry.
To be fair the polished product for physical goods is the better choice. If you buy the rushed appliance with design flaws you will just have to spend money again to replace it, or time to get it returned and fixed.
Software is different in that problems can be fixed instantly (since online updates) and the first to build the user base is often the winner.
The real problems occur when the "software startup" model is applied to a product that it does not fit.
We're insulated because provinces cannot pass laws on gay marriage or legal cannabis.
Canadian federalism is incomplete in that regard.
However Ford could pull a Mike Harris and start firing nurses. His economic plan promises a balanced budget with no job cuts and no tax rises. He claims there are efficiencies to be had whatever that means.
And Diane Feinstein opposed California’s 2016 legalization.
It’s ridiculous to suggest Democrats are more likely to legalize than Republicans because the facts don’t really support that. It’s much less of an obvious partisan issue. Remember, Democrats controlled the house, senate and White House in 2009-2011 and not a single legalization bill even made it to the floor.
To be fair, Doug Ford winning would be partially the liberals' fault. Kathleen Wynne is hated, and they for some reason had her lead again. They've got some great plans, but the way elections work makes it really easy for Doug Ford to pander hard to suburbites who only give a shit about lower taxes and real estate.
Frankly, as a Toronto area dev Doug Ford winning the election would definitely cause me to consider looking for work in the US. Toronto's in a pretty crucial moment right now wrt growth and infrastructure, and I don't really see the point staying if the party of stagnation wins - whatever tax cut they may introduce is dwarfed by higher salary + lower CoL in the US anyways.
Awesome article, and should be required reading for anyone who has only heard of Jordan Peterson through his fans.
I'll say that there's a huge difference in values between the big cities, the suburbs, and Alberta.
Alberta is much more socially conservative than most of the states (if you ever see a Canuck unironically call someone a "cuck", 9/10 times they're Albertan).
Montreal/QC are cool but still hosts an extremely ethnonationalist element that's all but crippled their local economy (remember that a little over a year ago, we had a terror attack where some altright guy shot up a mosque in QC).
Toronto is incredibly progressive (I'd argue it's the most diverse city on the planet), but is surrounded by some of the worst, overtly racist, politicians you'll ever meet. Because of a first-past-the-post voting system, even though they're in the minority, the vote among reasonable people is split among reasonable candidates, and hateful buffoons get a consistent voting bloc. (The late) Rob Ford was mayor, in spite of making violent rants, being repeatedly publicly drunk, using every racial epitaph in the book, smoking crack (sometimes on video), and smoking crack with his KKK-member sister. His brother, reported former drug dealer Doug Ford, now stands a real chance of being Ontario's next premier.
Vancouver is a great city, but somewhat isolated from the rest of Canada. Toronto's pretty expensive, but Vancouver is even worse. Unlike Toronto, though, there aren't a lot of options for anyone but the most wealthy who want to live there. While the Conservative party is very weak there (they didn't even have a location there hosting the federal leadership convention, when even people in PEI had one in driving distance), BC's influence federally is minimal. You could argue they're becoming something of an oligarchy due to the huge influence of corporate money. You either need to have a high-paying job, or be very old, to live there.
>To quote this excellent article[1]: "the default setting of the Canadian male: a dull but stern dad, who, under a facade of apparent normalcy and common sense, conceals a reserve of barely contained hostility toward anyone who might rock the boat. To these types, those who make a fuss are bothersome and ignorant at best, and probably dangerous and destructive too."
Just being a conservative or a right-winger is bothersome and ignorant and dangerous and destructive and lots of bad things. What a way of seeing the world. :-)
The usual phrase is "psychologically conservative." Sticking to the comfort zone. Therefore, a psychological conservative who grows up in a politically Marxist household will remain Marxist, and of the same stripe of Marxist. They'll never consider political Conservatism seriously as a worldview, or switch to that.
What does this description have to do with being a "right-winger"? Looks like you are the one bringing a preconceived worldview into the discussion. You are not a victim.
The idea of being an entrepreneur, in the GTA especially, is buying a second house in the suburbs and hoping the housing market continues rising.
That had me LOL because I think it’s so true. If you were to suggest perhaps to start a business that innovates you’d be considered crazy. Although of course the new tech out of the USA will be adopted by all immediately.
You'd be considered crazy, because you can't throw a brick, and hit a VC that will give you money for a no team, no product, no idea startup.
You'd also be considered crazy if you expressed those ideas in Chicago or San Diego, or Charleston, but that doesn't mean that we stereotypes about America not respecting 'changemakers' are accurate.
> Those that do are constantly questioned by everybody.
My exposure is more western Canada than eastern Canada, but I find that your statements couldn't be further from the truth. People here are constantly trying new things and exploring and experimenting with new business ideas. I see great optimism and people who see potential.
And in terms of being constantly questioned, I just don't see that where I am, but I also don't view being questioned as a bad thing. When it comes to launching any new idea, it seems that being questioned is the very least of the difficulty you need to put up with.
Originally from Calgary and I concur with the poster above. Canadians tend to think small. For venture the culture has been so burned by pump and dump penny stocks that there is no patient capital. Canada needs an enormous influx of venture capital. The problem is, is that the crown corporations who can make those bets are limited to investing in Canadian funds. If they could invest 10% into a US fund and the US fund agreed to invest 10% of the portfolio into Canada it could really open up the market.
Are we talking about entrepreneurs or investors? I was talking about entrepreneurs, myself, and I think my point stands. I agree that the market for capital and venture investing is far different in Canada than in the US. But as far as that is concerned, couldn't it be argued that the market for venture capital and investing is far different in Silicon Valley than in most other places in the U.S., even?
Both. If I am talented and I’m confident that money is available I’ll start a business. If money is scarce I’ll work at BigCo or move to SV and start a company. That leaves you with less than stellar talent. I’ve seen the same thing happen in the agrifood tech space. As more money has come into the sector we’ve seen more high quality entrepreneurs.
I have to say, Brandon, in spite of all of my criticisms in other comments under this larger thread, that I agree with you.
Ambition toward innovation is not tightly coupled with remuneration here, but it does not mean that Canada is averse to innovation. America has loved that myth since the Avro Arrow and has sought to suppress it after that, or at least it can seem that way.
It's not just western Canada, though western Canada is no small contributor (after having lived in Alberta, and loving and longing for return to BC but originating from rural Ontario and now living in the "center of the universe"/Toronto).
I grew up with farmers, and they were/are consistently more liberal in all regards than what I hear in American news and forums. Those were the first places I saw solar panels and wind farms popping up to contribute to the larger energy grid as well as supplement extraneous local power consumption by isolating supplies to certain devices. They never seemed to care so much about asserting their opinions about how society should run except that people should generally treat each other with decency no matter who you are. I liked that. I could go on for hours. It's not to say conservative types (as expressed in this thread—against change) exist, nor other groups of social conservatives, but they don't occupy the majority. That's another subject altogether...
I also agree that being questioned isn't a problem. It can reach a severely challenging point, but most decent people will hear you out as well. It's a challenge— it challenges you to be better. Just as you've said.
Refining an idea isn't a problem, nor is it censorship, nor is it an aversion to innovation. It's fundamental to science.
I only wanted to speak up because of the majority comments opposing your own.
I believe you are comparing your Canadian upbringing, which reflected an adolescent perspective on a broad spectrum of society, to your adult experiences in a tech bubble. This is a pretty obvious fallacy (the tech bubble is a highly self-selected population of intelligent, well-educated people who like to build things).
I grew up in suburban Minnesota. It's not exactly ambition central, but it's miles ahead of small town America. You're talking about a country that elected Trump here. It's afraid of immigrants, "foreign" religions (as though American Christianity weren't a shambling syncretic nightmare), doesn't believe in evolution, and believes overwhelmingly in hell. We incarcerate more of our citizens per capita than any other developed country. We're not exactly free-wheeling dream seekers, at the median. We ridicule weird people, we spit on people who fail, and we hate anyone who is ugly, awkward, old, or otherwise socially disadvantaged.
Getting ahead is seen as fine - be ambitious! - but only because we think our friends are "winners" and won't be hurt by the risks they take, which is nonsense. We also don't prize reflectiveness as a culture, so when people gain sufficient experience to learn that this perspective is idiotic, they don't internalize it.
I'm not a giant fan of American culture, and I'm sad to see that anyone from Canada (I watch your Supreme Court proceedings for entertainment, full disclosure!) would idolize anything about they way Americans do things.
Agree completely. Born and raised in Toronto. Canadians are nice and the diversity is great. But San Francisco was a breath of fresh air I didn't even know I needed until I came here. Toronto feels so rigid in comparison. I don't want to ever leave California.
stay there for long enough and you will start to see the cons also.
There is a lot of pros for moving fast and getting things done, jobwise. Weather also is amazing.
Now for personal life, the older you become, the more I realize that this place (the bay area) is really not the best quality of life you can get. People all think the same way, diversity is only visual, and there is not that much diversity of thought. Everything gravitates around work and tech. People are happy to work a crazy amount of hours and feel cool for doing so.
I loved it for a couple years then started to become bored.
I'm not really in the tech bubble tho. I work in tech but it's just a job. Most of my friends are not in tech and most of them have never met anyone else working in tech other than myself.
The tech industry only makes up a small percentage of the bay area population.
"""The idea of being an entrepreneur, in the GTA especially, is buying a second house in the suburbs and hoping the housing market continues rising."""
... or a condo to put on Airbnb.
You are definitely onto something when you say that there are some deep cultural issues within Canada; Look at RIM, the company believed that its central business customers cared more about security and efficient communication and that the iPhone presented no threat to them. The iPhone was just a crazy idea to them, who would want to use that clunker with a horrible battery life and browse the net on it?
Canada has talent, without a doubt, but it also keeps people subdued as you stated because they are constantly questioned by everyone else. Canadians are a lot like accountants, they want to buy that fancy Harley and take it out on the road and live a little, but only on the weekends. :)
The problem of trying to get Canadian tech up to par with the US is much deeper than pulling some tax/incentive levers, I think. There are some really deep cultural issues that I don't think can be solved for a few generations.