[somerandomqaguy]

>Now that Amazon, Microsoft and Google are setting up shop right here in Canada, the talent drain away from Canadian companies is only accelerating.

Maybe. Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status, most of which are skilled workers of some kind. Probably a safe bet between that those three are setting up shop here in part because they can bring in international talent into North America more easily then with the US cracking down on it's immigration policies.

No idea on what effect it will have on salaries here though.

[blueblisters]

> Canada is bringing 400,000+ new immigrants per year until 2023 for permanent residence status

Canada is adding > 1% of its population in immigrants every year? I am curious if that is sustainable politically and economically. I suspect this will only drive down tech wages even further and put pressure on local housing markets, utilities, healthcare and social programs.

[HDMI_Cable]

There's this movement in Canadian political circles that calls for us to have a population of ~100 million by 2100.[1]

Their argument is essentially that Canada has a lot of space (especially with climate change and all [2]), and by bringing in a lot of people from other countries, that will make Canada a more competitive country on the world stage.

In my personal opinion, I don't have anything against the movement, its just that all of these people are coming to either Toronto or Vancouver, and so those cities are becoming more and more competitive, meanwhile more conservative regions like Alberta and Quebec have a labour shortage.

Also, this might have a weird effect on French (I'm a french speaker so I might be a bit biased), but a lot of the people that are coming in right now (mainly from Eastern Europe, India, & China) only speak English, and not French. So we're seeing French go the same way as Scots or Gaelic did in the UK -- slowly dying.

Overall though, as long as we ensure that the population is distributed (I guess high housing prices are a good thing), and that people learn French, the 100 million thing isn't too bad.

--- [1] - https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/canada-needs-to-get-to-100-milli...

[2] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5a/Ko... - Note right now, Only Toronto - Windsor has that light blue climate (same weather as New England), and in 2100 most of Canada will, while southern Ontario and BC will have the same weather as Washington or Normandy.

[slothtrop]

We're certainly not building fast enough if that's the plan in earnest. Exceeding a certain rate of immigration also suppresses wages, according to this - https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-001-x/89-001-x2007001... . That is a ticking time bomb for public discontent as we'll simultaneously be dealing with increasing automation.

In theory, it could be done well, but it won't. All these other factors will be ignored which is just going to lead to a long wave of Conservative government in the future.

[HDMI_Cable]

I don't think the 100 million figure is exact, its more of ambitious target that we'll try to get to, but ultimately won't affect much if we're ~20 million short or something.

or sure wages are lower because of it. But I don't think there'll be much discontent just because immigration is not as heated an issue in the US, and we have more room to grow (especially on the infrastructure side).

However, we do have to consider that immigration does allow for businesses to grow faster, because our main bottleneck -- population, becomes less of a concern. Automation is a big concern in this regard, but we can just kick that can down the road.

[sershe]

Doesn't Canada have special immigration programs for specific provinces that are better/offer faster path to citizenship/etc. to try to solve this problem? I am pretty sure I remember Quebec had one that was better than BC (I used to be an immigrant in BC).

[jbarham]

You're probably thinking of the Quebec Immigrant Investor Program (https://www.immigration.ca/quebec-immigrant-investor-program). In theory applicants should "intend to settle in the province of Quebec", in practice most of them end up in Vancouver or Toronto.

[gabbo]

Beyond the QIIP, there are a whole host of provincial nominee programs where provinces can set their own criteria that are different from the federal government: https://moving2canada.com/provincial-nominee-program-pnp/

[HDMI_Cable]

I think its done on a federal level, its just that they make it easier to immigrate to some regions (like Quebec) vs other regions (like BC).

[srtjstjsj]

Canada also adds 1% to its population in babies, who can't work at all, and are fully dependent on others for housing, healthcare, and social programs.

[slothtrop]

This is also a product of immigration. The fertility rate is otherwise stagnant.

[raverbashing]

The number is probably lower but still the bar is high for qualified immigrants (then there's the familiar reunion/refugees/etc)

Too bad Canada treats most of them like they came in a dinghy from some weird 3rd world country and leaves some of them in survival jobs (especially in a certain big eastern province)

[MartianSquirrel]

Canada has been at it for quite a while, otherwise the economy would be stagnating. And it has the advantage that it can chose its immigrants based on the market's needs. Compared to other countries, people coming to canada are also highly skilled:

> Over half of recent immigrants have a bachelor's degree or higher [0] > Recent immigrants were even more likely to have a master's or doctorate degree, with 16.7% of them holding these graduate degrees in 2016. [0]

[0]: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/daily-quotidien/171129/dq...

[iridium_core]

Its sustainable politically if you call anyone who opposes the scheme racist - only a single country in the top 10 migrant contributors to Canada is of European heritage:

https://www.cicnews.com/2020/02/a-quarter-of-canadas-immigra...

This is already causing long-term social problems, like sex-selective abortion which is prevalent in Indian communities in Canada even after multiple generations:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S170121631...

If the USA is restricting immigration, and Canada is not, this is just another driver for the top talent to flee Canada to the USA.

Canada might succeed in becoming a dumping-ground of migrants, a country of cheap back-office labour and expensive housing, but that sounds like a terrible place to live or develop any cutting-edge technology.