[amrocha]

Again, literally not true. There's plenty of people that would hate to live in the US, and much prefer Canada. Plenty of immigrants. Those people work in the Canadian offices.

I don't know if you know this, but the rest of the world considers the US to be kind of a terrible place. Sure, it might be better than home, but Canada is way better than both.

[mywittyname]

> There's plenty of people that would hate to live in the US, and much prefer Canada.

For what reasons?

Having worked with a lot of Canadians over the years, I've discovered that a significant number of them have this very negative perception of the USA that is not accurate. I can see a lot of these reasons being based on incorrect assumptions, especially when considering how educated upper-middle class people live.

I spent a lot of time in Toronto about 7-8 years ago and I couldn't imagine living there as an American. Everything is so expensive (housing in particular), traffic is terrible, the weather sucks, and my role in Canada paid like 25% less. The food was pretty good, but that's about it.

[amrocha]

Sure mate, you can think the assumptions are incorrect, but you're clearly biased towards the US. Everyone else isn't. If a bunch of people are telling you they don't like your country, maybe believe them.

Sounds like you moved to Toronto and tried to live like you were in the US. No wonder you had a bad time.

[mywittyname]

I don't need to think their assumptions are incorrect -- I know they are.

[TMWNN]

Don't bother arguing with amrocha. Check out his genius reply to me: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36515453>

I presume he's among those I wrote about, the ones stuck in Canada because they cannot and will not ever be able to get a US visa. And/or believes everything he reads in /r/worldnews and /r/politics.

[amrocha]

Buddy I'm a Canadian citizen and live in Tokyo now, you're the one whose world is so small they can't contemplate the idea that better places exist

[amrocha]

And I know they're not! Funny how that works out

[hot_gril]

Are you saying it's harder to get Canadian citizenship, and that's the only reason people go to the US instead? A lot of my college friends were Chinese-Canadian-Americans alleging that Canada was just their stepping stone to the US, but that's only my experience.

[TMWNN]

> A lot of my college friends where Chinese-Canadian-Americans alleging that Canada was just their stepping stone to the US.

Basically, yes. According to the Canadian government <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2010002/article/11287-...> (table 1), for every two Canadian-born people moving to the US, one person born outside the US or Canada moves from Canada to the US. Given that during 2001-2006 20% or less of Canada were immigrants <https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/221026/g-a00...>, that implies that a Canadian resident born outside the US or Canada is about 50% more likely to move to the US than a Canadian native.

I've heard that New Zealand is similarly used by those seeking to move to Australia.

[amrocha]

No, that's what the guy I'm replying to is saying. I disagree, plenty of people go to Canada as a first choice and love it there.

The Chinese Canadian thing does happen. It's usually 1st generation immigrants with very few ties to Canada and highly competitive families. They're parents usually barely speak English, and their entire families are still in China. Canada let a lot of Chinese immigrants come in during the 80s, and did very little to integrate them, and this is the result I guess.

[hot_gril]

I'm just wondering which country is harder to get into, not trying to establish which is the better nation.

[amrocha]

Depends on where you're from then, but citizens poorer countries might have an easier time going to Canada.

[kafkaesque]

I'm Canadian and every single Canadian with a computer science degree I know either has moved to the US or is actively trying to. We are essentially trading in highly skilled developers with low skilled ones, with some exceptions, of course

[amrocha]

Well, I'm Canadian and I wouldn't move to the US over Canada so you can add me to the list! Now you know someone!

Also, most highly skilled Canadian devs I know just negotiate remote positions with US based companies. That's what I used to do: US salary living in Vancouver

[TMWNN]

> We are essentially trading in highly skilled developers with low skilled ones, with some exceptions, of course

The exact same thing happens across the board, as I cite elsewhere <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36512411>: The best Canadian scientists move to the US, while an equal number in absolute terms of (presumably not the top) American scientists move to Canada.

[TMWNN]

> I don't know if you know this, but the rest of the world considers the US to be kind of a terrible place.

Shouldn't you save Reddit-tier comments like this for /r/worldnews or /r/politics?

Meanwhile, in a survey of scientists from 16 countries <http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/the-global-bra...>, the US is the top destination from 13 of the 15 others and the #2 choice from the other two.

>Sure, it might be better than home, but Canada is way better than both.

Sorry to shatter your illusions, but historically, every year four Canadians move to the US for every American going the other way. According to the Canadian government, this has not changed in the 21st century <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2010002/article/11287-...>.[1] According to Reddit, Texas is basically one step from Nazi Germany, but Texas is those Canadians' fourth-favorite state <http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-008-x/2010002/t/11287/tbl002...>; if you exclude Florida and its retiree-heavy flow, it is their third.

From the Canadian-government analysis:

* "Canadian-born persons who emigrated to the United States between 2000 and 2006 were relatively young", with a median age of 31. Unsurprisingly, "Nearly two-thirds of recent Canadian emigrants to the United States were employed".

* They are also younger than Canadians in general: "Lastly, Canadians who emigrated recently were also generally very young compared to the Canadian population where the median age according to the 2006 Census was 39.5."

* Canadian migrants have become younger in recent years, implying that retiring is further decreasing as a cause of migration: "While the median age of all Canadians residing in the United States was 49 in 2006, the median age was only 31 for Canadians who emigrated between 2000 and 2006. In addition, many of these recent emigrants were of prime working age: over one-half (approximately 53%) were between 20 and 44 years of age. Only around 10% were aged 60 or older."

* While retirement was an important factor for Canadian migrants to Florida and Arizona, those states only received under a quarter of all Canadian migrants to the US, with correspondingly higher median ages.

According to that above-mentioned survey, if you are a Canadian scientist, there is a 16% chance <https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/37lgxg/the...> that you will move to the US. That's not "16% of all Canadian scientists that move out of the country move to the US". Let me repeat:

*16% of all Canadian scientists move to the US.

* They're also likely to be among the top Canadian scientists, too.

By comparison, 5% of all American scientists move to another country, of which 32% go to Canada, so about 1.6-1.7% total. Since the US has nine times more people, that means that in absolute numbers the 1.7% of American scientists is about equal to the 16% of Canadian scientists, but there is no reason to think that the 1.7% makes up the top tier of American scientists; why would the best move north of the border? In other words, the US is receiving the best of Canadian scientists in exchange for an equal number of its non-best.

[1] It is true that from 2010 to 2012—during which the Canadian economy genuinely performed better than the US's—70,000 Americans moved north while only 20,000 Canadians moved south <http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/americans-mov...>, but this still puts the per-capita ratio considerably in the US's favor.

[amrocha]

You claim I'm the one with Reddit comments, but you're the one vomiting a bunch of numbers to support your stance at me hahahaha

Anyway, I'm not denying any of those things. That still doesn't mean people think the US is a good place to live. They think they can make more money there, and the tradeoff is worth it.

But there's also plenty of people for whom that tradeoff is not worth it. Those people don't use Canada as a stepping stone, they just like living there. Because the US is kind of a shithole.

[aprdm]

Yes USA population is much bigger than Canada , would surprise me if in absolute numbers wasn’t the case