[garbawarb]

I like to think about what Canada would be like if it could take the best qualities from the US and leave the rest. What if Canada's capital markets were so robust that it was just as good a place as the US to start and scale a company? What if it could match the US in economic productivity? PM Carney seems to have made it a goal to get Canada there but time will tell whether that happens. Some other countries like Switzerland rival the US by per capita measures and many would say it's a great place to live with fewer sociocultural problems than the US has.

[jfim]

The biggest problem with Canadian capital markets is that investors aren't really that comfortable with taking risk, because the alternative for them is to park their money in real estate, which has done quite well with little risk in Canada.

If Carney really wants to make this happen, he'd have to thread the needle on deflating the property bubble in order to make venture capital and productivity investments more attractive compared to real estate, all while managing the rest of the highly US dependent economy for the upcoming years.

Switzerland has fewer sociocultural problems than the US, but it's also a smaller relatively homogenous society with far less immigration, and a highly educated and politically involved population.

[beached_whale]

There are some examples of companies that scaled really well in Canada but move to the US subsequently for better access to their market. Shopify is the first example that comes to mine.

[amrocha]

Shopify hasn’t moved to the US any more than Toyota has.

[beached_whale]

Oh wow, thanks. I thought they moved to the US.