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This article is poorly fact-checked: "Queens College" is, I'm guessing, referring to Queen's University in Kingston (since the attendance number cited also mat

by uiri 10y ago

This article is poorly fact-checked: "Queens College" is, I'm guessing, referring to Queen's University in Kingston (since the attendance number cited also matches), which is over 150 miles away from Toronto. I'm surprised the author didn't include the 25,000 students at McMaster and the 20,000 students at the University of Guelph which are both much closer than either Waterloo or Queen's. And if the author is going to include the University of Waterloo, why not also include Wilfrid Laurier University which is also in Waterloo? It is totally nonsensical. Kitchener-Waterloo is very distinct from Toronto and its various suburbs. The support provided by the government does not begin to make up for the lack of support provided by local angel investors/VCs. It is much easier to go through the government grant process and get funding for a startup that way than it is to get Angel or VC money in Toronto. BlackBerry has been dying a slow death for over 4 years at this point. Whatever talent they once had has (hopefully, for their sake) long since moved on. If the author's claims of a diaspora injecting additional talent into the local startup scene are true, we should already be seeing it. I don't. Shopify's HQ is in Ottawa. They are sucking up a lot of the local CS talent in Ottawa since they are a big fish in a small pond. They aren't going to move their HQ ~200 miles to Toronto any time soon, even if it means avoiding -40 degree winters.

kogepathic 10y ago
> even if it means avoiding -40 degree winters. Oh come on, winter in Ottawa isn't that bad. I can't recall many days that were below -30 when I was living there. Although I hear Toronto barely has snow in the winter time, must be heaven not to have to shovel your driveway.
- halostatue 10y ago
  Oh, come on. I had to shovel my driveway at least twice this past winter. (I was able to bike to work throughout most of the winter, even if some of the rides were abbreviated because I can use the GO train as well.)
markeroon 10y ago
It mentions Waterloo because it's one of the best EE/CS schools in the world.
aianus 10y ago
> And if the author is going to include the University of Waterloo, why not also include Wilfrid Laurier University which is also in Waterloo? Laurier does not have an engineering department (they gave it up in exchange for UWaterloo promising not to offer business degrees).

by uiri 10y ago

kogepathic 10y ago

> even if it means avoiding -40 degree winters. Oh come on, winter in Ottawa isn't that bad. I can't recall many days that were below -30 when I was living there. Although I hear Toronto barely has snow in the winter time, must be heaven not to have to shovel your driveway.

halostatue 10y ago
Oh, come on. I had to shovel my driveway at least twice this past winter. (I was able to bike to work throughout most of the winter, even if some of the rides were abbreviated because I can use the GO train as well.)

markeroon 10y ago

It mentions Waterloo because it's one of the best EE/CS schools in the world.

aianus 10y ago

> And if the author is going to include the University of Waterloo, why not also include Wilfrid Laurier University which is also in Waterloo? Laurier does not have an engineering department (they gave it up in exchange for UWaterloo promising not to offer business degrees).