20 ms·

These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should be desperate to have. The majority of costs a person will typically have on a country are their ini

by mabbo 3y ago

These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should be desperate to have. The majority of costs a person will typically have on a country are their initial K-12 education, and their health care costs later in life. Immigrants like these will never cost the government that first major cost. At the same time, they are far more likely to have higher than median salaries when employed. That means higher taxes paid. So from a purely economic point of view, an H-1B immigrant is a perfect profit center for government taxes. Meanwhile a Canadian who gets their K-12 education here, gets a highly government subsidized post-secondary degree, then moves to the USA to work and pay taxes there is a huge loss, economically.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mr90210 3y ago
I am in a similar situation in a EU country, where I just live and pay taxes to, my income comes from a company located in another country. The inefficiencies of the country where I live and the quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners (mostly Americans foreigners) made me decide to plan to leave. I agree with your points, and I think that Canada will have to work smartly to retain those people otherwise they’ll end up leaving.
- 1over137 3y ago
  Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of any G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are.
  - mr90210 3y ago
    Well I am not necessarily saying that they need more immigrants, that’s up to them.
  - zirgs 3y ago
    Just because someone is an immigrant himself doesn't mean that he doesn't hate other immigrants.
    - bryanlarsen 3y ago
      Yes, that's my personal experience. Immigrants are more xenophobic than those born in Canada.
    - 1over137 3y ago
      Of course. But it might mean that the 77% of the population that is born in Canada is more accustomed/acclimatized to immigrants. They are not a weird/rare thing, and so they are accepted/liked by a bulk of the population.
    - skissane 3y ago
      I’ve heard before immigrants take quite negative stances on “illegal”/“undocumented”/“irregular” immigration, saying “I had to jump through all these hoops to come here, I have no sympathy for people who break the rules instead”. Is that xenophobia? Years ago, I went on a business trip to the US, and while there an Indian-American colleague said some very Islamophobic things to me. I guess he probably brought some of that with him from India, although certainly there would have been things in the US to reinforce it. Also, he was a 9/11 survivor and this was only a few years later, so that was likely a factor too. There is some obvious overlap between Islamophobia and xenophobia - although not all Muslims have an immigrant background (converts), and there are billions of non-Muslim foreigners
  - skissane 3y ago
    > Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of any G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are. Australia is even more immigrant than Canada – around 30% overseas born. But I think part of why Australia (and maybe Canada too) have less of a problem with xenophobia than some countries with less immigrants – greater selectiveness in the immigration intake, and skewing it more towards highly skilled/educated people. If you take in 100,000 university graduates from China and India, versus 100,000 random refugees and economic migrants from anywhere at all – it is unsurprising the former cause significantly less social problems than the latter, and those social problems tend to fuel xenophobia.
- TimPC 3y ago
  Canada won't do the work needed to retain them. Talking to lots of people it's mostly the combination of unaffordable housing (Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US does with our two largest metro areas containing 25% of the country's population not having non-condo homes under $1 million) and high tax rates. People have some tolerance for paying tax rates in the 42-44% range plus sales tax plus property tax if their life is overall affordable, but when home prices are staggering high and that life becomes out of reach people move somewhere better. You can't fix housing when you want to import people faster than you can build homes for them (and Canada wants to grow to 100M people over 50 years) and you can't lower taxes when you want to pay for things without crushing debt and Canada seems to want more government programs not less.
  - mr90210 3y ago
    Thanks for the context.
  - lukas099 3y ago
    > Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US does I did not know this. Makes me wonder -- what is the point at which housing is so unaffordable that people start to riot?
    - randomdata 3y ago
      It is unlikely there is such a point. The Canadian government still holds crown land that they will give away for free to anyone willing to settle it. That provides an option of last resort. Any location in the country that compels one away from free has got to be worth it. While one may complain, as people love to do, they are still pulling out their purses because they know it is worth every penny. Should the balance change, people will leave for greener pastures before worrying about rioting. Canada's whole legacy is built on people moving around when certain locations become too expensive. Its ancestral people have done it over, and over, and over again. There is no reason to think this time is different.
      - swader999 3y ago
JustLurking2022 3y ago
Have worked with quite a few H1-Bs with absolutely no special skills. Large off-shoring firms soak up quite a few of them for people coming out of degree mills. The only advantage to businesses is that these people are modern indentured servants, due to their immigration status being dependent on their employer. I'm all for getting rid of that but I also think there should likely be a smaller number with a salary based bidding system (e.g. if you aren't paying in the 80th percentile or above for a person in the industry of that age, you're not getting H1-Bs, and yes age not years of experience since the latter is easily fudged). Otherwise, it simply continues to be a way for companies to suppress wages.
- MSFT_Edging 3y ago
  Then theoretically, these changes for H1-Bs should both protect them from the indentured servitude, and by removing that leverage, remove the motivation for H1-B abuse. If companies can't bring someone over that they can overwork and underpay at threat of deportation, they'll rethink the MBA-brained "optimizations" and be forced to create a more resilient workforce rather than a loose collection of people to rugpull every time the rate of profit increase dips by .0004%.
- shiftpgdn 3y ago
  These days H1B is strictly a wage suppression tool and filled with low skill workers from India based degree mills and body shops. Actual skilled workers are coming in on L-1 or O-1 visas.
  - the_svd_doctor 3y ago
    If you’re already in the US and eventually want a GC (typical Us graduate), both of those are not very good option and H1-B is better bc of its dual intent.
  - grimgoldgo 3y ago
    That is patently false. Plenty of skilled engineers come from around the world on H1B visas.
varispeed 3y ago
It's not as simple. My country (UK) has skilled workers visa that has wage requirement set often at half the market rate for given job. For instance, company can pay a software developer as little as £35k. Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in education. This also creates disincentive for locals to learn these in-demand skills. If you combine this with the fact that companies can rent out these cheap workers at £500 or more a day, while avoiding paying taxes it is a poor deal that only benefits big corporations.
- iamflimflam1 3y ago
  I'm sorry, but have you really honestly been impacted by this? Have you applied for a job and been told that they don't want you because there's a cheaper immigrant available? Have you had a job and been replaced by an immigrant?
  - mikece 3y ago
    Yes: his wage is artificially depressed by "market conditions" due to the willingness of foreign workers to make less. This is especially harmful to entry level developers who haven't had time to build up a niche/profitable specialty.
    - madeofpalk 3y ago
      I do not see this "market conditions" in the UK.
  - varispeed 3y ago
    Yes. I see fewer offers coming up and at lower rates. I also saw a few jobs of colleagues not renewed and replaced by immigrant teams supplied by a big consultancy. If this trend continues, I'll be looking at retiring early or moving overseas.
- red_admiral 3y ago
mrangle 3y ago
[flagged]
- shyn3 3y ago
  It's actually part of our national immigration strategy. If you have 2 kids you can get to Canada faster especially school age. If you have over $500k you used to be able to get into Quebec and drive into Ontario. Since 2010 the goal was 100m in 2050 Right now we need farmers.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > Right now we need farmers. What for? As a Canadian farmer I struggle to grow my operation because there are 100s of other farmers lined up in front of me, champing at the bit to do the same, with not enough resources to go around. I could more than double the size of my operation without breaking a sweat. I spend most of my days working in tech because there isn't enough farm work to do. In fact, nearly half of all farmers in Canada have an off-farm job, with 68% of them working full-time off the farm. Those who have bitten off more than they can chew likely think we need more farmhands, but they could also downsize and let other farmers pick up the slack.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      What's the difference between a farmer and a farmhand? Like, why do you work in tech instead of being a farm hand on your surplus time? I assume since you are experienced, they'd offer you a good salary? Or is the matter not that they need farmhands, but more that they need cheap labour to exploit?
      - randomdata 3y ago
        A farmer owns a farm business. A farmhand works for a farmer. While it is not completely unheard of for farmers to also be farmhands, there is difficulty in that the farms will generally share the same busy seasons. Meaning that your employer will want you on the job most especially during the times you will want a vacation to work on your own farm. For me, it is also questionable how much I want to help out the competition. While farmers are generally good spirited and try to work together for a greater good, there is still only so much resources to go around, and I want to see my business thrive. I'd jump in and help in a pinch, but to make it a career... But it is also true that tech will pay me more than other farmers will. That certainly seals the deal.
x3874 3y ago
> These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should be desperate to have. People of often having a cultural, religious and moral background completely different to more-or-less original value Canadians? How will that work? Oh i guess by appeasing everybody to create that multicultural society with less & less identity of its own, just the same bland globalized aftertaste. The major Canadian cities beside Montreal and Quebec are already taken.
- OldManRyan 3y ago
  "Original value Canadians" sounds like a dog whistle to me but ignoring that, I grew up in a melting pot city and all of the different cultures intertwining ends up creating a unique culture in itself. LA is different from NYC. Seattle is different from Toronto. All of these cities have many different types of immigrants co-mingling but none of them are the same.
  - symlinkk 3y ago
    They don’t co mingle though. They segregate themselves into “Mexican neighborhoods”, “Indian neighborhoods”, etc. They marry and socialize amongst themselves.
    - howinteresting 3y ago
      And what is your contribution to addressing that? It is easy to call entire groups of people "they", but they are people to and maybe the rest of society needs to welcome them with an open heart before they'll integrate.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        I think you're overestimating how sensitive immigrants are to this stuff. Comarriage is way more about preserving their family culture than it is about finding someone accepting. Religion and spoken-at-home language will matter. Sizeable chunks of some immigrant populations simply won't melt, which IMO is fine in a place like Canada or the US. They'll still work with everyone else, and I feel like profession and class are both way bigger dividers than ethnicity anyway. A white SWE probably knows more Indian SWEs than white janitors.
safety1st 3y ago
As a patriotic American, I applaud Canada's plan. The H1-B is a badly run program in many ways, it is a vehicle for large tech and staffing firms to commit graft, entrench their market dominance and enrich themselves, by exploiting H1-B workers and pitting them against Americans. Like so many things it masquerades as beneficial for America but in reality the benefits accrue mainly to the small parasite class which makes the rules and revolves between Washington and private industry. If what's needed to shake this program up and shine a light on the corruption is some competition from our neighbors to the north, sounds great to me. Maybe Canada should extend this program to Americans who don't have health insurance, too. The resulting surge of expatriates just might force the parasite class to rethink America's archaic and corrupt health care system as well.
- muzaffarpur 3y ago
  what do "these" americans bring for canada?
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    "Raises the IQ of both countries"
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    "diabeetus"
stickyricky 3y ago
We should shift our perspective on our native-born citizens. Because they're such a massive economic drain we should _stop_ investing in them completely. I know it sounds radical but hear me out. We can realize higher economic utility for our society if A) we stop all investments in non-skilled, non-working-age citizens and B) export those people who are a burden on our society (children, the elderly, the sick, people who enjoy EDM, you get it). In this way Canada can achieve higher economic utility for itself. I'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is brought in on a temporary basis. They are imported after their post-secondary education and exported maybe 10 years before their retirement. In this way we avoid all the costs associated with having "people" in our country and instead we reap the economic reward of their labor! I guess I shouldn't say "our" country. I would be exported fairly quickly... But! To those glorious (and brave) few on the executive committee entrusted to leading Canada Inc. through these difficult times, the society they get to inhabit will undoubtedly be the economic envy of the world!
- coding123 3y ago
  Favorite comment all year.
- weard_beard 3y ago
  A modest proposal. The back-ronym for it should be S.W.I.F.T.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > I'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is brought in on a temporary basis This is how the Gulf economies work. (Also the Vatican, but for different reasons and at a different age.)
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  It's the Gig-economy model of citizenship and social welfare and it'll take Canada by storm
- geodel 3y ago
  Fully agree on it. Kids are another great source of profit center that have not been fully utilized. Also we need to explore if un-exportable olds can be mined for parts. That would another win-win.
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
[flagged]
- throw123123123 3y ago
  If only you applied the same logic to americans
- ufish235 3y ago
  Mediocre citizen checking in - I would never live in the US.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    I would never live in the US, but I'm free to be angry at what the last 20 years of provincial and federal governments have done to this country -- especially the under-regulated real estate market which is out of control relative to the rest of the G7 and driven cost of living through the roof. Not so much for me as I'm mostly mortgage free at this point, but for my kids someday, I despair. That, and underfunding the health care system and underbuilding infrastructure It's a corrupt and mediocre country. But it wasn't always like this. And no, I don't blame Trudeau. Both major parties and the entire corporate & political class are implicated.
    - aprdm 3y ago
      It's just catching up with other big cities. Owning a house in London/UK, SF/US, SYDNEY/AUS etc. has been out of reach forever. Canada has a lot of challenges, as have other countries. Mediocre, rofl.
- grimgoldgo 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    You must not have talked to many people who live in Canada then. Lots of people here in tears over how this country has fucked them over.
moneywoes 3y ago
Hmm curious but wouldn’t they also suppress wage growth for local Canadians as well?
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
  No, unless there is a worker shortage which would push up wages in the shorter term but reduce the number of jobs in the longer term as companies flee to countries that have available workers, or implement automation. Basically there isn't a fixed number of jobs. As you add people you need more jobs to provide goods and services for those extra people.
- bluefirebrand 3y ago
  Nothing new there. Wage growth in Canada isn't just stagnant it's terminal.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
    You haven't seen terminal wage growth yet. The salaries I looked at in Italy are the same of 10 years ago, within a 100€ (sometimes down!) Disclaimer: I did move to Canada from Italy, one of the reasons was the insanely low salaries for IT
  - aprdm 3y ago
    Canada is the 2nd or 3rd country that pays more for SWE in the world, what are you talking about ?
geodel 3y ago
> So from a purely economic point of view, an H-1B immigrant is a perfect profit center for government taxes. It is just all things being equal and they are specially not equal in this case. If they were so great countries producing them would have used them for no-downside profit but it is not happening. US being hub of thousands of high tech companies also not finding much use of them lately. I guess good on Canada for finding such a profit booster in times of economic downturn.
BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
>”The majority of costs a person will typically have on a country are their initial K-12 education, and their health care costs later in life. Immigrants like these will never cost the government that first major cost.” Something about this is horribly depressing. It’s bad enough that the private sector is doing everything humanly possible to maximize profit. It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship is if government officials and elected representatives see the cultivation of those born in the country as more expensive and burdensome than just bringing people in. And, it sounds like the government is more interested in higher salaries for new arrivals than longtime constituents. And it’s not like this is sustainable either. All these much more profitable immigrants are going to become settled and have their own children, who will then become just as expensive to educate.
- vkou 3y ago
  > It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship There's a pretty important point to citizenship. If you have it, you can't be kicked out.
carlosjobim 3y ago
Purely economic points of view were also used to justify slavery. Many times with exactly the same arguments that are used for labour migration today. I've heard your arguments time and time again, and sadly most people think like this. Even though any economic advantage of labour immigration is mostly reaped by big businesses. A society has failed completely if it depends on abusing foreign labour to function. Let's not pretend that they are hiring the foreigners because it would be too expensive for them to hire locals of the quality they need. You can either side with the employers and think that this is great, or you could side with the people and think this is wrong. I was born in a place were the school children are in the absolute top of the world in their knowledge as measured and awarded by Pisa. And I know from hiring local people, that the youth there are smart, hard working and honest. At the same time it is a place where the media together with politicians and businesses continuously blast out how there is a "shortage of competent labour" and that they need more immigrants. The truth is of course that they don't want to pay. I think it's just audacious to claim there is a shortage of competence, when there is nothing wrong with the stock material. There is a shortage of willingness to pay a decent salary for labour. And there is a fairly high amount of hatred from older generations towards younger generations. A hatred that I have never understood, but it is there out in the open. Nobody has the right to cheap labour. If your business cannot turn a profit without paying lower than market rate salaries - you are simply a failure. You don't go demanding more immigrants so you can cut wages. You don't go demanding child labour so you can cut wages. You have to improve your business or admit that you are a failure and close shop. No sympathy for businesses and sectors that cannot survive without abusing labour. They are not needed. The talk about expensive education for native children is completely false, and just weird. Children are not expensive to educate anywhere in the world. Education turns expensive because corrupt practices of the governments that administrate education. The same government that then turns around and says the country needs more foreign labour because their own children are too expensive and incompetent. Let's compare it with a farm. The owner of the farm notices that he can get more milk to sell by not letting the calves have any milk, letting them die instead. So soon he has no more cows and he goes on buying more cows from another farm. "Great! These cows start milking right away, no need to feed them for a year like I would have to with those annoying calfs" And so on the farmer keeps milking his cows dry and just buying more from his neighbours. All the while people are complementing him for what an economic mastermind he is and how horrible those calfs where that were just drinking all his milk. That is the idea that has taken hold today.
theironhammer 3y ago
What makes u think they'll stay?. First chance they get they'll move back to the USA because the salaries are that much better.
- xbonez 3y ago
  5 years to Canadian citizenship is a strong reason to stay. Indians on H1B in the US are looking at about 7-10 years for a Greencard, and then an additional 5 years after that for citizenship. As a datapoint: I immigrated to the US in 2008. After 5 years on an F1 visa and 10 years on an H1B, I'm still at least 10 more years away from being freed from the immigration and visa hassle.
  - TMWNN 3y ago
    So when are you planning to move to Canada? No? Could it be because you and I both know that FAANG companies' Canadian offices are basically places to stash those who cannot and will not ever get US visas, plus the occasional native Canadian who does not want to move to the US for family reasons?
    - amrocha 3y ago
      You're both underestimating how many people would hate to live in the US, and overestimating how high salaries in the US are compared to Canada
      - TMWNN 3y ago
        First, your answer has nothing to do with my question to xbonez about why, despite his being stuck in the US H-1B morass, he did not mention planning to take up this offer. Second, your supposition of my under/overestimation has nothing to do with the factual composition of FAANG and other US tech companies' Canadian offices. As I said, they are a) mostly people who cannot and will not ever get US visas (i.e., those who didn't make the first hurdle that xbonez was lucky enough to cross), and b) a few native Canadians who for one reason or another don't want to move to the US.
bilekas 3y ago
It’s also not a big risk at all as the US has basically already vetted them by way of the H-1B visa application. Really it's a win win and as you say, minimal cost.
A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago
All statements are true. The thing that is glossed over and usually just dismissed is the impact on locals and impacts those immigrants have on wages and unemployment rate.
octacat 3y ago
If we trying to maximize profit for the government - that's correct. On another hand, extra people would make extra pressure on the housing market (especially well paid developers, especially on the overheated market in Canada). So, that means inflation and it is bad for the regular citizens. If before they needed to work forever to afford their own housing, now they would have to work even more.
jxi 3y ago
The problem is that for a productive H-1B holder in the US, they have no incentive to move to Canada if they're already doing well. Canada's wages will be less than half of what they would get in the US and healthcare in the US is better if you have good insurance. What's more likely to happen is the people who take Canada's offer will be the ones that were let go for performance reasons or have other productivity or efficiency issues.
- dukeyukey 3y ago
  Or those from the wrong country with extreme green card waiting times, those who roll the wrong lottery number, or were working at companies that went under.
- ppeetteerr 3y ago
  While I would agree with you in an otherwise normal year, in the year of layoffs, this policy may be the kind of fast-thinking that actually makes sense.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Supposedly they get 90 days to find a new job. That's probably enough time to find something better than what Canada offers.
    - rajataghi 3y ago
      It's 60 calendar days.
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        Hmm, that is cutting it kinda close.
5440 3y ago
Man this applies to me. I got an bioengineering degree and had to go to the US to find work. I started at $30K in the US and now I'm up to over $350K/yr. Would love to come back to Canada but the horrible expereince of applying for over 100 jobs and no interviews was disheartening.
- extasia 3y ago
  350? What do you do?
hot_gril 3y ago
Canada does have an issue with brain drain. It's kinda funny how the US has awful K-12 education but world-class university and post-grad opportunities, so immigrants come here once they're almost ready to be productive. H-1B and other immigration paths make sense if the goal is to collect the most tax money. But the country has to (at least somewhat) work by the will of its people. Even many immigrants who have gained citizenship are opposed to easing the immigration policy.
- slt2021 3y ago
  >US has awful K-12 education US has awful public K-12 in most of School Districts. Private schools are very good, but cost just as much as college. What I understand is that anything good in America costs $$$$. And all the free stuff is the same quality as a free couch on a sidewalk
  - rawgabbit 3y ago
    Free couch may have bedbugs which will literally suck the blood out of you.
    - slt2021 3y ago
      yeah and your kids can be shot to death at any public school in the US
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        I did go to a private high school that had better security, but that required driving further, which probably more than negated the safety benefits.
    - midoridensha 3y ago
      Yes, I think that was the point of that comment.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Yeah, I'm thinking of private schools too, but not many people go to them. Otherwise I would say the education is decent. End of the day, average American graduating grade 12 probably didn't get much. Everyone I know from other countries loves the US except for the K-12 public education. There are (or were?) second or third world countries where private is the majority and only really poor people go to public.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
In my opinion this will only worsen Canada's tech scene, compensation bands for tech workers, and the type of work done here, while undermining our university system and local talent development. It will just push us more in a mediocre "near shoring" direction and undermine actual local innovation and discriminate against homegrown talent. Here's why: Remember that Canadian graduates from engineering/CS university programs here can go directly south to the US without much hassle under a TN NAFTA VISA. They have a lot of advantages over H1B holders. So what this really ends up being is an exchange between local talent -- who will go south to where the salaries are much better under TN -- for immigrant talent that currently struggles in the US. Remember that the local talent was developed under subsidy by Canadian universities. Our tuition rates are a fraction of the US private universities -- while being very high quality. And while they're not free, they are highly funded by the gov't. So... indirectly, we are subsidizing US tech employers with Canadian taxpayer dollars. I've heard numbers as high as 75%, 80% for the number of e.g. University of Waterloo (highly respected CS/SWE school) graduates who go south after graduating. Meanwhile H-1B type candidates who come up to Canada will likely be doing it only as a stop-gap before returning to the US; because compensation here is on the whole not competitive with the US, the US was the destination they likely had in mind in the first place, and the selection of employers and interesting companies here is far worse. And this will only worsen the compensation gap between here and the US by flooding the market with talent; which will thereby encourage more of our own homegrown talent -- who wants to get fair compensation -- to go south ... along with a bunch of these H-1B holders. Vicious circle. The structure of things are such that Canada has already simply become on the whole a "landing pad" for talent before they relocate to the US. This only further entrenches that. While I'd say this was not the case for Google Canada (where I worked before) it is the case for most other large US-based employers. And the local companies are on the whole choosing to underpay and take advantage of fresh-off-the-boat talent from overseas at lower cost. Most shops here aren't doing much of interest, and the VC community here is fairly insular and conservative. The kinds of businesses that will generally succeed here will be places that can take advantage of large work forces of 'meh' imported talent, while the high quality talent finds ways to get to Silicon Valley. It's also not a great deal for the immigrants who come here; they will find that cost of living here is terrible while compensation rates are lower. There's already a growing recognition/bitterness among many that the Canadian gov't is selling an image of prosperity and potential to skilled immigrants that it can't deliver on when they arrive. And it used to be that at least one could hope one's children would prosper, but the state of the real estate market here is such that most will never able to own a home or get out of debt. That said, remote work may change this somewhat for some. At least it has for me, giving me a wider pool of (American) employers to choose from. All in all, I don't think this is much of a good move for Canada. Canadian employers need to learn how to compete with the US for quality talent by offering quality interesting work with better compensation that matches the insanely high cost of living in cities like Toronto or Vancouver -- cities with Bay Area real estate prices & rent but with compensation ranges far lower.
kafkaesque 3y ago
Canada is doing this wrong. What will happen in practice is someone who lives in the US with an H-1B will move to Canada to get that "easy" job, all the while applying for jobs in the US. As soon as they find one in the US, they will leave again. This solution is a band-aid and Canada will be used as a doormat, as it often is.
phendrenad2 3y ago
To play devil's advocate: why should I care what immigrants my government is desperate to have? My government would probably love to deport me, a native-born citizen with disabilities. I'm not as valuable as a H1-B AI developer. So by this logic, what right do I have to stay here?
surge 3y ago
Totally not a scheme to keep wages suppressed and avoid having to pay market rates to people who are already in the country, and have the skills needed.

by mabbo 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mr90210 3y ago

I am in a similar situation in a EU country, where I just live and pay taxes to, my income comes from a company located in another country. The inefficiencies of the country where I live and the quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners (mostly Americans foreigners) made me decide to plan to leave. I agree with your points, and I think that Canada will have to work smartly to retain those people otherwise they’ll end up leaving.

1over137 3y ago
Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of any G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are.
- mr90210 3y ago
  Well I am not necessarily saying that they need more immigrants, that’s up to them.
- zirgs 3y ago
  Just because someone is an immigrant himself doesn't mean that he doesn't hate other immigrants.
  - bryanlarsen 3y ago
    Yes, that's my personal experience. Immigrants are more xenophobic than those born in Canada.
  - 1over137 3y ago
    Of course. But it might mean that the 77% of the population that is born in Canada is more accustomed/acclimatized to immigrants. They are not a weird/rare thing, and so they are accepted/liked by a bulk of the population.
  - skissane 3y ago
    I’ve heard before immigrants take quite negative stances on “illegal”/“undocumented”/“irregular” immigration, saying “I had to jump through all these hoops to come here, I have no sympathy for people who break the rules instead”. Is that xenophobia? Years ago, I went on a business trip to the US, and while there an Indian-American colleague said some very Islamophobic things to me. I guess he probably brought some of that with him from India, although certainly there would have been things in the US to reinforce it. Also, he was a 9/11 survivor and this was only a few years later, so that was likely a factor too. There is some obvious overlap between Islamophobia and xenophobia - although not all Muslims have an immigrant background (converts), and there are billions of non-Muslim foreigners
- skissane 3y ago
  > Canada's population is already 23% immigrant, highest of any G7 country. There may be less of that 'quasi-xenophobic sentiment towards foreigners' than where you are. Australia is even more immigrant than Canada – around 30% overseas born. But I think part of why Australia (and maybe Canada too) have less of a problem with xenophobia than some countries with less immigrants – greater selectiveness in the immigration intake, and skewing it more towards highly skilled/educated people. If you take in 100,000 university graduates from China and India, versus 100,000 random refugees and economic migrants from anywhere at all – it is unsurprising the former cause significantly less social problems than the latter, and those social problems tend to fuel xenophobia.
TimPC 3y ago
Canada won't do the work needed to retain them. Talking to lots of people it's mostly the combination of unaffordable housing (Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US does with our two largest metro areas containing 25% of the country's population not having non-condo homes under $1 million) and high tax rates. People have some tolerance for paying tax rates in the 42-44% range plus sales tax plus property tax if their life is overall affordable, but when home prices are staggering high and that life becomes out of reach people move somewhere better. You can't fix housing when you want to import people faster than you can build homes for them (and Canada wants to grow to 100M people over 50 years) and you can't lower taxes when you want to pay for things without crushing debt and Canada seems to want more government programs not less.
- mr90210 3y ago
  Thanks for the context.
- lukas099 3y ago
  > Canada has a far larger housing crisis than the US does I did not know this. Makes me wonder -- what is the point at which housing is so unaffordable that people start to riot?
  - randomdata 3y ago
    It is unlikely there is such a point. The Canadian government still holds crown land that they will give away for free to anyone willing to settle it. That provides an option of last resort. Any location in the country that compels one away from free has got to be worth it. While one may complain, as people love to do, they are still pulling out their purses because they know it is worth every penny. Should the balance change, people will leave for greener pastures before worrying about rioting. Canada's whole legacy is built on people moving around when certain locations become too expensive. Its ancestral people have done it over, and over, and over again. There is no reason to think this time is different.
    - swader999 3y ago

JustLurking2022 3y ago

Have worked with quite a few H1-Bs with absolutely no special skills. Large off-shoring firms soak up quite a few of them for people coming out of degree mills. The only advantage to businesses is that these people are modern indentured servants, due to their immigration status being dependent on their employer. I'm all for getting rid of that but I also think there should likely be a smaller number with a salary based bidding system (e.g. if you aren't paying in the 80th percentile or above for a person in the industry of that age, you're not getting H1-Bs, and yes age not years of experience since the latter is easily fudged). Otherwise, it simply continues to be a way for companies to suppress wages.

MSFT_Edging 3y ago
Then theoretically, these changes for H1-Bs should both protect them from the indentured servitude, and by removing that leverage, remove the motivation for H1-B abuse. If companies can't bring someone over that they can overwork and underpay at threat of deportation, they'll rethink the MBA-brained "optimizations" and be forced to create a more resilient workforce rather than a loose collection of people to rugpull every time the rate of profit increase dips by .0004%.
shiftpgdn 3y ago
These days H1B is strictly a wage suppression tool and filled with low skill workers from India based degree mills and body shops. Actual skilled workers are coming in on L-1 or O-1 visas.
- the_svd_doctor 3y ago
  If you’re already in the US and eventually want a GC (typical Us graduate), both of those are not very good option and H1-B is better bc of its dual intent.
- grimgoldgo 3y ago
  That is patently false. Plenty of skilled engineers come from around the world on H1B visas.

varispeed 3y ago

It's not as simple. My country (UK) has skilled workers visa that has wage requirement set often at half the market rate for given job. For instance, company can pay a software developer as little as £35k. Given that it is much more expensive to gain skill when you are a native, the government somewhat pulled the rug from underneath the locals who spend a lot of money to go to uni etc and were hoping to have a decent return on their investment in education. This also creates disincentive for locals to learn these in-demand skills. If you combine this with the fact that companies can rent out these cheap workers at £500 or more a day, while avoiding paying taxes it is a poor deal that only benefits big corporations.

iamflimflam1 3y ago
I'm sorry, but have you really honestly been impacted by this? Have you applied for a job and been told that they don't want you because there's a cheaper immigrant available? Have you had a job and been replaced by an immigrant?
- mikece 3y ago
  Yes: his wage is artificially depressed by "market conditions" due to the willingness of foreign workers to make less. This is especially harmful to entry level developers who haven't had time to build up a niche/profitable specialty.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    I do not see this "market conditions" in the UK.
- varispeed 3y ago
  Yes. I see fewer offers coming up and at lower rates. I also saw a few jobs of colleagues not renewed and replaced by immigrant teams supplied by a big consultancy. If this trend continues, I'll be looking at retiring early or moving overseas.
red_admiral 3y ago

mrangle 3y ago

[flagged]

shyn3 3y ago
It's actually part of our national immigration strategy. If you have 2 kids you can get to Canada faster especially school age. If you have over $500k you used to be able to get into Quebec and drive into Ontario. Since 2010 the goal was 100m in 2050 Right now we need farmers.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > Right now we need farmers. What for? As a Canadian farmer I struggle to grow my operation because there are 100s of other farmers lined up in front of me, champing at the bit to do the same, with not enough resources to go around. I could more than double the size of my operation without breaking a sweat. I spend most of my days working in tech because there isn't enough farm work to do. In fact, nearly half of all farmers in Canada have an off-farm job, with 68% of them working full-time off the farm. Those who have bitten off more than they can chew likely think we need more farmhands, but they could also downsize and let other farmers pick up the slack.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    What's the difference between a farmer and a farmhand? Like, why do you work in tech instead of being a farm hand on your surplus time? I assume since you are experienced, they'd offer you a good salary? Or is the matter not that they need farmhands, but more that they need cheap labour to exploit?
    - randomdata 3y ago
      A farmer owns a farm business. A farmhand works for a farmer. While it is not completely unheard of for farmers to also be farmhands, there is difficulty in that the farms will generally share the same busy seasons. Meaning that your employer will want you on the job most especially during the times you will want a vacation to work on your own farm. For me, it is also questionable how much I want to help out the competition. While farmers are generally good spirited and try to work together for a greater good, there is still only so much resources to go around, and I want to see my business thrive. I'd jump in and help in a pinch, but to make it a career... But it is also true that tech will pay me more than other farmers will. That certainly seals the deal.

x3874 3y ago

> These are exactly the kind of immigrants any country should be desperate to have. People of often having a cultural, religious and moral background completely different to more-or-less original value Canadians? How will that work? Oh i guess by appeasing everybody to create that multicultural society with less & less identity of its own, just the same bland globalized aftertaste. The major Canadian cities beside Montreal and Quebec are already taken.

OldManRyan 3y ago
"Original value Canadians" sounds like a dog whistle to me but ignoring that, I grew up in a melting pot city and all of the different cultures intertwining ends up creating a unique culture in itself. LA is different from NYC. Seattle is different from Toronto. All of these cities have many different types of immigrants co-mingling but none of them are the same.
- symlinkk 3y ago
  They don’t co mingle though. They segregate themselves into “Mexican neighborhoods”, “Indian neighborhoods”, etc. They marry and socialize amongst themselves.
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    And what is your contribution to addressing that? It is easy to call entire groups of people "they", but they are people to and maybe the rest of society needs to welcome them with an open heart before they'll integrate.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      I think you're overestimating how sensitive immigrants are to this stuff. Comarriage is way more about preserving their family culture than it is about finding someone accepting. Religion and spoken-at-home language will matter. Sizeable chunks of some immigrant populations simply won't melt, which IMO is fine in a place like Canada or the US. They'll still work with everyone else, and I feel like profession and class are both way bigger dividers than ethnicity anyway. A white SWE probably knows more Indian SWEs than white janitors.

safety1st 3y ago

As a patriotic American, I applaud Canada's plan. The H1-B is a badly run program in many ways, it is a vehicle for large tech and staffing firms to commit graft, entrench their market dominance and enrich themselves, by exploiting H1-B workers and pitting them against Americans. Like so many things it masquerades as beneficial for America but in reality the benefits accrue mainly to the small parasite class which makes the rules and revolves between Washington and private industry. If what's needed to shake this program up and shine a light on the corruption is some competition from our neighbors to the north, sounds great to me. Maybe Canada should extend this program to Americans who don't have health insurance, too. The resulting surge of expatriates just might force the parasite class to rethink America's archaic and corrupt health care system as well.

muzaffarpur 3y ago
what do "these" americans bring for canada?
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  "Raises the IQ of both countries"
- hot_gril 3y ago
  "diabeetus"

stickyricky 3y ago

We should shift our perspective on our native-born citizens. Because they're such a massive economic drain we should _stop_ investing in them completely. I know it sounds radical but hear me out. We can realize higher economic utility for our society if A) we stop all investments in non-skilled, non-working-age citizens and B) export those people who are a burden on our society (children, the elderly, the sick, people who enjoy EDM, you get it). In this way Canada can achieve higher economic utility for itself. I'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is brought in on a temporary basis. They are imported after their post-secondary education and exported maybe 10 years before their retirement. In this way we avoid all the costs associated with having "people" in our country and instead we reap the economic reward of their labor! I guess I shouldn't say "our" country. I would be exported fairly quickly... But! To those glorious (and brave) few on the executive committee entrusted to leading Canada Inc. through these difficult times, the society they get to inhabit will undoubtedly be the economic envy of the world!

coding123 3y ago
Favorite comment all year.
weard_beard 3y ago
A modest proposal. The back-ronym for it should be S.W.I.F.T.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> I'm imagining a system where everyone in the society is brought in on a temporary basis This is how the Gulf economies work. (Also the Vatican, but for different reasons and at a different age.)
unsupp0rted 3y ago
It's the Gig-economy model of citizenship and social welfare and it'll take Canada by storm
geodel 3y ago
Fully agree on it. Kids are another great source of profit center that have not been fully utilized. Also we need to explore if un-exportable olds can be mined for parts. That would another win-win.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

[flagged]

throw123123123 3y ago
If only you applied the same logic to americans
ufish235 3y ago
Mediocre citizen checking in - I would never live in the US.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  I would never live in the US, but I'm free to be angry at what the last 20 years of provincial and federal governments have done to this country -- especially the under-regulated real estate market which is out of control relative to the rest of the G7 and driven cost of living through the roof. Not so much for me as I'm mostly mortgage free at this point, but for my kids someday, I despair. That, and underfunding the health care system and underbuilding infrastructure It's a corrupt and mediocre country. But it wasn't always like this. And no, I don't blame Trudeau. Both major parties and the entire corporate & political class are implicated.
  - aprdm 3y ago
    It's just catching up with other big cities. Owning a house in London/UK, SF/US, SYDNEY/AUS etc. has been out of reach forever. Canada has a lot of challenges, as have other countries. Mediocre, rofl.
grimgoldgo 3y ago
[flagged]
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  You must not have talked to many people who live in Canada then. Lots of people here in tears over how this country has fucked them over.

moneywoes 3y ago

Hmm curious but wouldn’t they also suppress wage growth for local Canadians as well?

dkjaudyeqooe 3y ago
No, unless there is a worker shortage which would push up wages in the shorter term but reduce the number of jobs in the longer term as companies flee to countries that have available workers, or implement automation. Basically there isn't a fixed number of jobs. As you add people you need more jobs to provide goods and services for those extra people.
bluefirebrand 3y ago
Nothing new there. Wage growth in Canada isn't just stagnant it's terminal.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  You haven't seen terminal wage growth yet. The salaries I looked at in Italy are the same of 10 years ago, within a 100€ (sometimes down!) Disclaimer: I did move to Canada from Italy, one of the reasons was the insanely low salaries for IT
- aprdm 3y ago
  Canada is the 2nd or 3rd country that pays more for SWE in the world, what are you talking about ?

geodel 3y ago

> So from a purely economic point of view, an H-1B immigrant is a perfect profit center for government taxes. It is just all things being equal and they are specially not equal in this case. If they were so great countries producing them would have used them for no-downside profit but it is not happening. US being hub of thousands of high tech companies also not finding much use of them lately. I guess good on Canada for finding such a profit booster in times of economic downturn.

BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago

>”The majority of costs a person will typically have on a country are their initial K-12 education, and their health care costs later in life. Immigrants like these will never cost the government that first major cost.” Something about this is horribly depressing. It’s bad enough that the private sector is doing everything humanly possible to maximize profit. It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship is if government officials and elected representatives see the cultivation of those born in the country as more expensive and burdensome than just bringing people in. And, it sounds like the government is more interested in higher salaries for new arrivals than longtime constituents. And it’s not like this is sustainable either. All these much more profitable immigrants are going to become settled and have their own children, who will then become just as expensive to educate.

vkou 3y ago
> It makes me wonder what the point of citizenship There's a pretty important point to citizenship. If you have it, you can't be kicked out.

carlosjobim 3y ago

Purely economic points of view were also used to justify slavery. Many times with exactly the same arguments that are used for labour migration today. I've heard your arguments time and time again, and sadly most people think like this. Even though any economic advantage of labour immigration is mostly reaped by big businesses. A society has failed completely if it depends on abusing foreign labour to function. Let's not pretend that they are hiring the foreigners because it would be too expensive for them to hire locals of the quality they need. You can either side with the employers and think that this is great, or you could side with the people and think this is wrong. I was born in a place were the school children are in the absolute top of the world in their knowledge as measured and awarded by Pisa. And I know from hiring local people, that the youth there are smart, hard working and honest. At the same time it is a place where the media together with politicians and businesses continuously blast out how there is a "shortage of competent labour" and that they need more immigrants. The truth is of course that they don't want to pay. I think it's just audacious to claim there is a shortage of competence, when there is nothing wrong with the stock material. There is a shortage of willingness to pay a decent salary for labour. And there is a fairly high amount of hatred from older generations towards younger generations. A hatred that I have never understood, but it is there out in the open. Nobody has the right to cheap labour. If your business cannot turn a profit without paying lower than market rate salaries - you are simply a failure. You don't go demanding more immigrants so you can cut wages. You don't go demanding child labour so you can cut wages. You have to improve your business or admit that you are a failure and close shop. No sympathy for businesses and sectors that cannot survive without abusing labour. They are not needed. The talk about expensive education for native children is completely false, and just weird. Children are not expensive to educate anywhere in the world. Education turns expensive because corrupt practices of the governments that administrate education. The same government that then turns around and says the country needs more foreign labour because their own children are too expensive and incompetent. Let's compare it with a farm. The owner of the farm notices that he can get more milk to sell by not letting the calves have any milk, letting them die instead. So soon he has no more cows and he goes on buying more cows from another farm. "Great! These cows start milking right away, no need to feed them for a year like I would have to with those annoying calfs" And so on the farmer keeps milking his cows dry and just buying more from his neighbours. All the while people are complementing him for what an economic mastermind he is and how horrible those calfs where that were just drinking all his milk. That is the idea that has taken hold today.

theironhammer 3y ago

What makes u think they'll stay?. First chance they get they'll move back to the USA because the salaries are that much better.

xbonez 3y ago
5 years to Canadian citizenship is a strong reason to stay. Indians on H1B in the US are looking at about 7-10 years for a Greencard, and then an additional 5 years after that for citizenship. As a datapoint: I immigrated to the US in 2008. After 5 years on an F1 visa and 10 years on an H1B, I'm still at least 10 more years away from being freed from the immigration and visa hassle.
- TMWNN 3y ago
  So when are you planning to move to Canada? No? Could it be because you and I both know that FAANG companies' Canadian offices are basically places to stash those who cannot and will not ever get US visas, plus the occasional native Canadian who does not want to move to the US for family reasons?
  - amrocha 3y ago
    You're both underestimating how many people would hate to live in the US, and overestimating how high salaries in the US are compared to Canada
    - TMWNN 3y ago
      First, your answer has nothing to do with my question to xbonez about why, despite his being stuck in the US H-1B morass, he did not mention planning to take up this offer. Second, your supposition of my under/overestimation has nothing to do with the factual composition of FAANG and other US tech companies' Canadian offices. As I said, they are a) mostly people who cannot and will not ever get US visas (i.e., those who didn't make the first hurdle that xbonez was lucky enough to cross), and b) a few native Canadians who for one reason or another don't want to move to the US.

bilekas 3y ago

It’s also not a big risk at all as the US has basically already vetted them by way of the H-1B visa application. Really it's a win win and as you say, minimal cost.

A4ET8a8uTh0 3y ago

All statements are true. The thing that is glossed over and usually just dismissed is the impact on locals and impacts those immigrants have on wages and unemployment rate.

octacat 3y ago

If we trying to maximize profit for the government - that's correct. On another hand, extra people would make extra pressure on the housing market (especially well paid developers, especially on the overheated market in Canada). So, that means inflation and it is bad for the regular citizens. If before they needed to work forever to afford their own housing, now they would have to work even more.

jxi 3y ago

The problem is that for a productive H-1B holder in the US, they have no incentive to move to Canada if they're already doing well. Canada's wages will be less than half of what they would get in the US and healthcare in the US is better if you have good insurance. What's more likely to happen is the people who take Canada's offer will be the ones that were let go for performance reasons or have other productivity or efficiency issues.

dukeyukey 3y ago
Or those from the wrong country with extreme green card waiting times, those who roll the wrong lottery number, or were working at companies that went under.
ppeetteerr 3y ago
While I would agree with you in an otherwise normal year, in the year of layoffs, this policy may be the kind of fast-thinking that actually makes sense.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Supposedly they get 90 days to find a new job. That's probably enough time to find something better than what Canada offers.
  - rajataghi 3y ago
    It's 60 calendar days.
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Hmm, that is cutting it kinda close.

5440 3y ago

Man this applies to me. I got an bioengineering degree and had to go to the US to find work. I started at $30K in the US and now I'm up to over $350K/yr. Would love to come back to Canada but the horrible expereince of applying for over 100 jobs and no interviews was disheartening.

extasia 3y ago
350? What do you do?

hot_gril 3y ago

Canada does have an issue with brain drain. It's kinda funny how the US has awful K-12 education but world-class university and post-grad opportunities, so immigrants come here once they're almost ready to be productive. H-1B and other immigration paths make sense if the goal is to collect the most tax money. But the country has to (at least somewhat) work by the will of its people. Even many immigrants who have gained citizenship are opposed to easing the immigration policy.

slt2021 3y ago
>US has awful K-12 education US has awful public K-12 in most of School Districts. Private schools are very good, but cost just as much as college. What I understand is that anything good in America costs $$$$. And all the free stuff is the same quality as a free couch on a sidewalk
- rawgabbit 3y ago
  Free couch may have bedbugs which will literally suck the blood out of you.
  - slt2021 3y ago
    yeah and your kids can be shot to death at any public school in the US
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      I did go to a private high school that had better security, but that required driving further, which probably more than negated the safety benefits.
  - midoridensha 3y ago
    Yes, I think that was the point of that comment.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Yeah, I'm thinking of private schools too, but not many people go to them. Otherwise I would say the education is decent. End of the day, average American graduating grade 12 probably didn't get much. Everyone I know from other countries loves the US except for the K-12 public education. There are (or were?) second or third world countries where private is the majority and only really poor people go to public.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

In my opinion this will only worsen Canada's tech scene, compensation bands for tech workers, and the type of work done here, while undermining our university system and local talent development. It will just push us more in a mediocre "near shoring" direction and undermine actual local innovation and discriminate against homegrown talent. Here's why: Remember that Canadian graduates from engineering/CS university programs here can go directly south to the US without much hassle under a TN NAFTA VISA. They have a lot of advantages over H1B holders. So what this really ends up being is an exchange between local talent -- who will go south to where the salaries are much better under TN -- for immigrant talent that currently struggles in the US. Remember that the local talent was developed under subsidy by Canadian universities. Our tuition rates are a fraction of the US private universities -- while being very high quality. And while they're not free, they are highly funded by the gov't. So... indirectly, we are subsidizing US tech employers with Canadian taxpayer dollars. I've heard numbers as high as 75%, 80% for the number of e.g. University of Waterloo (highly respected CS/SWE school) graduates who go south after graduating. Meanwhile H-1B type candidates who come up to Canada will likely be doing it only as a stop-gap before returning to the US; because compensation here is on the whole not competitive with the US, the US was the destination they likely had in mind in the first place, and the selection of employers and interesting companies here is far worse. And this will only worsen the compensation gap between here and the US by flooding the market with talent; which will thereby encourage more of our own homegrown talent -- who wants to get fair compensation -- to go south ... along with a bunch of these H-1B holders. Vicious circle. The structure of things are such that Canada has already simply become on the whole a "landing pad" for talent before they relocate to the US. This only further entrenches that. While I'd say this was not the case for Google Canada (where I worked before) it is the case for most other large US-based employers. And the local companies are on the whole choosing to underpay and take advantage of fresh-off-the-boat talent from overseas at lower cost. Most shops here aren't doing much of interest, and the VC community here is fairly insular and conservative. The kinds of businesses that will generally succeed here will be places that can take advantage of large work forces of 'meh' imported talent, while the high quality talent finds ways to get to Silicon Valley. It's also not a great deal for the immigrants who come here; they will find that cost of living here is terrible while compensation rates are lower. There's already a growing recognition/bitterness among many that the Canadian gov't is selling an image of prosperity and potential to skilled immigrants that it can't deliver on when they arrive. And it used to be that at least one could hope one's children would prosper, but the state of the real estate market here is such that most will never able to own a home or get out of debt. That said, remote work may change this somewhat for some. At least it has for me, giving me a wider pool of (American) employers to choose from. All in all, I don't think this is much of a good move for Canada. Canadian employers need to learn how to compete with the US for quality talent by offering quality interesting work with better compensation that matches the insanely high cost of living in cities like Toronto or Vancouver -- cities with Bay Area real estate prices & rent but with compensation ranges far lower.

kafkaesque 3y ago

Canada is doing this wrong. What will happen in practice is someone who lives in the US with an H-1B will move to Canada to get that "easy" job, all the while applying for jobs in the US. As soon as they find one in the US, they will leave again. This solution is a band-aid and Canada will be used as a doormat, as it often is.

phendrenad2 3y ago

To play devil's advocate: why should I care what immigrants my government is desperate to have? My government would probably love to deport me, a native-born citizen with disabilities. I'm not as valuable as a H1-B AI developer. So by this logic, what right do I have to stay here?

surge 3y ago

Totally not a scheme to keep wages suppressed and avoid having to pay market rates to people who are already in the country, and have the skills needed.