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“ People in their late 20s to early 40s are the most likely to start businesses, but that demographic is shrinking with Canada's aging population, leaving a sma

“ People in their late 20s to early 40s are the most likely to start businesses, but that demographic is shrinking with Canada's aging population, leaving a smaller pool of candidates as potential founders.” Canada has an ace in the hole here (that America doesn’t) in the form of a relatively generous immigration program. It’s time it leans on immigrants to bolster its entrepreneurship. Immigrants are by definition self-selected risk takers it’s a match made in heaven. However to fix it Canada needs: a) less regulations on work requirements for immigrants (it’s less complicated than America but that’s not saying much) b) better funding environment (I’m not a funder/investor so not qualified to speak to this, but I know it sucks) c) housing, housing and lots of cheap housing especially, in the big cities and college towns where most budding entrepreneurs build the networks required to succeed. Without c) esp Canada is DOA. But that’s a whole other post.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
I have friends who moved north and applied for their entrepreneurship visa. The whole program is a pay for play scam where local VCs and incubators either demand money up front to "join" their incubator or give ridiculous equity terms in the hope of cornering a desperate founder who won't or can't immigrate easily to the states. The whole thing is a money making grift designed to enrich the friends of their politicians. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... You are going to find very few if any brand name VCs participating in their dog and pony show. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa/designated-organizations.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  Controversial opinion: that program is mostly inconsequential at scale. The real needle driver is the much maligned student visa program. While stuffing students into rando colleges in the far flung regions of the country (“diploma mills”) isn’t great, the mainstay colleges/universities should be encouraged to double/triple their intake. There is an existing workflow that turns students into well-networked, educated individuals empowered to manouever the levers of power/capital. Just lean on that more.
- silenced_trope 3y ago
  > You are going to find very few if any brand name VCs participating in their dog and pony show. Maybe some grifters. Case in point, Jason Calacanis: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAllinPodcasts/comments/17bkk8a/jasons_launchco_job_update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAllinPodcasts/comments/17bkk8a/j...
faeriechangling 3y ago
The relatively generous immigration program is resulting in higher population growth than housing built spiking property prices. More and more of the Canadian population over the last 20 years has been recent immigrants and entrepreneurship has cratered. It’s not evident to me at all Canadas immigrant friendly stance is helping with entrepreneurship and it’s fairly plausible that it’s having an adverse effect, although it’s also plausible that it has prevented the situation from being worse than it otherwise would have been, and additionally possible that tweaks to immigration might result in immigration being more of an engine of entrepreneurship than it is right now. To me, it seems to me that immigration is mostly motivated by politicians desperate to cover up the cost of their unwise deficit spending and liabilities by diffusing the cost across more people, as well as enriching the landed gentry with more rents. They couldn’t give two craps about helping recent immigrants start successful businesses, they want them to benefit their interests immediately, not incubate some far off benefit twenty years in the future.
- KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
  The talented ones just move south the moment they have the chance to. The bay area is full of grads from places like Waterloo and Toronto.
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  I hear this all the time. But everytime it’s complaints about too much demand, but never a complain about supply. Even though they are both similar political problems. I don’t want to speculate why. Immigrants have more than proven themselves to be good entrepreneurs once the shackles I mentioned above have been removed.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    Nobody complains about supply? News to me. Trudeau has been boasting about how his sizeable immigration increases will solve the housing crisis for months now with a greater supply of workers to address the “labour shortage”. The “labour shortage” being the biggest buzzword to complain about lack of supply. Meanwhile construction has been basically stagnant and even backsliding slightly according to statscan data while he has basically given a big shot of adrenaline to demand. Whereas a five year old could understand, if we literally just stopped all immigration tomorrow (this would have extremely bad consequences like causing an immediate recession and huge unemployment but hypothetically) housing prices would crater because Canadians don’t reproduce at anything close to replacement. But people go oh no no, the REAL solution to the problem is the thing causing the problem. Immigration I accept is a lesser evil to the alternative, but it’s certainly not the solution to the housing crisis. It’s just not.
TMWNN 3y ago
>Canada has an ace in the hole here (that America doesn’t) in the form of a relatively generous immigration program. >It’s time it leans on immigrants to bolster its entrepreneurship. Immigrants are by definition self-selected risk takers it’s a match made in heaven. Yes, Confederation and Conestoga are just jam-packed with immigrant entrepreneurs. Why aren't they creating thousands of startups? (Context for non-Canadians: Like the US, Canada allows international students to work. Unlike the US, Canada allows those students to work off campus. This has caused the rise of an entire industry, in which so-called institutions of higher learning (Conestoga, Lambton, Confederation) have 99% Indian "students" that work off campus, destroying the local job and housing markets.)
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  “Destroying the local job market” This has been debunked again and again[1]. Please stop. No ones complaining about unemployment/underemployment anymore and with good reason. Even the article OP posted cites a job market that is too good for entrepreneurs to take risks outside of it. Let’s just set this one aside. The housing market and other inflation is mostly an artificial own goal on the governments part. Demand is a good thing in markets that aren’t artificially constrained. [1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-...
  - richbell 3y ago
    > This has been debunked again and again[1]. The blog post you've linked is titled "Why immigration doesn't reduce wages", which I think is an absurd claim to make. The author seems more interested in owning "anti-immigration people" than actually proving that thesis. Citing a handful of studies does not conclusively prove that immigration is never and can never have negative effects. The article also does not seem relevant to Canada whatsoever. You don't think that the massive lines for a handful of minimum wage job postings are in any way impacting local job markets? Does Tim Hortons abusing the TFW program help or harm the local job market? The Canadian economy is a ponzi-scheme dependant on bringing in an accelerating number of immigrants every year and saddling them with debt.
steve_adams_86 3y ago
I live in Victoria, and while our situation is special (we’re on the tip of an island and can’t build in many directions because it’s ocean), a few developers I’ve spoken to are very confident that the housing issue’s greatest barrier is labour. I asked if immigration could address this, and they each pointed out that a. Immigrants can’t afford to work in this industry in places where we need housing the most, b. While building requires unskilled labour, it also requires highly skilled labour that is at an unprecedented shortage which isn’t easily or rapidly corrected with immigration, c. Cities and neighborhoods are deeply attached to their reasons for resisting various densification projects, and breaking through arbitrary red tape here is an immense and intractably expensive undertaking. They painted a very bleak picture of the housing situation, making it seem as though huge changes need to occur in order for meaningful progress to be made. This might be less of an issue in other cities. I’m not sure.
- pj_mukh 3y ago
  "Cities and neighborhoods are deeply attached to their reasons for resisting various densification projects, and breaking through arbitrary red tape here is an immense and intractably expensive undertaking." The large-scale tolerance of this is basically permanently resigning Canada to degrowth. So no, lets not accept this. It is what most cities are facing and the provincial governments need to put an end to it. What we need is massive training/re-training + labor importation program for the construction industry (and probably also healthcare, but I digress), and WW2 level mobilization in construction, anything short of that and I'm betting the economic and entrepreneurial problems get entrenched for a century.
  - faeriechangling 3y ago
    I agree with this notion politically, it would be a huge benefit if the federal government: #1 - took in a bigger slice of taxes #2 - redistributed them to municipalities #3 - made this redistribution contingent on densification. What we have now is some tragedy of the commons crap where everybody wants to address the housing prices, but if you call to densify any neighbourhood the local busybodies will cry bloody murder. Yet everybody wants the government to do something about housing, just not in their backyard. The only way for densification to be fair, and not result in one municipality seeing a sharper decline in housing prices than another, is for EVERYBODY to be compelled to change and have each municipality work out the finer details. Alas, I am deeply pessimistic about change, in no small part because elected politicians are far more likely to be landlords than the general population putting them in a huge conflict of interest.
ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago
> It’s time it leans on immigrants Uncontrolled immigration without assimilation can have disastrous consequences. And assimilation is a polite way of saying "give up your culture and adopt ours." Unfortunately, without assimilation, all the politics and problems of the homeland will follow the diaspora to the new host country. It has been seen time and time again: - Italian and Irish emigration to the US - Migration from the Indian subcontinent as well as Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East into Europe and North America If you cannot solve this but still want immigrants, the numbers have to be reduced massively and some kind of pause between waves will be required so that gradual assimilation can be achieved.
WalterBright 3y ago
> in the form of a relatively generous immigration program It couldn't be more generous than the US, which accepts millions just walking over the border.
ipaddr 3y ago
You know who understands the Canadian market the least? Recent immigrants.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago

I have friends who moved north and applied for their entrepreneurship visa. The whole program is a pay for play scam where local VCs and incubators either demand money up front to "join" their incubator or give ridiculous equity terms in the hope of cornering a desperate founder who won't or can't immigrate easily to the states. The whole thing is a money making grift designed to enrich the friends of their politicians. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se... You are going to find very few if any brand name VCs participating in their dog and pony show. https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada/start-visa/designated-organizations.html https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

pj_mukh 3y ago
Controversial opinion: that program is mostly inconsequential at scale. The real needle driver is the much maligned student visa program. While stuffing students into rando colleges in the far flung regions of the country (“diploma mills”) isn’t great, the mainstay colleges/universities should be encouraged to double/triple their intake. There is an existing workflow that turns students into well-networked, educated individuals empowered to manouever the levers of power/capital. Just lean on that more.
silenced_trope 3y ago
> You are going to find very few if any brand name VCs participating in their dog and pony show. Maybe some grifters. Case in point, Jason Calacanis: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAllinPodcasts/comments/17bkk8a/jasons_launchco_job_update/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TheAllinPodcasts/comments/17bkk8a/j...

faeriechangling 3y ago

The relatively generous immigration program is resulting in higher population growth than housing built spiking property prices. More and more of the Canadian population over the last 20 years has been recent immigrants and entrepreneurship has cratered. It’s not evident to me at all Canadas immigrant friendly stance is helping with entrepreneurship and it’s fairly plausible that it’s having an adverse effect, although it’s also plausible that it has prevented the situation from being worse than it otherwise would have been, and additionally possible that tweaks to immigration might result in immigration being more of an engine of entrepreneurship than it is right now. To me, it seems to me that immigration is mostly motivated by politicians desperate to cover up the cost of their unwise deficit spending and liabilities by diffusing the cost across more people, as well as enriching the landed gentry with more rents. They couldn’t give two craps about helping recent immigrants start successful businesses, they want them to benefit their interests immediately, not incubate some far off benefit twenty years in the future.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
The talented ones just move south the moment they have the chance to. The bay area is full of grads from places like Waterloo and Toronto.
pj_mukh 3y ago
I hear this all the time. But everytime it’s complaints about too much demand, but never a complain about supply. Even though they are both similar political problems. I don’t want to speculate why. Immigrants have more than proven themselves to be good entrepreneurs once the shackles I mentioned above have been removed.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  Nobody complains about supply? News to me. Trudeau has been boasting about how his sizeable immigration increases will solve the housing crisis for months now with a greater supply of workers to address the “labour shortage”. The “labour shortage” being the biggest buzzword to complain about lack of supply. Meanwhile construction has been basically stagnant and even backsliding slightly according to statscan data while he has basically given a big shot of adrenaline to demand. Whereas a five year old could understand, if we literally just stopped all immigration tomorrow (this would have extremely bad consequences like causing an immediate recession and huge unemployment but hypothetically) housing prices would crater because Canadians don’t reproduce at anything close to replacement. But people go oh no no, the REAL solution to the problem is the thing causing the problem. Immigration I accept is a lesser evil to the alternative, but it’s certainly not the solution to the housing crisis. It’s just not.

TMWNN 3y ago

>Canada has an ace in the hole here (that America doesn’t) in the form of a relatively generous immigration program. >It’s time it leans on immigrants to bolster its entrepreneurship. Immigrants are by definition self-selected risk takers it’s a match made in heaven. Yes, Confederation and Conestoga are just jam-packed with immigrant entrepreneurs. Why aren't they creating thousands of startups? (Context for non-Canadians: Like the US, Canada allows international students to work. Unlike the US, Canada allows those students to work off campus. This has caused the rise of an entire industry, in which so-called institutions of higher learning (Conestoga, Lambton, Confederation) have 99% Indian "students" that work off campus, destroying the local job and housing markets.)

pj_mukh 3y ago
“Destroying the local job market” This has been debunked again and again[1]. Please stop. No ones complaining about unemployment/underemployment anymore and with good reason. Even the article OP posted cites a job market that is too good for entrepreneurs to take risks outside of it. Let’s just set this one aside. The housing market and other inflation is mostly an artificial own goal on the governments part. Demand is a good thing in markets that aren’t artificially constrained. [1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-wages https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-immigration-doesnt-reduce-...
- richbell 3y ago
  > This has been debunked again and again[1]. The blog post you've linked is titled "Why immigration doesn't reduce wages", which I think is an absurd claim to make. The author seems more interested in owning "anti-immigration people" than actually proving that thesis. Citing a handful of studies does not conclusively prove that immigration is never and can never have negative effects. The article also does not seem relevant to Canada whatsoever. You don't think that the massive lines for a handful of minimum wage job postings are in any way impacting local job markets? Does Tim Hortons abusing the TFW program help or harm the local job market? The Canadian economy is a ponzi-scheme dependant on bringing in an accelerating number of immigrants every year and saddling them with debt.

steve_adams_86 3y ago

I live in Victoria, and while our situation is special (we’re on the tip of an island and can’t build in many directions because it’s ocean), a few developers I’ve spoken to are very confident that the housing issue’s greatest barrier is labour. I asked if immigration could address this, and they each pointed out that a. Immigrants can’t afford to work in this industry in places where we need housing the most, b. While building requires unskilled labour, it also requires highly skilled labour that is at an unprecedented shortage which isn’t easily or rapidly corrected with immigration, c. Cities and neighborhoods are deeply attached to their reasons for resisting various densification projects, and breaking through arbitrary red tape here is an immense and intractably expensive undertaking. They painted a very bleak picture of the housing situation, making it seem as though huge changes need to occur in order for meaningful progress to be made. This might be less of an issue in other cities. I’m not sure.

pj_mukh 3y ago
"Cities and neighborhoods are deeply attached to their reasons for resisting various densification projects, and breaking through arbitrary red tape here is an immense and intractably expensive undertaking." The large-scale tolerance of this is basically permanently resigning Canada to degrowth. So no, lets not accept this. It is what most cities are facing and the provincial governments need to put an end to it. What we need is massive training/re-training + labor importation program for the construction industry (and probably also healthcare, but I digress), and WW2 level mobilization in construction, anything short of that and I'm betting the economic and entrepreneurial problems get entrenched for a century.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I agree with this notion politically, it would be a huge benefit if the federal government: #1 - took in a bigger slice of taxes #2 - redistributed them to municipalities #3 - made this redistribution contingent on densification. What we have now is some tragedy of the commons crap where everybody wants to address the housing prices, but if you call to densify any neighbourhood the local busybodies will cry bloody murder. Yet everybody wants the government to do something about housing, just not in their backyard. The only way for densification to be fair, and not result in one municipality seeing a sharper decline in housing prices than another, is for EVERYBODY to be compelled to change and have each municipality work out the finer details. Alas, I am deeply pessimistic about change, in no small part because elected politicians are far more likely to be landlords than the general population putting them in a huge conflict of interest.

ta_vf7xjd34cc 3y ago

> It’s time it leans on immigrants Uncontrolled immigration without assimilation can have disastrous consequences. And assimilation is a polite way of saying "give up your culture and adopt ours." Unfortunately, without assimilation, all the politics and problems of the homeland will follow the diaspora to the new host country. It has been seen time and time again: - Italian and Irish emigration to the US - Migration from the Indian subcontinent as well as Muslim countries of Africa and the Middle East into Europe and North America If you cannot solve this but still want immigrants, the numbers have to be reduced massively and some kind of pause between waves will be required so that gradual assimilation can be achieved.

WalterBright 3y ago

> in the form of a relatively generous immigration program It couldn't be more generous than the US, which accepts millions just walking over the border.

ipaddr 3y ago

You know who understands the Canadian market the least? Recent immigrants.