FSW WORLDWIDE

[KenshiMK1]

Where he is wrong is in the portrayal of immigrants though. In a sane world, people rightfully earning more shouldn't be used as a scapegoat. Those are hardworking folks who are earning a honest living, they shouldn't be vilified like that.

His opinion is just that. He is speaking the truth, albeit skips the most important details. His posts will not change the general mood around housing and immigrants. Indian SWEs are not a problem and anyone with 2 brain cells understand that. If we have to point fingers to nationalities, a larger problem is Chinese investors and then companies like BlackRock. While Indians buy property for themselves and live there, investors buy properties for investment only. About 80% of housing in London belong to investors. If we start digging deeper, we will see that those 80% of investors are NOT Indians engineers; those are investors from China, Emirates, Qatar, the US, the UAE.

 

[KenshiMK1]

If you are talking about Toronto then maybe you're right but detached houses in GTA have already come back to 1 million levels from the pandemic berserk rates. Even if housing prices correct and go back to sane levels of 4x median wage, there will likely be a credit event in the country due to the debt. If not that then the currency will be devalued and we will get generational mortgages. And God forbid if immigration slows, the whole ponzi will unravel even quicker.
I don't see a single plus point of buying something right now. Cash makes 4-5%

I have personally stopped thinking about housing, as that seems like a major carrot to make people stay in Canada by hook or crook.

But kindly share your thoughts on the business environment you faced here and I'd love to hear your reasons for not thinking starting a business is worthwhile here.
My reason other than being new here is lowered discretionary income and insanely high costs but I haven't stepped out of GTA so that's a major flaw in my reasoning.

The entire economy is based on real estate. It's a huge problem. It started being that way after Trudeau came. Back in 2012 you could afford a place in North York just by working regular SWE job. Heck, you could afford a place in downtown, albeit it would be on a smaller side. After 2015, the real estate just blew out of proportion.

Whether you buy or not is up to you. Personally, I wouldn't. You pay a lot of money for a place made from carton. Poor quality for insane price. Not worth it.

In regards to business. I will give you 2 explanations: tax and tech. cretinism in Canada. Every single bank in the USA would expose their API for personal use. Not a single bank in Canada would do that. To get access to it, you need to file a request, wait for 6-9 months, fill out maybe 30-40 documents, and then you can still get rejected. While in the US, you can just start. Taxes are higher on top of that when you start hiring people, they cost you more and they receive less; you have to pay things like EI. In the US, your employers will receive more money and overall will cost you the same. I am not even touching the investment and ease of building a startup. I talked to some people from the US and UK; both of those countries have way more opportunities to attract investment than Canada. It's also less bureaucracy, less red tape and thus, you can keep your OPEX to the minimum.

I have said it before and I am saying it now. Canada is not the country for people who want to make good money and afford good things. The tax law is set up in the way to punish you. The US is not for people who earn median salary; it punishes them but it's better for people who want money in life and thus, nicer things. The choice is up to a person. All this talk about "Attracting immigrants so they can build startups and hire Canadians" is wishful thinking. Anyone who starts doing that will realize sooner or later that it's like fighting wind; tiresome to get through so much stuff just to get very small output. There is a reason why there has been only a handful of unicorn startups in Canada. If one starts digging deep, one will realize that most money and investors are from the US and the company has an office in the US (physical or legal one).

I know you asked for success stories couple of pages ago. All of them will be from people like me. Those who came long time ago. Yes, I suffered in the beginning; my first job after CS at UofT was VBA dev at a small paper company in Kensington Market. The reason why I got successful was lack of serious competition. It's one thing to compete with 100 people for a position at Google, another one is to compete with 1000. It's one thing to live in a place and pay 1100 for a rent while your salary increases by 20-30K and another thing is face salary stagnation and pay for 2600$ for 1 bedroom. I gave a talk to the university in my home country and was honest about all of that. I wish people would stop listening to shady agents and do not look at Canadian immigration as the "land and get Benz in 6 months by working at Timmies".

 

[abhiram.kumar]

Fully agree. Back in 2016 if someone would question immigration he would be shamed. Now, people are open about it. My wife showed me a video from Instagram of a McD looking for employees. Line was full of Indians and all of the comments in instagram were Canadians complaining about it. This is not Reddit anymore where people are anonymous; this is Instagram where people are very open about who they are. Canadians are fed up with what's happening.

With that being said, I am not sure how much better Pierre would be. He is no different than Trudeau. He just has great advantage right now and he is very smart in his debates and absolutely destroys Liberals.

The attitudes were great before because Canada was only focusing on permanent skilled immigration through express entry. The temporary migrant program and the student visa program were very limited. The idiotic federal government has expanded the temporary migrant visa program and has effectively turned the student visa program into a low wage workers program. This has caused an implosion of low wage temporary migrants in Canada. Since there’s no cap, mainstream Canadians are now changing their attitudes towards all immigration. To say that the Liberals have fucked up immigration in this country is an understatement. They might turn Canadians into anti immigration soon if they allow this to foster.

 

[KenshiMK1]

The attitudes were great before because Canada was only focusing on permanent skilled immigration through express entry. The temporary migrant program and the student visa program were very limited. The idiotic federal government has expanded the temporary migrant visa program and has effectively turned the student visa program into a low wage workers program. This has caused an implosion of low wage temporary migrants in Canada. Since there’s no cap, mainstream Canadians are now changing their attitudes towards all immigration. To say that the Liberals have fucked up immigration in this country is an understatement. They might turn Canadians into anti immigration soon if they allow this to foster.

Don't have much to add. You pretty much on point.

 

[abhiram.kumar]

The entire economy is based on real estate. It's a huge problem. It started being that way after Trudeau came. Back in 2012 you could afford a place in North York just by working regular SWE job. Heck, you could afford a place in downtown, albeit it would be on a smaller side. After 2015, the real estate just blew out of proportion.

Whether you buy or not is up to you. Personally, I wouldn't. You pay a lot of money for a place made from carton. Poor quality for insane price. Not worth it.

In regards to business. I will give you 2 explanations: tax and tech. cretinism in Canada. Every single bank in the USA would expose their API for personal use. Not a single bank in Canada would do that. To get access to it, you need to file a request, wait for 6-9 months, fill out maybe 30-40 documents, and then you can still get rejected. While in the US, you can just start. Taxes are higher on top of that when you start hiring people, they cost you more and they receive less; you have to pay things like EI. In the US, your employers will receive more money and overall will cost you the same. I am not even touching the investment and ease of building a startup. I talked to some people from the US and UK; both of those countries have way more opportunities to attract investment than Canada. It's also less bureaucracy, less red tape and thus, you can keep your OPEX to the minimum.

I have said it before and I am saying it now. Canada is not the country for people who want to make good money and afford good things. The tax law is set up in the way to punish you. The US is not for people who earn median salary; it punishes them but it's better for people who want money in life and thus, nicer things. The choice is up to a person. All this talk about "Attracting immigrants so they can build startups and hire Canadians" is wishful thinking. Anyone who starts doing that will realize sooner or later that it's like fighting wind; tiresome to get through so much stuff just to get very small output. There is a reason why there has been only a handful of unicorn startups in Canada. If one starts digging deep, one will realize that most money and investors are from the US and the company has an office in the US (physical or legal one).

I know you asked for success stories couple of pages ago. All of them will be from people like me. Those who came long time ago. Yes, I suffered in the beginning; my first job after CS at UofT was VBA dev at a small paper company in Kensington Market. The reason why I got successful was lack of serious competition. It's one thing to compete with 100 people for a position at Google, another one is to compete with 1000. It's one thing to live in a place and pay 1100 for a rent while your salary increases by 20-30K and another thing is face salary stagnation and pay for 2600$ for 1 bedroom. I gave a talk to the university in my home country and was honest about all of that. I wish people would stop listening to shady agents and do not look at Canadian immigration as the "land and get Benz in 6 months by working at Timmies".

You’ve made an unfair comparison between the US and Canada. There’s absolutely no way any western country on the planet is going to compete with the US in terms of venture capital and startups due to the simple fact that the US is the third largest country in the world in terms of population. Canada is 1/10th the size of the US. The reason why a lot of venture funds and banks in Canada are conservative in their funding is because the chances of failure are magnified 100 times more in a market that is 1/10th the size. Plus, there’s also the fact that in a market which is 1/10th the size, you would proportionally have only that much money available to give out as capital. As a result, you would naturally only see a handful of unicorns in a smaller market. Larger populations have larger businesses. That’s simple fact. You cannot have 100s of mega corporations in a country that has a relatively small population. About your point regarding income taxes in Canada. That’s how you create a society with low income inequality. Canada has never aspired to become a society where the rich become richer and the poor are left to rot. It used to have a strong middle class but now, that’s getting wiped out because of neoliberal economics. Its exactly the same situation for the middle class in the US as well. Social mobility in the US is absolute garbage and income inequality is the highest in the western world. If you’re already rich and want to get richer, then you’re right, the US is the country to be in. It’s not a country where you can start from scratch and expect miracles. The biggest obstacle being higher education and healthcare. Higher education is an absolute scam in the US and keeps poor people poor. I know this because I have family in the US who belong to the top 2% of households. They’ve told me that a medical degree from a decent university in the US can cost around an average of 100,000 USD for domestic students. To shell out that kind of money, you would need to be extremely well off. From my observations, It’s only the people who are rich enough to get decent higher education in the US, who are able to get great jobs and live great lives. Most of the people on H1B visas are people who have already received their higher education from elsewhere. The rest are left to rot without any chance of upward mobility since majority of the manufacturing jobs have been offshored to China for cheap labour and as a result, you see a vanishing middle class.

 

[KenshiMK1]

he reason why a lot of venture funds and banks in Canada are conservative in their funding is because the chances of failure are magnified 100 times more in a market that is 1/10th the size.

I have said that investment is only one problem. That problem is solvable by attracting US funds. A bigger problem is bureaucracy and lots of unnecessary red tape. Do you know that there is still no central database for medical patients in Ontario? That's an example of my point.

Canada has never aspired to become a society where the rich become richer and the poor are left to rot. It used to have a strong middle class but now, that’s getting wiped out because of neoliberal economics. Its exactly the same situation for the middle class in the US as well. Social mobility in the US is absolute garbage and income inequality is the highest in the western world. If you’re already rich and want to get richer, then you’re right, the US is the country to be in. It’s not a country where you can start from scratch and expect miracles.

Disagree with you here. You can start with scratch and get much further. Why? Simple. Cost of living to salary ratio is much more favorable in the US. Of course, I am talking about SWEs over here. I can provide numbers if you wish but overall, it's much easier than in Canada. Social net in the US is garbage; not arguing here. Except for the fact, that 99.9% of this forum and most of the skilled immigrants to Canada won't suffer from that. They are skilled and they will pick up another job in no time. Who suffers from that social net? Low income layer of society.

hey’ve told me that a medical degree from a decent university in the US can cost around an average of 100,000 USD for domestic students. To shell out that kind of money, you would need to be extremely well off. From my observations, It’s only the people who are rich enough to get decent higher education in the US, who are able to get great jobs and live great lives

That's incorrect. I am sorry. Let's start with doctors. Medical degree costs 100K? Sure, take a loan. Why don't you mention the salary they get after medical school? My wife's close friend is pediatrician in Houston. 12 years of experience. Salary.... 650K. She is not surgeon, she is pediatrician. They can easily pay off their debts.

Disagree about education. Any state school is decent if you put in work. Texas, California, Ohio all have decent schools where if one pays in-state tuition, it's cheap. You can see how much Berkley costs for in-state residents. Nothing is stopping a good student to apply and get a full ride at a private school for Masters. Heck, my company pays half of the cost. Google does the same.

The rest are left to rot without any chance of upward mobility since majority of the manufacturing jobs have been offshored to China for cheap labour and as a result, you see a vanishing middle class.

Best on what I have seen from my 1.5 assignment in NYC. middle class is stronger in the US vs. Canada. Poorer are more secure in Canada than in the States. It's easier to get richer in the US vs. Canada.

With that being said, there is a lot of crap in the US that makes one question moving to the South. If money is the goal, I would say yes. For everything else, think twice. With that being said, with the direction Canada moves, I am not sure that the US would be much worse than Canada in the long run. ON is starting to implement private health care already.

 

[iSaidGoodDay]

You’ve made an unfair comparison between the US and Canada. There’s absolutely no way any western country on the planet is going to compete with the US in terms of venture capital and startups due to the simple fact that the US is the third largest country in the world in terms of population. Canada is 1/10th the size of the US. The reason why a lot of venture funds and banks in Canada are conservative in their funding is because the chances of failure are magnified 100 times more in a market that is 1/10th the size. Plus, there’s also the fact that in a market which is 1/10th the size, you would proportionally have only that much money available to give out as capital. As a result, you would naturally only see a handful of unicorns in a smaller market. Larger populations have larger businesses. That’s simple fact. You cannot have 100s of mega corporations in a country that has a relatively small population. About your point regarding income taxes in Canada. That’s how you create a society with low income inequality. Canada has never aspired to become a society where the rich become richer and the poor are left to rot. It used to have a strong middle class but now, that’s getting wiped out because of neoliberal economics. Its exactly the same situation for the middle class in the US as well. Social mobility in the US is absolute garbage and income inequality is the highest in the western world. If you’re already rich and want to get richer, then you’re right, the US is the country to be in. It’s not a country where you can start from scratch and expect miracles. The biggest obstacle being higher education and healthcare. Higher education is an absolute scam in the US and keeps poor people poor. I know this because I have family in the US who belong to the top 2% of households. They’ve told me that a medical degree from a decent university in the US can cost around an average of 100,000 USD for domestic students. To shell out that kind of money, you would need to be extremely well off. From my observations, It’s only the people who are rich enough to get decent higher education in the US, who are able to get great jobs and live great lives. Most of the people on H1B visas are people who have already received their higher education from elsewhere. The rest are left to rot without any chance of upward mobility since majority of the manufacturing jobs have been offshored to China for cheap labour and as a result, you see a vanishing middle class.

I'm a VC scout. I've been extremely critical of Canadian ecosystem for it's ability to grow. A good example to show how bad Canadian ecosystem is (in terms of talent, founders, etc) when you compare it with Israel. Both are small countries ~9 mil population in Israel, but vastly different scale of growth and overall output.

Canada has the a loop of bad business output simply because:
1. The ecosystem is monopoly focused(e.g. retail) or leverage focused (e.g. real estate) - so there's no incentive to innovate/hustle/take risks and it has been stripped from the culture's DNA.
2. Large number of Founders/Execs with age old business practices that isn't going to lead to compounding growth.
3. A horrible workforce with low EPS (earning per share per employee).

I don't blame people for not learning if they can sit and monetize 5% YoY APR real estate (GVA). Clearly, rich have little to no incentive to change their ways of working. They can buy cheap, sell high and then host $150k/hr Yacht parties.

Otoh, there's a lot of private equity money in Canada, but hardly any worth takes when each LP is up. Our last batch of LPs was in June-July, most of it was forced investing. VCs like Susa bag a lot more Canadian companies as they aren't just another partner who's going to liquidate assets on made up numbers and figures, while most Canadian VCs and founders chase imaginary numbers. The Canadian ecosystem is the problem right now where everything need to happen at the same time for it to work (better founders, better VCs, better workforce).

 

[Windsor37]

Honestly doing a US online master in Canada seems to be one of the most rational ways to proceed and I agree. It is just sometimes I am also thinking of doing a Phd. Onsite master's helps me with knowing the professor and doing more research. Doing a Phd might help me get a self-sponsored GC as well. The problem is getting into a Ph.D. program is much harder than a master's because it is paid for. Seems like my Ph.D. and immigration plan is clashing with each other. Also, maybe the onsite master can help me find a US citizen to marry?

Some schools like Florida Atlantic University, Mississippi State University, University of North Dakota offer online PhDs. Though if you're after a self-sponsored GC, I'm assuming an EB-2 NIW or even an O-1, I'd question the rationale of doing it in the US, might as well do the PhD in University of Toronto or UBC and save yourself some money.

As for your intent to marry, that's on you though, personally I don't like the idea of mixing up marriage and career, but whatever floats your boat.

 

[abhiram.kumar]

I'm a VC scout. I've been extremely critical of Canadian ecosystem for it's ability to grow. A good example to show how bad Canadian ecosystem is (in terms of talent, founders, etc) when you compare it with Israel. Both are small countries ~9 mil population in Israel, but vastly different scale of growth and overall output.

Canada has the a loop of bad business output simply because:
1. The ecosystem is monopoly focused(e.g. retail) or leverage focused (e.g. real estate) - so there's no incentive to innovate/hustle/take risks and it has been stripped from the culture's DNA.
2. Large number of Founders/Execs with age old business practices that isn't going to lead to compounding growth.
3. A horrible workforce with low EPS (earning per share per employee).

I don't blame people for not learning if they can sit and monetize 5% YoY APR real estate (GVA). Clearly, rich have little to no incentive to change their ways of working. They can buy cheap, sell high and then host $150k/hr Yacht parties.

Otoh, there's a lot of private equity money in Canada, but hardly any worth takes when each LP is up. Our last batch of LPs was in June-July, most of it was forced investing. VCs like Susa bag a lot more Canadian companies as they aren't just another partner who's going to liquidate assets on made up numbers and figures, while most Canadian VCs and founders chase imaginary numbers. The Canadian ecosystem is the problem right now where everything need to happen at the same time for it to work (better founders, better VCs, better workforce).

I agree with your point about innovation and productivity. That wasn’t the point I was getting at. Israel maybe more innovative and productive than the US or Canada, yet you don’t see any Amazons, Googles or Apples coming out of Israel. In fact, I’m not even sure whether Israel has even produced a single Fortune 500, correct me if I’m wrong. As of now, the list says that the US has 136 and Canada has 14 so just about 1/10 of the US and one lower than the UK despite having a smaller population. The simple fact is that building mega corporations requires a large domestic market in order to be sustainable. No amount of innovation or venture capital funding is going to change the fact that if a market isn’t commercially viable for a product, no business is ever going to grow or succeed in that market. In fact, Project Avro didn’t fail because Canada wasn’t innovative enough or the engineers weren’t brilliant, it failed because there wasn’t a market for it in Canada. Canada was just too small for it.

 

[navinball]

Btw, where is our great friend @Raptor33 ?

Probably at a food bank.

 

[Impatient Dankaroo]

Probably at a food bank.

I guess Canadian AI bots have limited funding

 

[Windsor37]

Btw, also are there advantages of dual US and Canada citizens? Are the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? Or should I forgo my Canada PR if in any way I can get a GC faster? I search around seems that dual US & Canada has more complicated tax system..

Unless you hold big Canadian assets, or registered accounts like TFSA/RRSP then taxation isn't complicated for a dual US/Canadian citizens provided you're living in the US. The same cannot be said for dual US/Canadian citizens living in Canada, the US tax their citizens regardless of where they live, and this is typically the primary reason why people tend to renounce US citizenship if they decide to live outside the US. So if you're worried about taxes, and is a dual US/Canadian citizen then you should live south of the border.

If you're dead set to go to the US without a Canadian citizenship, my suggestion is to do it only if you can guarantee a GC; otherwise, start preparing for contingency plans in case your immigration status in the US go sour.

 

[Impatient Dankaroo]

Unless you hold big Canadian assets, or registered accounts like TFSA/RRSP then taxation isn't complicated for a dual US/Canadian citizens provided you're living in the US. The same cannot be said for dual US/Canadian citizens living in Canada, the US tax their citizens regardless of where they live, and this is typically the primary reason why people tend to renounce US citizenship if they decide to live outside the US. So if you're worried about taxes, and is a dual US/Canadian citizen then you should live south of the border.

If you're dead set to go to the US without a Canadian citizenship, my suggestion is to do it only if you can guarantee a GC; otherwise, start preparing for contingency plans in case your immigration status in the US go sour.

Wise words, US is never a guarantee. Hope they don't give up chance for Canadian PR only to try for US and then miss out on Canadian PR in the future.

 

[ivicts]

Some schools like Florida Atlantic University, Mississippi State University, University of North Dakota offer online PhDs. Though if you're after a self-sponsored GC, I'm assuming an EB-2 NIW or even an O-1, I'd question the rationale of doing it in the US, might as well do the PhD in University of Toronto or UBC and save yourself some money.

As for your intent to marry, that's on you though, personally I don't like the idea of mixing up marriage and career, but whatever floats your boat.

Hmm, I guess if I do a Phd, I would do it somewhere that at least I have heard the name of. Otherwise, the opportunity cost is too big.. and an online master's might be better. (Probably I am wrong and shallow here to put such a weightage on prestige). Also, if you do your Ph.D. in a university you have never heard of, then it might be hard to get published and cited and making it difficult to go for self-sponsored GC. However, the problem is now, it is difficult to get into a Ph.D. and I keep getting older.. so it's either immigrate or Phd.

Why Phd in Canada is cheaper? I thought the living cost in the US is cheaper? For Ph.D. in the US, if you can apply for NIW during your study, by the time you graduate you can get citizenship.

Marriage is a bit of a joke, but who knows? People meet their SO generally at university.

 

[ivicts]

Unless you hold big Canadian assets, or registered accounts like TFSA/RRSP then taxation isn't complicated for a dual US/Canadian citizens provided you're living in the US. The same cannot be said for dual US/Canadian citizens living in Canada, the US tax their citizens regardless of where they live, and this is typically the primary reason why people tend to renounce US citizenship if they decide to live outside the US. So if you're worried about taxes, and is a dual US/Canadian citizen then you should live south of the border.

If you're dead set to go to the US without a Canadian citizenship, my suggestion is to do it only if you can guarantee a GC; otherwise, start preparing for contingency plans in case your immigration status in the US go sour.

Other than taxes, is there anything else I should take note of? Is it beneficial to hold on to my Canada PR and convert it to citizen? Or should I forgo it let's say if I get a Phd in decent schools in the US or get a GC? I guess Canadian citizenship is great for the social nets - free healthcare & retirement, but I don't know whether I just want to hold on to it because of sunk cost.