Remote work could accelerate the tech industry's migration to Canada, where affordable costs of living and more open immigration policies are helping create tech hubs to rival Silicon Valley
Bani Sapra
May 31, 2020

Tobias Lütke founded Shopify, the $85 billion e-commerce company based in Ottawa, Canada Photo By David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile via Getty Images


Facebook and Twitter's new remote-work policies have prompted SF Bay Area workers to begin considering leaving their homes. 

Some may choose to cross the border to Canada, home to some fast-growing tech-hubs thanks to easy immigration policies, and affordable costs of living. 

A survey by Envoy Global, a firm that helps companies sponsor and manage work visas, showed that 66% of the employers it surveyed had either established an office in Canada or were in the process of doing so. 

And Toronto's tech scene is so hot that a report issued by commercial real estate company CBRE, ranked Toronto's tech talent as the third in North America, just after the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle. 

Silicon Valley techies, newly liberated to work remotely and searching for greener pastures, may end up heading towards the great white north.

Canada has spent the past few years striving to produce tech hubs that can challenge Silicon Valley and Seattle. Now, as companies like Facebook, Twitter, Coinbase and Square have announced plans to let employees permanently work anywhere they want, employers and officials in Canada are hoping the country's moment has come.

Canada boosters point to a mix of attractive incentives and other benefits, including the fact that the cost of living — depending on where you choose to live — is largely more affordable than pricey San Francisco.

And as US immigration policies have grown increasingly stringent, Canada is touting its comparatively welcoming foreign work policies. A program called the Global Talent Stream, lets Canadian employers speed up the visa process for skilled tech workers relatively easily.

"What is frequently lost is if US employers cannot hire a person to work in San Francisco, they do have other alternatives," said Richard Burke, the CEO Envoy Global, a firm that helps companies sponsor and manage work visas.
A recent survey by Envoy showed that 66% of the employers it surveyed had either established an office in Canada or were considering of doing so. 

Big tech firms like Facebook and Google, as well as smaller startups like Lever, have established satellite offices in Toronto to take advantage of more affordable tech talent. (Other startups like Postmates and Tile have offices in Vancouver). 

Job growth

Canada is no stranger to tech giants — BlackBerry's global headquarters are in Waterloo. But a new generation of tech brands are now in the spotlight, helmed by popular e-commerce giant Shopify, which is headquartered in Ottawa.

A growing collection of tech hubs across Canada have gained prominence in recent years. In 2017, Toronto created more tech jobs than the SF Bay Area, Seattle, and Washington DC — combined, according to a survey held by the CBRE Group. The same company ranked Toronto as #3 in a tech talent survey of North American cities, just behind San Francisco and Seattle.

Companies like Terminal, a startup that helps tech firms establish remote offices are predicting that the coronavirus outbreak and shift to remote work will only accelerate job growth and startup creation.

"The US is not making it very easy or attractive for high quality talent to come to the United States. I think that increasingly, companies are realizing that they have to be leaning into remote work," Terminal CEO Clay Kellogg told Business Insider. "The COVID-19 outbreak actually is ... kind of an unfortunate catalyst for this whole shift."

That's good news for Canada, as it aims to leap ahead of San Francisco and Seattle in terms of tech talent — and hopefully be the home of the next wave of billion-dollar startups.

Toronto suffered a setback recently when, owing to the coronavirus outbreak, Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs cancelled plans to build a futuristic "smart city "along the water font, depriving the city of what would have amounted to a tech crown jewel. (BUT THEY GOT ALL THE FREE BIG DATA THEY NEEDED THROUGH THE BIDDING PROCESS)

But Toronto already has a strong foundation in the area of tech-focused urban planning, with North America's largest urban innovation center, MaRS, lodged between the University of Toronto and the University Health Center. The center says its home to 1,500 entrepreneurs and ventures, helping "an innovation economy," that will help drive the country's economic growth.

MaRS hosted an event in March, where hundreds of people dressed as Albert Einstein lookalikes to set a Guinness World Record Carlos Osorio/Toronto Star via Getty Images

Already, MaRS CEO Yung Wu says the campus has helped foster startups that help Canada "punch way above its weight," in terms of creating innovative startups. (Wu cited the Global Cleantech forum's 'top 100 cleantech innovators' as an example, noting proudly that the list counted 12 Canadian companies as cleantech leaders.)

And immigration is one big reason for that, as Wu readily admits. He's experienced immigration policies in both the US and Canada, as he got his start as an entrepreneur in the US before migrating north.

Canada, unlike the US, knows it needs to import tech talent in order to grow, Wu said, adding, "the innovation economy is entirely fueled by talent."

"We understand that talent is a supply thing, and we have to generate demand from outside," Wu said. "So we punch way above in terms of innovation. And from my perspective, if we can connect a powerhouse of innovation to global market commercialization, that's where we hit our sweet spot."