I don't know, one of my euro immigrant friends in Vancouver was a window cleaner. IIRC she basically showed up at the border with some education certificate (some non-fancy arts degree), her intent to make a living and proof she could sustain herself for a few months; definitely not sponsored by a tech company or anything like that. A few years later she was a citizen. OTOH I know two very capable (although not "rockstar" level) tech people who have lost the H1B lottery several years in a row.

In that sense the USA seems more random, but not more open. But I guess we're just using different criteria.

I'm pretty sure there are some important details missed in your story, because you either don't know them, or don't understand why they are important. My European, but non-EU, friend is a software engineer with certified knowledge of both En, and Fr, clean records, and all that stuff, decided to go to Canada for some not particularly economically rational reasons (like love of northern nature). This year it's going to be the 5th year since he applied to Can immigration service, and he still waits for a decision. Meanwhile, a number of his coworkers landed in US with quite poor English, and worse qualifications.

The window cleaner probably got the working holiday visa. You have to be under 35. After a year of experience at a job requiring a degree or a job in management, you can get permanent residence with CEC. Even managing at a coffee shop would qualify.

Funnily enough, your post is also missing some important details. The Canadian system is very transparent with its scoring. Unless you're from a natively English/French speaking country, you need test scores to validate your proficiency in English/French. Certified doesn't mean much. Also, you need degrees from accredited/verifiable institutions to really rack up points - if your friend is self-taught, it may be no good. Which does speak to the original point of Canadian conservatism.

I'm not sure if he's self-taught (most likely not), but as for languages he did exactly exams required by Canadian immigration service. In any case, my point is that it is observably easier for a CS professional to move to California than to Canada. I don't blame anyone/anything, because frankly I have no first-hand knowledge. Probably, the system is transparent but inefficient.

> my point is that it is observably easier for a CS professional to move to California than to Canada

Pretty sure you are missing some key details, you can get a Canadian permanent residency if you the required number of points which are based on your education, language, work experience etc.

For majority of the cases if you have the points you will get the PR visa. Once you get the visa you can move to Canada and look for jobs you cannot do that with the US.

You missed the moment when I mentioned the guy has been waiting for reply for 5 years. It is inefficient if the goal is to attract more qualified professionals. It would be easier for him to find a job offer from US, or Swiss, or German-based company, and settle in one of these countries in about a year. I'm not talking about getting citizenship, of course, but live&work permissions. Maybe, it's getting harder in US now as political moods are changing, but five years ago it was exactly so.

> You missed the moment when I mentioned the guy has been waiting for reply for 5 years.

As I said you are missing some details, people get a resident visa in 1 year even if they are outside Canada, so either you dont know the full story or your friend is probably misleading you.

What is the race of your friend?

White. Why do you think it could be important? I don't expect a country like Canada to racially filter qualified applicants.