If they weren't qualified the industry wouldn't have been poached. Rather, this suggests that at least at some point they were significantly more qualified than those in the US.
[1]https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/city-of-vancouver-criti...
Fairchild Semiconductor fathered a thousand companies. How many did BlackBerry?
Don’t rely on a committee of bureaucrats shuffling tax money to their idea of the best companies (The ones that their brother works at or the ones that best wine and fined them).
Take the money from those government schmoes and use it to cut taxes on and barriers to investment. Make it easier for entrepreneurs to stay and build, and to raise money.
Buy your weapons in the open market, and save.
See e.g. https://steveblank.com/secret-history/ for a nice overview.
There is a lot of randomness and counter factuals to be considered in these stories.
They absolutely would not still be flown today.
The Arrow was a relic of the pre-ICBM cold war. When the USSR was expected to field fleets of nuclear bombers over the north pole. The Arrow was designed to go fast, launch an unguided nuclear air to air rocket, turn around and fly home. It was great at this, but in the ensuing years, the Soviet Union put a lot more effort into its ICBM capability than its intercontinental nuclear bomber capability. It would have had difficulty adapting to other roles. As a delta wing, its energy management was likely terrible. Its thin, delicate wings would be ill suited to hanging a heavy bomb load from.
It is comparable (though slightly worse) in era, role, configuration, and performance to the F-106, which was retired in the '80s. The Arrow was designed to do something that was simply unnecessary.
If the program had been completed, it still would have been replaced in the '70s or '80s. The only difference is that it would have likely been replaced by an Avro Canada designed aircraft rather than an American one.