It's much easier to move to Canada. I'm a young American who just got Canadian citizenship simply by taking a job here via NAFTA, and am now no longer working while residing in Canada (with zero intention to seek employment). The equivalent TN visa if I had gone from Canada to US does not lead to citizenship - you're expected to leave the country and abandon the life you've built for yourself in your community if you want to leave your job or stop working. It's all about selling your free time to a boss, or getting out - the American way.

Yeah it's hard to overstate how much clearer and well defined the Canadian immigration system is.

I did all my paperwork myself to go from student visa to work permit to residency and finally citizenship. Incredibly simple, relatively cut and dry (assuming you can afford it and qualify to begin with of course)

I went to work in the US for a bit and have to hire folks in the US now. I needed lawyers to help with my application because I needed an O1 instead of a TN for lack of a degree (it's 12 years work experience or a bachelor's for a TN, and I only had 6 at the time). TN's can also be denied easily at the border, H1Bs are lottery based on many factors out of your control

And after all of that, each visa means different things when I travel, or if I ever want to apply for a green card etc... The US system is a nightmare to navigate.

Sorry to bug you, if you have time, and found the lawyers competent/helpful/etc, could you let me know who you used?

I have the same issue.

My email is on my about page.

Thanks

Unfortunately I can't say a specific one just because they were a firm that represented my employer. The firm is a common one used by many tech companies though: https://www.fragomen.com/

OK, thanks!

Hey, American citizen, PR status.

I have heard horror stories from friends who have migrated to the US—a doctor acquaintance from Mexico comes to mind. The Canadian system seems…deterministic? If 10 people feed the same paperwork and money into the Canadian system, they both end up with the same result. If 10 people feed paperwork and money into the US system: utter random chaos.

I feel a big part is which way the wind is blowing; the countries that are “desirable” have no reason to make it easy, in fact they have incentives to make it complicated and hard.

The countries that want people to come to them have reason to remove roadblocks.

What is your main way of life in Canada if you are not working? Are you retired or will you need to seek employment later?

sole proprietorship saas

labor is cool, working for an owner under coercion is not

I mean, that's not really true, and you've provided no actual evidence to show that your assertion is true.

Canada's immigration is very clear, you hit certain criteria and you qualify.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/se...

> Canada's immigration is very clear, you hit certain criteria and you qualify

As someone who has gone through both the US green card and a canadian permanent residence processes, I have to agree. The Canadian process is way easier - and I say this as someone who is not even from one of the countries "screwed over" by crazy wait times (India/China/etc). For those folks, the difference is night and day.

Has the US stopped being a land of immigrants?

There’s only 37 million people in Canada, so there’s a legit desire to protect and develop a national sense of Canada rather than becoming a vassal.

We have a amazing peaceful border and trade relationship. Unfortunately due to the internet the US is a major exporter of insane politics.

> Unfortunately due to the internet the US is a major exporter of insane politics.

We tried blaming our internal problems on external forces for a while too, didn't work out too well.

Really fascinating to me how many political/social influencers from canada have so much commentary about american politics these days. I’m not necessarily saying they shouldn’t but how many americans make 6 and 7 figures commenting on canadian politics, unless alex jones is/was

The tables did turn a bit during the Ottawa convoy protests. Lots of absurdly bad takes from American conservative pundits on Trudeau being a "fascist" for using the emergencies act to bloodlylessly stop a crisis that, in the USA, would've involved the National guard (something that Canada doesn't have).

Ted Cruz, Faith Goldie, Stephan Molyneux, Crowder, the list goes on. Hard right and bigoted and even alt right conservative thought leaders are a Canadian export.

No nation will acknowledge responsibility for Ted Cruz.

That guy is just a ball of jelly, he’d walk around carrying a portrait of Chairman Mao if it got him a vote.

That's kind of the template for Canadian conservatism for the past decade. Flabby suburbanites who'll say whatever to whoever for votes. Ted Cruz looks like the 3rd step in the Andy Scheer->Jason Kenney->Cruz->Stephen Harper Pokevolution.

Polievre is breaking the mold by going full Trumper.

It's extremely easy to move to the US from Canada with a simple letter from your employer, thanks to NAFTA/USMCA.

This is a temporary work visa, but puts you on the path to Express Entry.

With all that said, Canada has a points-based system for immigration, and language skills, technical skills, education, etc will be prioritized.

I would say it much easier to move from _anywhere_ to Canada - just meet the criteria and you are in. No lottery, no offer needed. I wish to move to US, but till date was never able to secure offer that makes financial sense.

What cafeterias?

Auto-correction, should be 'criteria'

It's the same difficulty. You can go between them under NAFTA visa agreements.

Phrased differently, there are far more job opportunities in the US vs Canada especially in tech. So what is the US gaining here handing out jobs to Canadians? And it’s not like the education systems are so different that the US is gaining some skilled labor.

I mean, you get access to some amazing talent. There is a reason why Waterloo University is held in the same regard as most top tier US universities. Microsoft was recruiting from there since the early 80's.

Bill Gates once referred to Waterloo as their secret weapon as his competitors were obsessed with MIT and Stanford and CalTech when he could grab large portions of Waterloo's graduating classes whose students were of the same calibre.

That's a very different question than your first question. This one is quite a bit more jingoist.

this goes in to the age old nationalist trope of "American jobs should belong to Americans" without considering that sometimes if the job goes to the better candidate, it can still be a net positive benefit.

End of the day, you're benefiting from their expertise in a field to improve tech, of which certain fields like computer graphics have a high showing in Canada, but also the taxes they're paying into the system.

Your argument also assumes that equally qualified and skilled Americans exist in the local market, that are untapped.

America is gaining Canadians. It’s always better to be the place where the other guys want to come to rather than be the place your guys want to leave.

> And it’s not like the education systems are so different that the US is gaining some skilled labor.

You think tech workers are unskilled?

> So what is the US gaining handing out jobs to Canadians?

First off, nothing was “handed out.“ Americans have the same crack at those jobs as Canadians.

> it’s not like the education systems are so different that the US is gaining some skilled labor

That’s not really how that term is used, assuming we should even be using the term “skilled“ and “unskilled“ labor anymore. But that issue aside, I’m not quite sure what your point is.

> what is the US gaining here handing out jobs to Canadians?

workers? Finding good engineers is hard and most people don't care where they come from.

How did you get this view, if you don't mind me asking? Is there something happening that is local to you?

I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, but I'm surprised for someone to directly state something that is so straightforward to falsify.

The plots to

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canadian_Conspiracy

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Bacon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentaverate

Kidding aside, that’s some old uptight stuff…

As far as tech goes the US "gets back in return" the best talent coming out of Canadian universities. This isn't exactly peanuts.

In fact, it can be damaging to Canada - let Canada’s healthcare and education take the burden and expense of raising families and children, and then let America harvest the cream of the crop and take all the future tax dollars by importing them to the US.

It’s actually easier to go to Canada than vice versa.

If you’re a skilled American, you can get PR pretty quickly once you move to Canada.

In the US? It can often be 5 years before you even get a green card.

If you are young, speak English or French, and have an advanced degree or a degree and a job offer, it's not difficult for an American (or, to a slightly lesser extent, anyone else) to move to Canada.

Once you do, you have a simple path to citizenship.

The other way around is much more complicated, and requires either marriage, multi-year employer sponsorship, or waiting forever if you were born in the wrong country. (A Canadian citizen who was born in India, but moved to Canada at the age of 3 is considered to be an Indian, and will be looking forward to a decade-long waiting list for a US green card. The US weighs your country of birth more on many metrics than your country of citizenship/origin.)

Also, if I understand the system correctly, if you married a Canadian, and are moving to Canada with them, then you just... cross the border as a tourist, and once inside, start the marriage-based application process. You get a work permit in a matter of weeks, not months, and then have a very straightforward path to citizenship.