> Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence.

It does seem that way eh? And the Canadians who are successful always seem to leave...

Canadians who are looking to be successful leave those who are stay.

Our housing market is pretty excellent

If by excellent you mean wildly overpriced then yes.

Overpriced means it is priced so high people will not pay. The reality is with a low inventory and high demand levels prices will go higher. High demand justifies higher prices when inventory is low. I don't see demand reducing or inventory levels increasing for a few years interest rate notwithstanding. I would buy now because prices are only going up.

Overpriced in my mind means priced so high people can't realistically pay without being extremely wealthy or committing mortgage fraud, or priced so high that the practical value that could be derived from it as an intrinsically useful asset is significantly smaller than what you have to pay.

Does $600k for a studio, or like $3500/month seem appropriately priced?

Sure some people are willing to spend $9k on a pair of shoes, but they're still overpriced.

Some of what you said is correct except prices are going down because of interest rates.

Also high real estate prices have hurt other areas of the economy. And the demand is largely due to money laundering out of China, not fundamentals.

Is the money laundering part of the fundamentals since it has been going on for so long

Because of course, failure of a government program is telling us that the whole Canadian culture is mediocre? What a great take.

Canadian culture IS mediocre. Everyone's ambition here is to do what everyone else does. Restaurants are mostly the same. Businesses don't innovate, they merely do what someone else who was already successful did.

The parent may not have elaborated the reasons perfectly but everyone here knows it.

If given the chance to work and live in the states for $50k more, or in Europe for the same amount or less than I currently make, I might choose the latter for the novelty, but not the former to climb a ladder, so what's the comparison worth? That said, I'm not about to move to the suburbs where everyone and everything is pretty bland and same.

The difference is far from $50k in tech, it's far, far more and you can live in an actual city called new york unlike all of canada?

New York seems neat, but I sure as hell wouldn't want to live there. Pretty happy here in Vancouver. The rent and housing costs are absurd, but they'd be worse in New York. I like parts of the states quite a bit, but I don't think I'd like to live there, at least not long-term. Not my vibe.

People say the difference is much greater than $50k, but I think it's often overblown. You have the top few companies with crazy stock compensations on top of higher base salaries, but I'm not getting into those companies anyway. Some places can compete with that, but not as many as simply moving to the states, especially with no degree, and just automatically making so much more. It would be ladder climbing, and I don't care enough about hocking more bs products at people that I'd put so much of myself into that.

I think your coping man. I come from a similar area. Instead of the $70k or $90k CAD your making, your making $350k or $400k USD ($400-550k CAD see https://levels.fyi/) as a bog standard sr engineer with many, many things being cheaper in the USA than canada itself, and you get healthcare better than canada because your well paid.

If you took off 3 months to go leetcode the return on investment is there, and you could make it into those companies. You can get work visas based on years of experience alone without a degree, and google et all don't discriminate on not having a degree either. On top of that as a lucky canadian, you get one of the easiest work visas to get in the world, the TN visa. It might not work in this recessionary environment, but in a year or two when it passes you'll be all ready to go to get the promotion of a lifetime.

Vancouver is not a city beyond it's tiny downtown. It's much like SF bay that way, vast reams of suburbia with a commuter rail train system that barely services vast swaths of the city.

Get out of your comfort zone, and you will do amazing. I'm rooting for you.

Seems sincere enough, albeit with a tinge of overt condescension towards my chosen city I've been to a fair number of cities, sure af wouldn't want to live in Toronto, New York, SF, LA. There are a few that I'd consider, but I never really think of them, and I definitely wouldn't do it for a company that just offered me a position. Too much tangible risk, unless I had no option. I'm sure I could get a job at the one of the spiffy companies, but I limit my search to remote only or here in Van, or mainland Europe. I've been through the interview process at one, it was fine, I could and might tidy up and try again. The money is compelling somewhat, but not so much so after reaching six figures that I'd sacrifice much for it.

And what is that sacrifice? Well, firstly I absolutely do not want to live in a downtown anywhere. In some ways, they're just as boring as the burbs, except maybe Portland. I like being in a more low key but still dense and wooded area near everything I need and close to the downtown. I have friends here, access to nature/mountains, bars, restaurants, fiber, it's chill. If I made more money, I'd use it to live here, if housing was more reasonable, or rent more slace if I felt that was a sensible move.

Not to say I won't move or even move out of country, maybe even for a job, but I'm not arbitrarily chasing career numbers, it hollows a person. Probably best would be a small team remotely for a U.S company billing in USD

Mike, you seem to have a sore-on for Canada. I am sorry.

Just want to see my country do well. Unfortunately it's mediocre. First step to changing that is realizing it's mediocre.

It's mediocre, but for me, that's acceptable. Having spent significant time in the US, I'll take the mediocrity over the faux-meritocracy.

Fair, I don't like everything about the US but I do wish we had a bit more of their hustle and ambition. And maybe held our politicians to account for the way our institutions are crumbling.

> And maybe held our politicians to account for the way our institutions are crumbling.

It's strange to hear this complaint after a comparison to the States. I would dare say a vainglorious attitude doesn't seem to be helping.

That point is different than the other point. If you're not Canadian you wouldn't know that all our government institutions are way worse than they were, say, 10 years ago. Trying to access healthcare, trying to contact the CRA, trying to get a passport, etc... All these institutions have gone to shit fairly recently.

My experience is that these institutions were largely fine pre-COVID, certainly I never had any issue getting seen at Service Canada or contacting the CRA. Things have certainly gotten worse in the last 3 years, but it seems likely that these are the same pressures causing issues in other comparable nations. The UK passport office, for example, is struggling in much the same way [0], and I believe that is also true elsewhere in Europe.

[0] - https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-62378144

I am Canadian, and as bpye notes - it seems to be COVID pressure explaining the slowdown for those systems. I'm also unsure how "a bit more of their hustle and ambition" would get you your passport faster - hustle and ambition are famously not part of ANY government anywhere.

They're two separate points.

1. Other countries have more ambition, hustle and grit on a cultural level.

2. Our institutions are decaying.

Maybe let's add a few more.

3. Oligarchs run the country.

4. People don't care and will defend our mediocrity.

Separate points. But all pertinent.

Also, in many ways, the attitude from our government does shape cultural attitudes as our federal government is by far the largest employer in the country.

But what do you want it to be? Ambition about what? Relentless capitalism bums me out and grinds ppl down.

Kind of sad to equate culture with capitalistic endeavour. There’s a lot more to the world than that.

>Canadian society and culture is generally incapable of excellence.

Avro Arrow? ATI? Yoshua Bengio?

Trailer Park Boys - the best TV show of all time.

Best medical cannabis

Love Canadian cosmetics

I'd say these examples would partially prove their point, the first being defunct since 1962, and the second having been acquired by AMD (an American company) for over 15 years. For Yoshua, well this excerpt from Wikipedia may be useful here:

"In October 2016, Bengio co-founded Element AI, a Montreal-based artificial intelligence incubator that turns AI research into real-world business applications. Having failed to develop marketable products and losing several partnerships, by 2020 the company was running out of money and options and announced its sale to American software company ServiceNow in November. The sale will see largely Canadian taxpayer funded intellectual property exported to the United States, contrary to Bengio's desire to found Element AI as a Canadian company to rival the world's tech giants. Bengio will stay employed as an advisor while the vast majority of employees were terminated with their stock options voided and cancelled with no value in lieu provided."

Damn. Bengio!? I thought the dude had integrity. Why did he not threaten to resign if those employees weren’t at least somewhat compensated?

Well more recently we have startups like Shopify and Wealthsimple? D-Wave is also Canadian. Canadian game studios produce some of the most critically acclaimed titles, studios like Relic, BioWare, Eidos-Montreal, etc - admittedly many of these were either started as subsidiaries or have since been acquired, but the talent absolutely exists in Canada.

As someone else has mentioned, Canada has 1/10th the population of the USA, less still compared to the EU, and about 1/2th of the UK. I wouldn't say we do badly...

There's a 10:1 population ratio of US to Canada. Do they expect 1:1 results? That'd be pretty extraordinary.

It's now 8.5:1.

The Royal Canadian Mint seems to be pretty on the bleeding edge of their industry.

Matrox was a leader in PC graphics before 3D acceleration happened.