Brain drain—the concept of educating local or imported intellectual talent only to lose it to a more competitive foreign market—has always been a problem for Canada.
The “why” behind our Brain Drain is not because Canada sucks or whatever. Our blessing and our curse is that we share a very long border with the United States of America, who boasts what is by far the world’s largest technology sector.
Indeed, nearly 90% of the total global market cap of technology companies is held by the US. And they tend to pay a lot more than Canadian firms do.
It’s not a difficult border for Canadians to cross, either.
But does the situation have to keep getting worse, as it has been? Following a decade of Liberal leadership, Canada’s Brain Drain has gone from “minor inconvenience” to “major crisis.” Many are expressing concern.
After Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigned in disgrace earlier this month, notable professionals across Canada’s tech scene have been speaking up as to the severity of the nation’s current state—and how to correct course moving forward.
“Every time you let the standards slip, you set new standards,” Tobi Lutke recently warned in a post on X, referring to rising chaos in Canada during Trudeau’s term. “We are at the end of a long downwards spiral of standards slipping.”
Canadian entrepreneur Lutke, who runs Ottawa’s Shopify—the second-biggest traded company in Canada—has long been critical of the Liberal party’s mismanagement of tech, talent, and innovation.
Last year, for example, he blasted the 2024 Budget for its nonsensical taxation on entrepreneurship.
And Lutke is hardly alone.
Vancouver venture capitalist Boris Wertz, who needs no introduction, also took to X this month to lament “how disastrous [Justin Trudeau’s] economic policy has been for [Canada] since he came into power in 2015.”
Wertz pointed to “four simple charts” that show how Canada has veered further away from the US since 2016 on key metrics such as business investment and productivity per capita. Canada is stuck in the sand, he posits, while our next-door neighbour “is on a growth tear.” Each chart from Wertz reveals a widening gap that spells out trouble for our nation.
It is not all doom and gloom, though. With Trudeau’s failed reign finally in the rearview, a wave of optimism is now pouring over Canadian tech.
“I know of so many entrepreneurs, builders, and investors that are excited about helping get [Canada] back on track [and] working with a new government lead by [Pierre Poilievre],” the entrepeneur-turned-VC Wertz stated.
“2025 will be epic,” Lutke said over Christmas.
Whether with or without Trudeau, Canada will not eliminate its Brain Drain problem overnight. The issue is not small or simple enough for a single swift measure to solve.
But the experts do appear to agree that fixing the root causes of our nation’s basic problems will once again ignite an era of innovation and investment throughout the country—which is the first step (of many) toward addressing Brain Drain and maximizing the depth, breadth, and loyalty of our highly educated local tech talent pool.
