Canada Needs a Good Startup Visa – Open Letter to Federal Government

Ben, it’s a good initiative and a realistic proposition given the current framework of immigration laws. However, the bigger question should be over how useful and relevant those immigration laws should be.

As an aside, Canada actually has a relatively good immigration framework. If you are educated, have some experience and are healthy, it’s relatively straightforward to obtain permanent residence here, although it can take a ridiculous amount of time. Compared to the US, where you really need to buy your way in with $500,000 to invest, Canada is a much more attractive proposition to entrepreneurs.

Time is the issue with startups though – you don’t want to wait around for that and in the meantime you need a mechanism for getting into the country. Canada can’t produce enough entrepreneurs on its own, but we’re an attractive place for others to immigrate, even Americans. And we know at the end of the day that wealth is created by entrepreneurs through job creation, etc.

Interesting topic and corresponding comment thread. I’m no expert but the role of immigration is about “control.” Being a controlled pathway to manage how many people immigrate compared to a wide variety of factors, such as labor demand, skill shortage etc. The US is horrendously complicated on most levels of immigration (I worked in NYC for 2 years) and Canada puts it to shame for simply laid out pathways, either family, humanitarian, investor, skilled worker. It’s relatively easy to come in on skilled worker, either based on your skills, experience and education (if you have no job lined up) or a company to sponsor you (by saying they cannot find anyone in Canada who could do your job)

Entrepreneur would be different and unless strictly controlled, way open to abuse. I agree that Canada needs to attract more outside entrepreneurs, however there still has to be some bench marks. Entry level or first stage would typically have no established product or company, would probably lack money and only 10% would succeed. A horror story for Immigration Canada to open the doors to a large number of “maybe’s.” Some people say an “entrepreneur” is the “writer” of the 1980s. In other words “oh your unemployed.” Judgmental, but that’s the reality.

Turning this on its head, the more important question should be “how many successful entrepreneurs want to move to Canada?” If the demand is there and there is evidence that skilled and experienced entrepreneurs would in turn create jobs then I am sure the proposal would be looked at.

Conrad – totally understand the concerns you’re bringing up, but I think the Startup Visa Canada proposal is focusing on entrepreneurs that have raised $150,000 minimum in Canadian investment. So that’s going to eliminate a lot of people.

I also agree that it’s quite easy to come into Canada as a skilled worker, getting a company to sponsor you, but there are some issues there if you’re really coming in to start a company. If you’re coming into Canada to start a company (especially one in an area that we know is interesting to a global audience – like tech), we should find ways to make sure those people can get into the country more easily to establish their businesses.

So what can we do to attract more entrepreneurs to Canada (or Montreal)? Now that I have come back to Montreal after working in the US for a while, the prominence of talent and creativity in this city really hits me. However, you have to dig deep. Who promotes Montreal on a wider scale outside of Canada as a startup hub, even if for talent to start off with? Maybe then the people with money and ideas will come. EA and Ubisoft would have packed up a long time ago if there was a lack of skills. Is it that current ideas and start-ups are weak outside of Canada? Is it lack of IPO’d startups in news from our great city/country?

Ben, yes I totally agree with you about the time factor. A few years ago, federal immigration lead times were around 4 years, which is just inhuman. Québec was advantageous at around 12 months, but a lot can happen in tech in 12 months!

I would argue that most entrepreneurs that are building a start-up, and have attracted funding, would easily meet the minimum requirements for skilled worker entry, so even if the start-up goes tits-up, they would be a valuable immigrant for Canada.

On a slight tangent, I heard that most start-ups in silicon valley are started by immigrants. I may be biased, but it takes a lot of guts to leave your family, friends, support network and country to emigrate. Those kinds of guts can translate into the guts you need to build a start-up. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to formally make that connection?

The current US attitude to immigration is certainly to its disadvantage. I’ve also heard that Canada is activity looking for dissatisfied US temporary immigrants and offering them PR in Canada. It’s a good move on the federal government’s part.

Canada is “easy” to immigrate to. The problem isn’t qualifying, it’s the _time_ it takes to process all the paperwork. 6 months to go through a 5-step process for a work permit, or 3 years of many intermediate steps for permanent residence, is a prohibitively long time for a young ambitious professional. Don’t introduce yet another scheme, fix the ones that are already in place.

[...] or blogged about the StartupVisa.ca efforts (unlike Mark MacLeod, Financial Post, HackerNews, NextMontreal, TechVibes and others). I agree with the efforts in principle. I think changing the immigration [...]

Conrad – besides being complex, the US system has also become long. Witness the fact that H visa holders qualify for additional years besides the standard six (3 to start, 3 to renew) if they are awaiting an application for permanent residence. In crowded areas, it can take up to ten years and if your job lasts that long (note that the application is tied to your job … the same job until your green card arrives), I have heard stories in the tech sector where people have wound up working for their former interns by the end of the process …

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