In a scenario where more YC companies set up shop in Vancouver, and US investors follow to bet on the next Slack up here, then this will naturally change as a function of supply/demand.
Yes, but you get healthcare and being non-white isn't illegal, so that helps.
Also - not really? The highest federal tax bracket in Canada is 33%. The highest in the states is 39%. The highest provincial rate in BC is 12% and that's about the same as California. I'm sure there's a lot of variation depending on an individual's situation, but you're really deluding yourself if you think American taxes are low, for the shit deal you guys get.
Yes, but you get healthcare and being non-white isn't illegal, so that helps.
That made me chuckle. You think Canada doesn't have racists? Good lord.
And sure, if you just look at the income tax rates BC looks reasonable. Of course, if you look closer at the actual income brackets for each rate, it looks very different. That doesn't even include the sales tax (up to 15% in some provinces), taxes on alcohol, gas, etc.
I was being facetious, and yes, we do absolutely have racists, and yes, most of the people in our prisons are not white (they're First Nations, in our case).
Even so, we don't quite have the same legal system that seems to systematically lock up non-white people in bulk. A lower percentage of our population is in jail, they stay in for less time, and we have less violent crime overall. If you aren't white, I feel confident in saying you'll feel welcome here and won't get arrested for walking down the wrong street along at night.
I'm sure Canada has had several such incidents (some that happened more recently than 17 years ago), but I'd wager that you're still safer here from the police (across the board, but especially for minorities), than you are in the U.S.
Frankly, seen from Europe, most things 'police', 'safety', 'justice' are nothing short of wtf-grade in the US. It's surreal, it's one of the closest thing there is to dystopia (of the wrong kind) in the west. Arguably SF/Bay is a bit of an island (even politically) but still deeply embedded in the rather 'extreme' US culture.
By comparison Canada, much like Sweden or Switzerland here, feels like a pretty 'normal' country overall, much more reasonable in many regards. And it's safer there's no question about it.
I was a bit emphatic because I'm considering the general culture, i.e. beyond (thus before) current news stories.
A couple examples. Keep in mind none of this is absolute, with close to a billion people involved in this comparison there's bound to be a bunch of counter-examples. My anecdotal and very subjective perception is by no means 'reality', at least not yours, not necessarily.
Ok, let's look at citizen <-> police rapport. Generally in the US, there's a very strict and quite 'robotic', not to say dehumanizing (perhaps both for the citizen and the agents...) process, which can appear quite shocking to foreigners --being forced to put hands on the car, etc. There is a very strongly enforced sense of authority (what Kelsen called "monopoly of violence" of the State, here materialized through the Police) in the way State-emanating agents operate and interact with the population in the US. To many european people, it seems a bit "too much", or too military-like, perhaps brutal or violent on a psychological if not physical level.
At the same time, considering the kind of shit that happened during the last century in the US (gangs, mobs, etc.), you have to understand logically why all of this has evolved as such; it probably was a response to a both very organized and diffuse menace. I'm not sure the intensity of crime has been felt as strongly in Europe generally since WWII, aside from localized places/events obviously (war theatres such as Serbia or Ireland, etc.) --again this is a very general impression of major cities during peace time.
That's actually another "thing" that sets aside the US from Europe: war. I can only speak from a personal point of view but it seems to me that the toll of war (how many young people become soldier, the whole challenge of supporting a large veteran population, the actual cost relatively to other endeavors, and perhaps most importantly the general culture that it brings to a society) is relatively heavy, at least enough to be felt, to shape individuals thus society on a high-level --it's not the end all be all of course, but it's something, it matters. I'd love to hear feedback, actually. If my country had been at war for essentially as long as I'd been alive, I'm not sure I'd feel as safe as I do right now in my lively coastal city in the south of France --a probable SF clone as far as the weather is concerned.
So I'm not considering the hype at all, I'm generally comparing these two continents, over the anecdotal and admittedly little perception 20 years of travelling infrequently between the two let me appreciate (from age 12 to now, 34, I must have spent about a year overall in the US, always as a tourist).
It goes without saying that the EU also has its fair share of 'wtf' moments, and the situation has degraded quite rapidly in recent years (especially in regards to racism and racial 'profiling' and everything it entails, regardless of the actual nationality of individuals --judging a book by its cover and all that). It also goes without saying that there are far more 'wtf' places in this world than the US.
To put a final nuance to all this, on a personal level I have no problem living in the US --all of this is cultural and I can adapt. I could also talk about hundreds of very cordial and even enjoyable encounters with the Police all over the States, I think that's the most common case actually. It's just that when it goes 'wtf', well it does so in a rather dystopic hollywood style... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You sure about that? Canada is, 78% white, 92% white + asian, only 1.2% hispanic and only 2.9% black. 700 million hispanics in the Americas, and Canada somehow only has ~300,000. The US is around 15%-16% black by comparison, and 20% or more hispanic. Sure sounds like it may be illegal to be non-white in Canada, how else to explain the lack of diversity?
$100,000 USD, $200,000 USD, and $400,000 USD, you will pay:
$32,000, $69,000, and $159,000 in taxes in California.
$28,000, $73,500, $169,000 in taxes in BC.
But that's just income tax. There's also Social Security/Unemployment Insurance contributions. In the US, 13%[1] of your salary up to $130,000 will go to social security contributions. In Canada, 10% of your salary, up to $40,000 USD will go towards the CPP and Unemployment Insurance.
So, at the $100,000 USD salary, you will pay $45,000 in taxes in California. In BC, you will pay $32,000 in taxes.
At $200,000 USD, you will pay $86,000 in taxes in California. In BC, you will pay... $77,500.
At pretty much every tax bracket, you will pay more taxes in California, and get less for them, then you would in BC. As it turns out, maintaining twelve super-aircraft carrier groups is expensive.
Mind you, BC is not all flowers and roses. The provincial government runs the place with all the integrity and forward-thinking of a banana republic.
[1] Yes, your employer pays half of it. That money would have otherwise gone towards your salary.
That's a common misconception. I paid more in US + California taxes than Canada + Ontario taxes at the same company, same salary, when I moved location.
I'm skeptical, because both Ontario and the feds have raised the higher tax brackets in the last few years, plus the dollar is around 74 cents to the US dollar now.
