5 Reasons to Found a Startup in Canada

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Andrew D’Souza is chief revenue officer at Top Hat Monocle, a web based classroom response system. Follow him at @andrewdsouza.

When RIM co-founder and former University of Waterloo Chancellor Mike Lazaridis handed me my degree four years ago, the world was a very different place. BlackBerry was the world leader in smartphones, its stock was at a record high, and the company was clearly seated as the crown jewel of Canada’s tech ecosystem. It was undeniable proof that the country could build a world-class tech company.

Today, well, things have changed. Canadian Business published RIM’s obituary, and according to University of Toronto Business Professor Joseph D’Cruz, Canadian entrepreneurs “should not dance with the giants” of Silicon Valley.

But that rather broad response may have been a bit premature. In fact, a wave of recent exits to high profile U.S. buyers has put Canada back on the radar of investors. It’s hard to go to a startup or VC event these days without feeling an iron ring on the other side of a handshake. But then that’s part of a growing trend of big money coming Canada’s way. Not convinced? Then here are five other reasons why entrepreneurs should consider setting up shop in Canada.

1. Talent

Canadian universities consistently graduate some of the world’s top technical talent, but the competition to attract them is much less intense. You don’t have Google and Facebook offering astronomical starting salaries for engineers right out of school. You’re not always looking over your shoulder at Wall Street, worrying that they’ll take your best data analysts once the markets pick up.

RIM’s success was driven by brilliant technologists and marketers, while its demise was due to hubris and poor decisions by key executives. The talent responsible for the company’s growth doesn’t just vanish because the company falls apart. They are freed to do bigger and better things. Kik’s Ted Livingston is a prime example of this (although RIM did try suing him in the early days). Former RIM exec, Dennis Kavelman, has also joined high-growth education company Desire2Learn.

2. Investor Interest

Too much money chasing too few good ideas and teams in Silicon Valley has led savvy investors to look elsewhere for promising investment opportunities. As a result, many high-profile Silicon Valley and East Coast investors have recently placed big bets on Canadian companies.

The historical funding environment in Canada has forced founders to do more with less and avoid the bad habits of many of their better-funded counterparts. In general, any Canadian startup that has been around for more than a year probably has a pretty sound business model and decent traction. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to keep the lights on. These characteristics are becoming more appealing to investors, as many of them have been burned by high growth consumer web flame outs.

3. Immigration

Canada’s economic growth has been built through immigration and its immigration policy reflects that. Canada doesn’t arbitrarily limit the number of qualified people allowed into the country to 65,000 per year. Canadians understand that immigration is a major driver of economic growth, and the country actively solicits immigrants. Canada’s government is also improving its immigration policy to make it easier for highly skilled and younger immigrants to enter the country, including piloting a startup visa. This means that it is far easier to bring technical talent into the country and build your team in Canada, and it will continue to getting easier.

That said, Canada still has an accreditation issue in many fields (and still have doctors driving taxis), but it will take as many IT engineers who want to help build its startups as it can get.

4. A Launchpad for the World

Largely a function of Canada’s immigration policy, the demographics of Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal are about as heterogeneous as they come. This means that your early customers often have a variety of biases, so consumer products which do well in Canada often don’t need to change very much to do well around the world.

Canadian startups also don’t face the “valley effect” where ideas that seem to be growing like mad between San Jose and San Francisco quickly lose steam as they land in front of the more skeptical parts of the world.

One look at Quora for opinions on the hottest Canadian startups yields many strong B2B players: Shopify, HootSuite, Wave Accounting, FreshBooks, Desire2Learn, and VidYard are a few. Even the B2C companies like Kik either have healthy revenues or massive traction.

If your product works well in a major Canadian metro, there’s a good chance it scales well to most of North America, and large parts of the world.

5. Government Support

Canada’s government does more to support innovation than any other developed country. From rebates for R&D investment to very favorable tax treatment for capital gains for private company shareholders, Canada has shown a commitment to supporting startups.

And that commitment appears to be gaining steam. The government has allocated $400 million to bolster the VC ecosystem in Canada. While this may seem like a drop in the bucket (the equivalent of one mid-sized Silicon Valley fund), if allocated wisely, it could have a tremendous impact and effectively signal to the world that Canada is open for business.

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Visa Office Cuts Blamed For Foreign Student Delays

International Students HAN University part 4 o...
International Students HAN University part 4 of 4 on Vimeo (Photo credit: Hans on Experience)

Universities are noticing more international students than usual are facing delays getting visas, and some are blaming the government cutbacks to visa offices abroad.

Zhaohui Wong, manager of enrolment at the University of Prince Edward Island, works with a growing number of international students. Last year one in every 10 students on campus came from overseas. Wong said a certain number of delayed arrivals is normal.

"For different reasons they come late, some visas, some airfare things," said Wong.

"This year I notice we have quite a few more visa delays."

Wong isn't sure yet how many international students will be late, but UPEI isn't the only university with visa problems. He's heard about similar problems in Nova Scotia, British Columbia and Ontario. At UBC at least 100 students will not be able to start school until January, and the university is blaming the closure of visa services in Germany, Japan, Iran, Malaysia and Bangladesh.

UPEI nursing student Chisom Ukasanya made it to Charlottetown on time, but she waited three months for her visa. It came just the day before she was supposed to leave Nigeria.

All the while she worried about missing the school year, and having to start over.


"It's just really long and it's frustrating, and you're just home doing nothing every day," said Ukasanya.

UPEI is coming up with contingency plans, contacting professors and setting up tutors so students can get caught up and hopefully not miss a semester whenever they finally arrive.

Citizenship and Immigration Canada said while it has closed some offices, it's exceeding target times for processing student visas.



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Scotiabank announces Partnership with Bank of Xi'an

English: Scotia Plaza
English: Scotia Plaza (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Canada Newswire
Helping newcomers start the financial transition to Canada while still in China
TORONTO, Sept. 7, 2012 /CNW/ - Scotiabank, Canada's most international bank, has reached an agreement with the Bank of Xi'an, a leading financial institution in China, to help ease the financial transition of immigrants, international students and foreign workers to Canada before they leave China.
"We are in more than 55 countries around the world and have been proud to work in China for over 20 years," said Winnie Leong, Vice-President of Multicultural Banking, Scotiabank. "Based on our international experience we have a strong understanding of what a complicated and important decision it is to move to a new country. When newcomers arrive in Canada, one of their top priorities is finding a financial institution. Through our new partnership with Bank of Xi'an, we are able to give immigrants, foreign workers and students peace of mind by helping them establish a Canadian banking relationship before they emigrate to Canada."
Scotiabank currently owns a minority stake in the Bank of Xi'an. Under this co-operation agreement with the Bank of Xi'an, Chinese immigrants, international students and foreign workers planning to move to Canada are able to open an account with Scotiabank through 10 participating Bank of Xi'an locations in Xi'an, China. Once in Canada, customers can visit their local Scotiabank branch to activate their accounts, apply for a credit card and take advantage of additional benefits included in the Scotiabank StartRight Program, Scotiabank's banking package designed for newcomers to Canada.
"This new partnership is a natural extension to our eight year relationship with Scotiabank," said Zhishun Liu, Vice-President, Bank of Xi'an. "We look forward to offering our guidance and assistance to a wide range of customers here in China that are looking to begin the financial part of their lives in Canada."
Scotiabank's business in China also includes a partnership with China Everbright Bank (CEB), which began in 2009. Through this partnership, immigrants and international students moving to Canada can open an account with Scotiabank through any participating CEB branches in 33 cities across China.
The Scotiabank StartRight international account opening program is also available in select Scotiabank branches in Mexico and India, and through India's Kotak Mahindra Bank.
To learn more about the Scotiabank StartRight Program, please visit www.scotiabank.com/startright or call             1-866-800-5159       (from North America) or 008 800 8800 5159 (from Mainland China).
About the Scotiabank StartRight Program for Newcomers Launched in 2008, the Scotiabank StartRight Program for Newcomers was created for Canadian Landed Immigrants from 0-3 years in Canada, International Students and Foreign Workers.  The Scotiabank StartRight Program provides the right advice and financial solutions to help newcomers plan their future in Canada.  For more details on the Scotiabank StartRight Program, please visit www.scotiabank.com/startright.
About Scotiabank Scotiabank is one of North America's premier financial institutions and Canada's most international bank. With more than 81,000 employees, Scotiabank and its affiliates serve some 19 million customers in more than 55 countries around the world. Scotiabank offers a broad range of products and services including personal, commercial, corporate and investment banking. With assets of $670 billion (as at July 31, 2012), Scotiabank trades on the Toronto (BNS) and New York Exchanges (BNS). For more information please visit www.scotiabank.com.
About Bank of Xi'an Bank of Xi'an Co., Ltd., a joint-equity commercial bank, was founded in May 1997, whose shareholders include Xi'an Municipal Finance Bureau, the Bank of Nova Scotia, China Cinda Asset Management Co., Ltd., domestic large and medium-sized enterprises, and individual investors. As a leading regional commercial bank, the Bank has one branch and 113 sub-branches and owns two rural banks, providing full financial services in Chinese western area. It has 2300 employees, CNY102.3bn total assets, CNY76.3bn deposits, and CNY44.6bn loans at the end of 2011. The featured services and products of the Bank include "Golden Silk Road", "Profit Power", " Global Golden Line of Credit", and "E-credit line." In 2012, the Bank was ranked No. 632 by the Banker magazine on its "Top 1000 World Banks."




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Program Trains Recent Canadian Immigrants for Oil and Gas Jobs



Canada’s shortage of workers with the skills needed to service its oil and gas industry and the higher than average unemployment rate of recent immigrants are both being addressed by a new Alberta program that provides oil drilling training for recent immigrants to help them get jobs in the province’s oil-patch.

The Oil and Gas Training Program (OGTP) was created by the Calgary Catholic Immigration Society which administers it jointly with Enform, a Western Canadian oil and gas safety association created by major upstream oil and gas companies.

The latest class of 16 trainees graduated last week after completion of the 15-week training program. The skills they acquired will enable them to get entry-level positions in Alberta’s oil and gas industry, which has a pressing need for workers to expand oil sands projects in northeastern Alberta.

Data emerging over the last several years showing a growing income gap between recent immigrants and the general population since the 1970s has prompted non-governmental immigrant serving organizations and governments at different levels to look to find ways to improve the employment prospects of immigrants.

This entry was posted in Canadian economy, canadian immigration, Canadian job market, Federal Skilled Trades Program, Federal Skilled Trades Worker, jobs and tagged Alberta jobs, Athabasca oil sands, Calgary Catholic Immigration Society, Enform, Fort McMurray, Oil and Gas Training Program (OGTP) by CICS News Team. Bookmark the permalink.

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Foreign doctors learning new careers in Canada

Dr. Brian Kwon recognized for bringing clinica...
Dr. Brian Kwon recognized for bringing clinical renown to Vancouver Hospital at the Vancouver Vancouver Medical, Dental & Allied Staff Awards 2011 (Photo credit: Vancouver Coastal Health)

Ottawa program helps difficult adjustment for foreign-trained doctors
CBC News Posted: Sep 6, 2012 8:02 AM

An Ottawa agency is helping foreign-trained doctors find jobs in the medical field after cuts to a government-run program that used to help the new immigrants transfer their skills to Canada's health-care system.

Fareeq Samim has to support a family of five, which means he can't go back to complete almost a decade of education re-learning how to be a doctor. (Laurie Fagan/CBC)
The Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa says the program cuts came in the most recent budgets for the Ontario and federal governments. But the need for training and skills development is still there, the centre says, with about 800 foreign-trained doctors in Ottawa alone who have not been licensed to practise in Canada.

So the centre's job developers are even busier now in their dedication to helping these trained professionals in their job search, as well as adjusting to cultural differences in the workplace.

Farouq Samim is one of the most recent graduates of the program. Samim was a trauma doctor in Afghanistan who also recently completed a master's degree in Ottawa.

Tough lessons to accept
Supporting a family of five, Samim said he does not have enough time or money to restart medical school in Canada.

That means he has had to come to terms with a new career in the medical field, which he trains for with skills learned at the Catholic centre.

"Basically, the program makes us recognize ourselves," Samim said, "For me, I didn't know about some of my transferable skills."

Bonita Varga says value-added skills will be important for the program graduates to add their expertise to the Canadian health-care system. (Laurie Fagan/CBC)
He has improved his skills in conducting research and other related skills in the medical field, Samim said.

The lessons taught in the Ottawa program are not easy to instil in foreign-trained doctors, though, according to one job developer. Many of those coming to Canada want to practise what they have learned in their home countries.

The adaptation can be an arduous process.

"It's harder to just say, 'OK, take off that MD hat and put on a different hat.' It's not fair and it's really frustrating for them," said Bonita Varga, who helps teach the doctors at the Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa.

New perspective
But Wen Qin, an endocrinologist — a doctor who studies human glands and hormones — from Shanghai has tried to take positives out of her new life in Canada.

She has also learned new transferable research skills, as well as figuring out more about her life goals.

"I don't value it as how famous you are or how much money you have, but my inner peace and inner happiness," said Wen, who also just completed a PhD in endocrinology.

Both Qin and Samim are currently searching for jobs in the medical field.

Source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/story/2012/09/06/ottawa-foreign-doctors-learn-new-medical-jobs-in-canada.html

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Scotiabank teams up with Kotak Mahindra Bank in India to offer services to new immigrant

English: A branch of Scotiabank on Highway 7 i...
English: A branch of Scotiabank on Highway 7 in Hastings, Christ Church, Barbados. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

TORONTO — Scotiabank says it has signed a deal with Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. in India to provide banking services to people emigrating to Canada and to Indo-Canadians seeking services in India.

Under the deal, select Kotak Mahindra Bank branches will offer Canadian-bound Indian residents with access to Scotiabank services.

In Canada, select Scotiabank branches will help customers seeking bank accounts in India by referring them to Kotak Mahindra Bank.

In addition to its new partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank, Scotiabank offers an international account opening program in select Scotiabank branches in India and Mexico and through China Everbright Bank in China.

Kotak Mahindra Bank has over 375 branches across India.

Scotiabank and its affiliates serve some 19 million customers in more than 55 countries.



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Nunavut mining rush attracts China-backed MMG Add to ...

English: Nunavut Territory within Canada. Espa...
English: Nunavut Territory within Canada. Español: Territorio de Nunavut en Canadá. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

PAV JORDAN - MINING REPORTER
The Globe and Mail


China-backed base metals producer MMG Ltd. is staking its claim in an industry race to the Canadian Arctic, filing plans to build two mines in Nunavut in the next six years.

MMG, which recently changed its name from Minmetals Resources Ltd., said on Tuesday it had submitted a project proposal for the Izok Corridor project – comprising the Izok Lake and High Lake deposits – to the Nunavut Impact Review Board and other authorizing agencies, starting a process that could see production as early as the last quarter of 2018.


Like other miners from Canada and abroad, MMG is looking for ways to grow as global resources become more scarce, and it is one of many global players with boots on the ground in Nunavut, where highly prospective geology boasts diverse deposits from uranium to iron ore, copper, zinc, gold, silver and even diamonds.

“There are a lot of minerals there, it is packed,” said Patricia Mohr, Scotiabank’s commodity economist in Toronto and a keynote speaker at the annual Nunavut Mining Symposium in Iqaluit, the territorial capital.

“I call Nunavut Canada’s new mining frontier, and there are many projects there that are under way,” she said.

The Izok Corridor, east of Nunavut’s Bathurst Inlet in the Kitikmeot Region of the territory, is expected to produce 180,000 tonnes of zinc in concentrate and 50,000 tonnes of copper in concentrate per year once in production. More impressive than the size of the deposits is the grade – 12-per-cent zinc and 2.5-per-cent copper – at Izok Lake, with similar grades at High Lake.

By comparison, global mining giants such as Chile’s Codelco are embarking on copper projects with grades below 1 per cent in some cases.

MMG spokesman Troy Hey said that “if everything goes to plan,” Izok Lake could come on line just as it winds up operations at its Century mine, Australia’s largest zinc producer, some five years from now.

The project proposal for Izok Corridor is one of the initial regulatory requirements for the project, and follows a successful pre-feasibility study last year. A definitive feasibility study was started in 2012 and will take from 18 to 24 months to complete.

“The two deposits are fantastic, it’s just the infrastructure challenges of that region that make it a very challenging project,” Mr. Hey said by phone from Australia.

Mining is not new to Nunavut. The underground Polaris zinc mine in the territory was closed in 2002 after more than 20 years of production. Agnico-Eagle Mines Ltd.’s Meadowbank gold mine in the Kivalliq region of Nunavut opened in 2010 and is the company’s largest gold producer at some 300,000 ounces per year.

But the latest rush up north promises bigger development.

On Nunavut’s Baffin Island, not far from where MMG wants to build its mines, the world’s largest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, is planning a $4-billion project to build an iron ore operation capable of supplying all Europe’s needs for more than 20 years. As well as other requirements, the owners of the Mary River project will have to build their own railway system.

Mr. Hey could not say how much it would cost to build the Izok Corridor mines, but it will likely be significant, with big-ticket items such as a 350-kilometre road to link the deposits with a new port at Grays Bay. A harsh winter and a remote location add further costs at a time when the price tag on new developments seems to grow daily and miners are keeping a close eye on slowing demand for many commodities.

MMG is also working to bring its Dugald River zinc project in northwest Queensland, Australia, into production by late 2014 or early 2015, when it expects zinc prices may have rebounded from a slump caused by a slowdown in China’s growth.

“There will be some tightness coming into the market there and it will be a good time to bring a project into production,” said Mr. Hey.

China is the world’s largest consumer of zinc, a key ingredient in making galvanized steel, which helped fuel a massive infrastructure build in the Asian giant over the past decade. But demand has slowed as urbanization efforts matured.



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Why highly educated immigrant parents choose Canada

First Canadian Place, Toronto, Canada
First Canadian Place, Toronto, Canada (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

KATE HAMMER
The Globe and Mail


Making friends won’t be easy for Aayushmaan Rana on his first day of school. Barely four weeks after flying halfway around the world, from northern India to Toronto, he knows just three people in this new country – his mom, his dad, and his sister – and speaks little English.

He’s keen to learn. Last Thursday, as a teacher at a Mississauga immigrant settlement centre explained the results of his math and English proficiency tests to his mother, 11-year-old Aayushmaan dragged a small, hot-chocolate-stained finger along the text of a picture book.


He ignored the illustrations of a toothy jungle cat and repeated the English words he could recognize, three and four times.

“Tiger... tiger... tie-gurr,” he said.

“You don’t have to memorize, just read,” his father said.

Aayushmaan is one of nearly five million elementary and secondary students who will start school on Tuesday, one of 500,000 who are foreign-born, and one of thousands who will be in a Canadian classroom for the first time. It’s a testament to the resiliency of children that, despite the challenges they face – cultural, linguistic and financial – immigrant students in this country outperform their native-born peers.

They post stronger scores on standardized math and science tests and are more likely to go on to postsecondary education. The same does not hold true for immigrants to other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom.

That’s often why highly educated families like Aayushmaan’s – his parents are university professors – choose Canada. Many arrive having studied the Fraser Institute’s rankings of Canadian schools, and enrolling their children is the priority, before finding a job, a car, or even health care.

“Education is the most important thing for most of these parents, it’s why they come here,” said Sharaline Joseph, the settlement worker who helped the Ranas at one of three We Welcome The World Centres within the Peel District School Board.

According to Statistics Canada, about 10 per cent of Canadian students were born elsewhere. In major metropolitan areas such as Vancouver and Toronto, that proportion climbs as to high at 25 per cent, including postsecondary.

In these immigration hot spots, schools often have settlement workers, and some school districts, including Toronto, Peel, Calgary and Vancouver, have welcoming centres that are sometimes the first point of contact for families newly arrived in Canada.

Teachers perform academic assessments of children going into the school system, introduce parents to the concept of snow days, show them how to register their youngsters for school, arrange transportation and find co-op and job training programs.

Over the past five years, urban school boards have seen increased need and have begun expanding these programs, which are generally funded with a combination of federal and provincial dollars.

The three welcome centres in Peel Region, west of Toronto, serve more than 4,400 people each year. The Vancouver School Board has one centralized welcome centre and a team of school-based settlement workers who assist more than 3,500 new immigrants each year. In Calgary, where immigration rates are soaring, two welcome centres and settlement workers at 24 schools served 8,000 clients last school year – a 30-per-cent increase over the year before.

While Aayushmaan and his older sister, Yashasvi, wrote exams to assess their grade level in a separate room, their parents, Kuldeep and Sarita Rana, listened intently as Ms. Joseph introduced them to new concepts such as nut allergies, parent councils and what happens when there is a snowstorm.

“So it’s okay if we call the school or ask to speak with the teacher?” said Aayushmaan’s dad.

“More than okay, that’s a good thing,” Ms. Joseph said.

“No nuts at all?” said Aayushmaan’s mom.

“None. Some children have very serious allergies to them,” Ms. Joseph said.

Most families who are new to Canada have a honeymoon period with the education system. After the novelty wears off, they notice quirks they may find less appealing.

Families from Southeast Asian countries in particular may worry that their children are devoting significantly less time to homework and memorization drills. They may balk at math assignments that direct students to show their work, or essays that ask for analysis and critical thinking rather than summarization.

Ms. Joseph remembers one immigrant mother who was disturbed when teachers encouraged her daughter to go into hotel management.

“She wasn’t convinced that that was even a career.”

Yashasvi Rana, 16, has done her own research and already knows she wants to study engineering at the University of Waterloo. She is a diligent student, a perfectionist even, and double-checked all her work throughout her three-hour academic assessment at the We Welcome The World Centre. Afterward, the family sat around a table in a nearby classroom as a teacher explained her results. Although Yashasvi aced the mathematics portion of the test, she apologized when the teacher pointed out room for improvement in her essay.

Her younger brother had a much tougher time in his two-hour assessment. He studied English back in India, and his cursive writing is perfect, although he barely speaks or understands the language. In Ontario’s elementary schools, children are placed according to age, rather than ability, so Aayushmaan will begin Grade 6 on Tuesday. This was a surprise for the Ranas, because their youngest hasn’t been in Grade 5 yet, and was sick with pneumonia for much of Grade 4.

He’ll need extra support from his classroom teacher and his parents.

For all the difficulties of settling into a new school, in a new country, in a foreign tongue, Aayushmaan and his sister were both anxious for the new school year to start. Asked for his impression of Canadian schools, the youngest Rana opened his eyes wide behind his plum-coloured wire-rimmed glasses.

“Beautiful,” he said, drawing out each syllable, and then added in Hindi that he was also impressed with how nice the hallways smell.

His sister has a different idea.

“I’ve always wanted to go to school here,” she said. “Canada is a place where everything is fair.”



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