How Canada is trying to capitalise on Trump’s executive order
SAN FRANCISCO: Vancouver long has sought a share of Silicon Valley’s magic. With President Trump moving to curb immigration and the US tech industry in open revolt, the friendly, functional Canadian city may finally get its wish.
Tech companies that keep satellite offices in Vancouver, just a two-hour flight from San Francisco, are exploring whether to move more jobs over the border. Immigration lawyers are reporting a steep uptick in inquiries. And a new start-up is offering to smooth the way, for US$ 6,000 ( RM27,000) a person, for foreign-born tech workers worried their US visas may disappear.
“The global implications are dire,” said Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson of the unrest in the United States. “But it may result in more workers coming to Vancouver to be part of the boom here in a city that welcomes immigrants with open arms.”
Vancouver is not the only foreign city part of these conversations. Portuguese officials in Lisbon created a fast track for Indian entrepreneurs last month. Intercom, an Irish technology start-up, offered to pay the legal costs of developers who had been impacted by Trump’s immigration policies if they would move to Ireland.
Tech executives say their first choice remains overturning or softening Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries as well as a reported plan to cut back the numbers of new work visas. But there is an open search for other options as companies long reliant on highly skilled foreigners move to protect their access to those workers.
In interviews, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists said it was ironic that a businessfriendly president would inflict damage on one of the nation’s most lucrative industries.
“If you’re a technologist, then San Francisco right now is Florence in the Renaissance,” said Matthew Prince, chief executive of Cloudflare, a tech company with 400 employees, mostly in San Francisco. “Unfortunately, if we make it harder to bring the best employees here, that runs the risk of changing the centre of gravity. And I don’t think that’s in the best interests of this country.”
For the talent- obsessed Silicon Valley, where an estimated onethird of the workforce is foreignborn and people are acutely aware of the fleeting nature of the success, these are much-feared outcomes. In a coordinated move opposing the ban, about 100 technology companies, including Google, Facebook, Netflix and Apple, argued in a legal filing Sunday night that restricting immigration damages US competitiveness.
“Instability and uncertainty” caused by the executive orders “will make it far more difficult and expensive for US companies to hire some of the world’s best talent - and impede them from competing in the global marketplace,” the companies wrote.
Yan-David Erlich, chief executive of Parsable, a 30-person start-up, was on a trip to Mexico with several colleagues last month when Trump announced his travel ban, which has since been tied up in legal challenges.
Erlich - an immigrant from France, where his parents moved after fleeing the Holocaust - said he felt like the United States had changed during the few days he was away. One-third of his workforce is comprised of immigrants, and to make matters worse, two workers were carefully questioned at the airport upon their return from Mexico. One of the few bright spots, Erlich said, was that Parsable already had an office in Vancouver and could easily expand it.
“We didn’t create that office as a backup plan,” said Erlich, 38, adding that he opened it last year to bypass a slow and burdensome US visa process. “We wanted to access world-wide talent, and frankly that is easier to do in Canada than in the US. But now we have US-based employees who see it as a safe haven.”
Vancouver, which already has 75,000 tech jobs and onethird of its office space devoted to the industry, has certain unmistakable advantages: It shares a time zone, a similar culture and easy travel links to US tech hubs, with Seattle less than 150 miles away. Vancouver also offers access to skiing, hiking and boating - a combination popular with tech workers in the San Francisco Bay Area and Pacific Northwest.
But Vancouver also has drawbacks: Housing is even more expensive than San Francisco. The Canadian city also lacks a sizable eco- system of venture capitalists that entrepreneurs rely on to back their ideas. — WP-Bloomberg