"...and intends to initiate a visa that would be issued to people identified by venture capital funds as candidates to create startup firms in Canada."<p>Anyone else find this to be an odd way to go about it?<p>VC firms have distinctly different goals when funding companies than the people actually running the company.<p>I guess it raises some questions for me:<p>(1) Is there a floor to how much funding is required? For lack of a better term, does the start-up have to have X numbers of years of runway to qualify?
(2) What happens to the entrepreneur if the VC firms decides to turf them? Do they get to stay or are they required to leave the country?
(3) Does the entire start-up team get visas? The article mentions how the old e-ship visa has been put on hold. So if a founder gets VC funding, starts the company, but wants to bring in more foreign workers, can they?<p>Don't get me wrong, I think this is a great idea and it is exactly what the US should be doing as well. There are just a lot of unanswered questions for me and I wonder how well it will work in practice.
From what I can tell, this wouldn't help me one bit. I'm an American who would love the opportunity to found a startup in Canada. That means being there from conception to MVP. But it sounds like this plan will only allow a pretty advanced company, one that has gained the interest of VCs, to move there. If a company was founded elsewhere and was that far along, why would the team move it to Canada? Furthermore, what of startups that don't require VC money, is it really in Canada's best interest to put out the "Not Welcome" mat for them?
I think the country needs to devise a program that lets the next non-resident Jobs/Woz or Gates/Allen to set up shop in their Canadian garage and get to work without any of this VC-related nonsense here.
As a Canadian now living in Silicon Valley I think this is a perilous idea.<p>The main problem is that Canada doesn't have near enough active VC investors.<p>Hardly anywhere does, even Silicon Valley.<p>Having them be the sole gatekeepers will fall far short of what's possible.
As an immigrant and entrepreneur in Canada, I'm less than impressed by this new visa class.<p>This visa means you can work for your own company, in Canada, provided it has funding from a VC. Lets reword that a bit and it sounds like "You can work for a specific company, in Canada, provided you have an offer letter"<p>Honestly if Canada wants to do something truly innovative, they should look at the track record of applicants rather than simply saying "get a VC to sponsor you". Things like: have they received funding previously, do they have relevant experience, have they got any revenue or "traction" on their current idea, how have they validated their current idea and whats the chance of it getting funding...are all great places to start.<p>The bottom line: there are plenty of people without VC funding who Canada should welcome, and this visa offers no assistance to. Sadly if Canada doesnt let them in, someone else will, and with VCs in the US getting more comfortable with non North American investments, maybe this doesnt change anything?
As a recent Waterloo grad, 95% of my friends have moved to US (California, Seattle, NY); the problem isn't trying to attract more talent, rather building infrastructure to retain it. Honestly, I love living in Canada, but there are fewer high paying jobs and its much more difficult to get funding for startups.
A better summary of the article would be "Canada planning to make it harder for entrepreneurs to immigrate".<p>Otherwise one could think that progress is being made. Whereas it looks like Canada doesn't even want entrepreneurs; instead it wants "hot" companies to move to Canada (see VC requirement and just 2750 visas/year).
My boss was involved in preparing the draft proposal that this bill is based on. He has over a decade of experience on both sides of the VC/start up fence. His experience bringing the team that created Summify to Canada from Romania was a catalyst for this bill. Like all things, it is not perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.
Reality Check<p>Canada's backlog of (immigration) Visas is huge, and they are apparently not keeping up with it<p>Check the website and see the average delays in processing.<p>Apparently Canada has almost everything that is needed to have great startups, except the culture (and maybe the drive).