That's been my impression too. I'm trying to figure out why that is the case. Is it mainly because of laws that make it hard to fire bad employees? Payments such as unemployment benefits, social benefits, etc.? Tax code issues? Or something else entirely?
Also Canadians tend to be less ruthless (I'm not going to debate the right or wrong on this but seeing that the biggest and most successful companies are driven by ruthless people...)
Canada also has a small (but growing) market. There aren't too many big cities and big spenders.
Vancouver, while it's beautiful and nice and all that, the majority businesses tend to revolve around government agencies.
Every little bits definitely taxed startups chance to be successful.
Compare to Silicon Valley where people would almost definitely give try all-things-mobile or web2.0, Vancouverites prefer to hike, bike, enjoy foods.
All in all, Canada is still conservatives when it comes to technology.
Having said that, I was surprised to see big names in Computing technology born and bred in Canada but all moved and made it big in US. Kernighan, Gosling, Aho, Rob Pike, Rasmus Lerdorf, Kenneth Iverson, etc.
"Also Canadians tend to be less ruthless (I'm not going to debate the right or wrong on this but seeing that the biggest and most successful companies are driven by ruthless people...)"
I agree Americans are more entrepreneurial, but I don't think it's evident that ruthlessness is a desirable trait in business and think that Canada's sane public policy in taxation and health care makes it better to live and hire in Canada than the United States. The problem as parent-post says is that if you need venture capital you simply won't find it, so businesses have to focus on revenue rather than offering free online services.
As far as academia goes, my experience is that when it comes to undergraduate education Canadian universities are better or equal to their American counterparts. But the States have better graduate programs and better endowments at the top-end, so a good student can get a free ride in the States and return to Canada with a prestigious foreign degree that will carry more weight in the job search and that reflects more cutting-edge research. Their counterparts who stay in Canada will conversely have to self-fund graduate work and do more teaching work for lower pay, often getting a separate MA and PhD instead of doing them concurrently as in the best US programs. Prior to 2008, the American economy had always been better than the Canadian economy for about twenty years, so you have twenty years of economic pull as well -- there have traditionally been more and better paying jobs in the States than Canada.
That said, there's an old Canadian joke about a preacher from Saskatchewan who was getting up in years and began to pepper his sermons with asides about how he would soon be leaving for that land from which no man ever returns. And how his parishioners immediately understood that he was moving south of the border.
"As far as academia goes, my experience is that when it comes to undergraduate education Canadian universities are better or equal to their American counterparts."
I completed my undergrad in Canada then moved to the US. There is no Canadian undergrad program that comes close to the top programs in the US. I did some grad work at an Ivy League school and the undergrad programs are incredible. Not so much in terms of having better content or professors (although that is generally true), but mainly in terms of providing personalized guidance to young students from day one. The stories I heard from the undergrads I met were astonishing. Interested in chemistry? We'll set you up with one-on-one meetings with Nobel prize winners and industry titans. If you're good, you'll basically get access to the top opportunities without really asking.
Oh there's this thing called SRED which can be double edged sword.
On one hand, you get back half of your expenses paying salary and all that stuff and on the other hand, it makes your balance sheet looks profitable even though in reality, a few companies are actually on the red.
When it comes to paying jobs and cost of living, my idiotic brain usually look at the situation this way (this is by no mean the right way to make a decision but I use it for my own regardless):
Let's take one O'reilly book and turn back to check the price. Canadian is always more expensive right? (Due to currency exchange or whatnot).
Let's take the same job (Software Developer) salary average given the same experience level: intermediate. One might receive about $80-100k in the US while in Canada, they might receive $65-75k. Plus the jobs aren't that many here.
Canada: higher nominal cost of living and lower nominal. income.
