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Canada wants you
In chaos, pools of opportunities can arise. In turbulence, pockets of possibility can bubble to the surface. For a moment. Before disappearing again. Will Canada be ready to seize the opportunity?
Many smart, talented and innovative folks in the US are deeply dismayed with their nation’s leadership and what lies ahead for the next four years. Many are feeling displaced. Unwelcome. Disoriented. A place that once rewarded innovation, creativity and hard work has decidedly rejected these values. Americans are being urged instead to bow to their king— and thank him for his rule. It is a prospect both sickening and incomprehensible just a few weeks ago. It is also an opportunity for Canada.
Many Americans will go along. For a while. It is their home. Some will do so willingly— some perhaps joyously for a time. Others will do so reluctantly, quietly. Keeping their head down. Some will refuse altogether. They’ve seen this movie before. They know the sequel could be very bad. Some will stay for the fight they know is coming. Others will put their families first. They will choose to leave. While they can. They possess a skill set that provides them choices.
These are the folks Canada should embrace. Rather than pandering messages of a shared history or trade, or, worse, an eagerness to appease, Canada should instead fill the American airwaves and social media with a direct appeal to America’s brightest. Their innovators. Their creative folks. Canada wants you.
Canada offers an attractive proposition. We have much to offer.
We don’t have armed guards in our children’s schools because we don’t need them. Our communities are safe. Secure. We don’t have mass killing events every couple of days.
Our schools are safe. Safe. Clean. Nurturing.
Our healthcare system doesn’t bankrupt folks when they get sick. Or exclude folks with pre-existing conditions.
Our justice system works. Our legal system can be slow-moving, but it works.
We speak the same language. Our culture and lifestyle are essentially indistinguishable from much of America.
Mostly, Canada can reassure our American friends that the values of liberal democracy still burn brightly in this country.
There are many appealing messages to our American neighbours, but why should Canadians want this?
Firstly, when brains are draining from a failing nation, we should be ready to scoop them up. When talent is leaving, another nation will be the beneficiary. Canada ought to be preparing a big welcome sign.
It is demographics, however, that should be the main driver of such a wooing project. We are an aging population in Canada. Despite a surge in new immigration in recent years, Canada’s fertility rate is falling. We are on a dead-end path.
Canada needs to produce 2.1 children per woman to sustain current population levels and replace those we lose. In 2023, our fertility rate had dropped to 1.26 children per woman, far below replacement levels. This has profound implications for our society and economy—best understood by a shrinking labour force. It inevitably leads to sharp, long-term declines in government and pension revenue necessary to fund the needs of an overweighted cohort of retirees.
The burden on young people to pay the pensions of older folks risks collapse.
So, Canada needs folks. What better time to attract them than when our neighbour is shedding them?
In the coming federal election, let’s talk about attracting disenchanted Americans and their families.
Smart folks work at Tesla. Come to Canada. Your boss has proven to be a power-mad lunatic. Consider a startup in this country. We want to help. We want your ideas. Your energy and your investment.
Awful things are coming in the next four years. Canada will bear the brunt of Trump’s myopic grasp of economics—as tariffs disrupt trade and manufacturing (while raising prices in the US). Some supply chains may never recover. So, we must develop and nurture other markets for our goods and services.
Recruiting the best and brightest from America can help kickstart a bold new era of independence and innovation for our country. It is one way to retrieve some good from the bad that is headed our way.
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