On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources.
Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
>> On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources.
As far as I know, Alberta's provincial government hasn't prevented growth in other sectors. Natural resources have made a lot of sense, giving their abundance here. And despite the roller coaster ride of natural resources, the province's finances are some of the healthiest in the entire country:
- Lowest Debt-GDP ratio in the country (-1.2% for Alberta, compared with 39.6% in Ontario and 49.6% in Quebec)
- No Provincial Sales Tax
- 3rd highest spending per capita, next to SK and NL (30% higher than Ontario and 43% higher than Quebec)
- GDP/Capita almost double of every other province
And all of that doesn't include the transfer payments which go out to the Eastern Provinces.
All that to say, I do hope your right and the tech ccene is Alberta can grow from current vacancies and other problems in the province. I think the province could really benefit from some natural growth in other sectors.
I am not sure this is going to happen. Calgary is a very conservative city, very little public transportation, a terrible cab system (and a city council who opposes alternatives), terrible road network (especially crowchild) no nightlife and very conservative drug and alcohol laws.
Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd), so the good ones just move the the USA or work remotely. I don't see Calgary becoming a booming tech scene anytime soon.
>Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian
I have to disagree with that statement. As an example, here is a system admin job posting by City of Calgary. The pay range is $77,891 - 117,609 per annum
Those city and CBE jobs are few and far between and usually pay much higher than private jobs. The 77k is starting wage more or less no matter what seniority and rises with yrs of service in the union.
I think most intermediate / senior engineers can make 75k a year, but starting is very low, like 50k.
That seems really wrong to me. I work for TELUS and starting wages for entry level programming positions is around the 55k-70k, and then for more intermediate positions (something like 5 years experience) you are looking at 70-100K
> Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd)
That sounds low to me. Rates in Edmonton are considerably higher and I doubt Calgary skews that much lower.
Hand-wavy, since it varies by exact variety of software you're doing, but I'd say that was more than 20k+ below market for intermediate-senior exp. Still lower than the US, of course.
Calgary is more conservative than Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Quebec, Vancouver, and Victoria.
Perhaps it's more liberal than Red Deer or Kelowna, but that's not saying much at all.
It's also just an awful place to live. The urban sprawl makes public transit pale in comparison even to Vancouver which also has really bad transit. It's an 80 dollar cab ride to the airport which is like an hour and a half from the downtown.
There's the Stampede, I guess, but frankly I've never found the culture in Calgary much to write home about either.
If you like pickup trucks and imported American culture, then sure, Calgary sounds great.
Calgary is demographically young and cosmopolitan. The average Calgarian came from somewhere else in Canada. Their political views reflect this. When Nenshi was elected, Toronto's media had a massive freak-out over the fact that he's a Muslim. This did not happen in Calgary because Calgarians didn't view his choice of religion as being pertinent to his job. Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford.
Calgary's CTrain has the third highest annual ridership among North America's light rail systems [1]. The bus system is lagging behind, but the LRT system is being expanded. The airport is a 22 min drive from downtown under normal circumstances. There is traffic congestion during peak travel times, but absolutely nothing like in Toronto or Vancouver.
If all you know about Calgary's cultural scene is the Stampede, one has to wonder if you've even been to Calgary.
In short, thanks for slagging a city you clearly know nothing about.
>Meanwhile, the enlightened, progressive people of Toronto elected Rob Ford.
I'm not from Toronto but the fact is that the barely-literate, anti-intellectual, suburban outlying population of places like (edit) Etobicoke elected Rob Ford.
edit: ah yes, the old reddit-style downvote because the truth hurts. The simple fact is the man was a train wreck, and his supporters are basically Tea Party North.
As I said, I don't live there. So no, I didn't know that. But I do know that the bulk of Rob Ford's support is/was mostly in the outlying suburbs of Toronto, and not "old toronto". Substitute Markham for someplace like Etobicoke and I think the point still stands.
I get the impression Calgary has changed somewhat since when I lived in Edmonton in the 90s.
I still think Edmonton is cooler, and would never live in Calgary, cuz, well, I'm from Edmonton area... :-) But it seems a little less cowboy these days.
Your mention of Alberta made me realize—the low dollar, the unemployment, and the wildfire are all hitting the province of Alberta in particular. (Respectively, oil dollars, oil jobs, and oil sands, may be responsible.) And the three are intertwined: the fires aren't just destroying nature and wildlife, they're destroying liquid-asset real estate and arable farmland (i.e. jobs) as well. A lot of people are going to be suddenly qualified for income assistance in Alberta this year.
If Alberta were its own country—as a few of their conservative pundits have semi-jokingly called for—this would be the point where you'd start to see pleas for international relief aid on the news, like those from Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Instead, the Canadian government is going to have to try to soak up all those losses on its own. I wonder if its treasury is even that big?
If Alberta were it's own country their coffers would have been much bigger to deal with this mess. They probably would have also have accepted firefighters right away from other countries instead of waiting. They're is really no farmland up near fort mac. Don't know how farmland jobs are being destroyed?
The city in Alberta that makes more sense for an software engineering industry is Edmonton. The University of Alberta is one of the top CS/engineering schools on the continent.
I keep mentioning this to my coworkers at Google. A second Canadian engineering office in Edmonton would be awesome. And then I could move closer to my family.
During the more heated oil years no one was looking for a job. And this might come as a surprise, but that actually makes it really hard to hire, even if you have competitive offers.
This might be different in other markets where job hopping is common and the overall supply of qualified hires is high (Edmonton often loses out to Calgary and Vancouver), but you don't see that as much here, unfortunately.
I hope you understand that unless you have a job lined up or citizenship it is somewhat difficult to move to Canada.
If I may make a modest suggestion perhaps try visiting Canada for a period of time in a region where you would want to eventually live instead of relying on the opinions of your friends (who may be biased) or statistics (which may not tell the whole story.)
Canada is big. Calgary is one small part, and that guy was exaggerating anyways. Let's remember that Calgary elected mayor Naheed Nenshi, a famously liberal Muslim who is pushing for better transit and more intensification. Iirc, Calgary was also the provincial stronghold of the NDP, a hard leftward swing of Alberta politics against the long control of the Progressive Conservative party.
But yes, the pay sucks for coders outside of Vancouver and Toronto, and there the insane housing market makes it not worth it anyways.
> Calgary was also the provincial stronghold of the NDP
Correction: Edmonton is the stronghold of the NDP. Premier Notley's seat in the Legislature is in Edmonton's Strathcona riding, and I believe before last year Edmonton was the only city to elect NDP MLA's. Calgary has always been a Progressive Conservative stronghold.
Calgary has been die hard right wing for years. Edmonton is the stronghold for the NDP. And historically that was always the case. (I'm old enough to remember Jan Reimer as mayor in the 80s...)
Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.