As a Torontonian, I would say this is 'Canadian Cope'

'But we have diversity!'

As if NY, or America somehow lacks there, or that is even hugely material.

You can 'do ok' in Toronto, it's a good city. You can 'fee' whatever you want, that's up to you.

But it's nary impossible to do anything world class - and that's where the surpluses are.

The critical mass, the salary base, the talent, the lack of elite - almost none of it is there.

There are 5x more, 'Amazing Engineers' in little Tel Aviv.

Tiny little Sweden, with only 10M people (a bit less than 2x Toronto) - makes all sorts of sophisticated gear for export - Canada makes hardly any.

And this is how Canada is constructed: to be a suburb of the world - where polite people consume foreign products. We don't 'make' or 'design' anything.

Toronto is a very 'Civic City' - which is great for citizens - it actually makes a lot of American cities look kind of crappy in comparison - but it's the lack of a proper elite that's the problem, which applies to a small class of people.

Almost everyone I know has moved to the US for opportunity, and the draining of the 'talent class' will have this effect on a nation.

FYI that includes talented migrants as well: my top Canadian migrant colleagues (all from India), are now living in the US. Canada brings in 'migrants with degrees' as 'tech workers' but the 'talent' (either migrant or local) that create the opportunities leave for the US.

It's a serious problem.

This has a lot to do with 'salary' and I noticed this problem was very different when the dollar was at parity in the 2000s. With monetary incentives levelled out, the problem is not nearly as bad.

Our leaders do this on purpose. The Ontario Minister of Industry (this is several years back), proclaimed as Cisco was coming to Toronto (partly for the cheap workers), that Toronto has 'great workers at a discount' and that they would do 'everything in their power to keep it that way!'. Literally saying that their 'industrial policy' was to keep us poorer than Americans, so that American companies would have 'satellite offices' here.

Canada is a 'Small Open Economy' next to a 'Large Open Economy' (in economic terms) and that tends to create this kind of outcome, when thought of in secular terms.

But a place like Sweden - they take a different approach, and focus on key industries and 'punch above their weight' - meaning, rather than 'just being a place for bigger country satellite offices' - they are able to make their own mark. A lot of this comes from past national strategies, i.e. cars, airplanes, weapons systems - companies left over from the war era, and even further back, but it provides their people with a 'local industrial base' that Canada does not have.

We really need a 'National Strategy' to deal with this, but it's not likely to happen because none of our leaders are particularly aware of the issue, nor do they have the talent, wherewithal or ability to do something about it, let alone grasp it. And to be fair it's a really difficult problem.

Also - this is the 'EU disease' as well. The way the EU is structured, particularly with the Euro as a 'hard currency' - means slack labour will be taken up in Germany, and lost in other areas. Italy has vast, vast foundations in 'complicated things' and cultural foundation, they'll be fine. But a place like Poland? Well - it'll lose it's talent - at the very same time that standard of living is actually increasing rapidly (i.e. good for citizens), there is just no 'BOSCH' or 'BMD' or 'SIEMENS' etc for the talent to go and make a difference. For that, Deutshland. Or UK, Netherlands etc..