Near-shoring to Vancouver ending before it begins?

Business columnists are all abuzz with hype over the potential shift from US tech companies outsourcing overseas to near-shoring right here in Vancouver.

Somehow, the column seems a little dated. Just a few months after Microsoft's much-talked-about expansion into our Pacific Rim metropolis, the Canada-US exchange rate has moved up to par.

One leg of the near-shoring rationale has already collapsed. The other - similarity of culture, quality of work and shorter travel times - seemed pretty wobbly to begin with. Surely there are at least as many qualified American professional geeks as Vancouver-based ones.

At this point, our one saving grace - and it's a big one - is that Vancouver is quite possibly the nicest place in the world to live, and will likely remain so in future. Hopefully, that's enough to ensure our high tech industry clusters have a chance to thrive.

Canada for sale

"Of note is that Canada's largest companies by value, and largest employers, tend to be foreign owned in a way that is more typical of a developing country than a G-8 member."
–Wikipedia entry, Foreign ownership in Canada

A Toronto Star business section article takes issue with foreign ownership of Canadian industry. This is an old subject that is unlikely to ever go away, barring a Fidel Castro-style nationalization of our industries.

Canada is a vast storehouse of resources with not enough people or capital to exploit it. Tied to the issue of foreign investment and ownership is the supposed deindustrialization of Canada. Whether that is a real threat to our sovereignty remains to be seen.

But the current situation is no surprise: as one commentator in the article says, "As Canadian companies mature to the point where they are world class, they are getting world-class attention, and, typically, the most appropriate suitor will be a foreign buyer."

Basically, we're getting attention from the world because we're seen as a safe, profitable place to invest. That's not necessarily a bad thing.