Canada's Economy; Envy of the World?

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
My company is international, I also operate in the US. I don't really care if you believe me or not.

I'm dissapointed that you would complete disregard what I have said simply because you think it's far fetched. Regardless it is what it is.

It's more sad that people don't have the confidence that you can be that succesfull...
~Keeper

Considering that over 80% of business in Canada is comprised of the 6-10 person office, and that "Big" business is less that 5% of all business in the country. Your stats are hardly indicative of the Canadian marketplace.

I don't mean to sound bitter, but I have seen many good people lose their livelihoods, their businesses and their homes, only to read how wonderful Canada has done through the recession. These aren't people who didn't plan, they trusted the Government, they trusted the system only to see it collapse from beneath them.

Now I cannot comment on how hiring contractors, and paying them on a per call basis might compare to actually hiring employees and covering the employer portion of EI, CPP, WCB as well as the usual overhead, because I have never run a call center or hired and paid employees in this fashion.

With Dell, Telus, Microsoft and most of the BIG guys moving their call centers to India I can only imagine that even that industry is being effected.

In my case, my company has been incorporated for over 12 years. I have clients on 3 continents and am seeing my competitors fail daily. I mean they actually go under..cannot sustain their operating costs kind of fail. It's only because of extremely prudent planning that we are able to grow as we are.

It's because of these experiences, the complete untruths that are often stated when talking to other business owners that I take and maintain the position I have on Canada's economy. Now you may have a different experience with your hires, but without undertaking the costs associated to regular salaried employees, we are really comparing apples to oranges.

..Ex

Originally posted by v3_exceed

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
My company is international, I also operate in the US. I don't really care if you believe me or not.

I'm dissapointed that you would complete disregard what I have said simply because you think it's far fetched. Regardless it is what it is.

It's more sad that people don't have the confidence that you can be that succesfull...
~Keeper

Considering that over 80% of business in Canada is comprised of the 6-10 person office, and that "Big" business is less that 5% of all business in the country. Your stats are hardly indicative of the Canadian marketplace.

This is true, those stats are correct. My firms are still privately owned, I won't incorporate, sure there are advantages, but I like things the way they are now.

I don't mean to sound bitter, but I have seen many good people lose their livelihoods, their businesses and their homes, only to read how wonderful Canada has done through the recession. These aren't people who didn't plan, they trusted the Government, they trusted the system only to see it collapse from beneath them.

I agree these people who did lose everything were some of the best people Canada had, it's very unfortunate, but there are always sucess stories in even the darkest of times.

Now I cannot comment on how hiring contractors, and paying them on a per call basis might compare to actually hiring employees and covering the employer portion of EI, CPP, WCB as well as the usual overhead, because I have never run a call center or hired and paid employees in this fashion.

Actually, I'll give you an example of my primary Canadian site.

I have about 300 employees, I pay them hourly, they do multiple lines of business. The average employee handles 3 carriers, advance teams as many as 9.

I have a virtual model where I hire employees in other provinces to work from home, where I save on my costs is they are responsible for their equipment and internet access.

I've also been able to keep wages above minimum wage (starting for me is 12.50$ an hour, minimum here is 9.50$ I believe) because I've kept my clients for so long and they overpay on their service contracts.

With Dell, Telus, Microsoft and most of the BIG guys moving their call centers to India I can only imagine that even that industry is being effected.

It's been fundementally different, I 've never outsourced. I refuse to. Where I would save on costs, I would be losing in customers as I would have to sacrifice the WONDERFUL customer service that we offer because of our extensive in house traning.

I~Keeper

What I don't understand is how our Canadian dollar is consistently a few cents below the US dollar in value. I mean, we have resources out the wazoo backing our dollar, but we can never seem to gain more value than the american dollar.

That's a conspiracy if I ever saw one.

reply to post by The Cusp


I have heard there is also something about our gas prices will always be more expensive than theirs, even though we have all we need and also supply some of it to them.

Originally posted by snowspirit
reply to post by The Cusp

 

I have heard there is also something about our gas prices will always be more expensive than theirs, even though we have all we need and also supply some of it to them.

Got to love NAFTA eh?

We must always share our oil and goodies with the US and Mexico. But the good thing is we always get protection >_>

reply to post by The Cusp


Our dollar(CDN) is kept below the USD artificially, there's no conspiracy about that.

Our government does it to play to Canada's greatest economic strengths....exporting.

However, that being said, due to the increase of other business sectors (outside of natural resources) our government is loosing the ability to control the dollar.

Thankfully, I don't think our government will ever use illegal or shady control methods....like say China .

Originally posted by The Cusp
What I don't understand is how our Canadian dollar is consistently a few cents below the US dollar in value. I mean, we have resources out the wazoo backing our dollar, but we can never seem to gain more value than the american dollar.

That's a conspiracy if I ever saw one.

Actually, its a conspiracy to keep the American dollar at a higher value, not to drop our own dollar.

American companies favour buying cheaper goods where their dollar is stronger. In British Columbia the lumber business thrives when the Canadian dollar is lower than the American, and suffers when it hits parity or above.

Its a symbiotic relationship, when the dollar pushes past parity its cheaper to buy from the US which is good for consumers. On the other hand, when the dollar drops a bit and the Americans start buying products from Canada, its better for corporations (and government budgets from taxes) while consumers just settle to buy in Canada or are willing to spend more on American products.

If the Canadian dollar was worth $1.11 American, we'd be screwed, as all our industrial production and resource production becomes far too expensive. The loss of business from our closest trade partner hurts our economy which ends up impacting the strength of the dollar, driving it downwards towards parity and eventually below.

It all balances out.