I recently had a discussion with Tyler Cowen at George Mason university, he runs a grant program called Emergent Ventures. During our chat, the topic of talent in Ontario came up. I’m from Ontario and when I asked him where he thinks the future of biotechnology is growing, he said right where I live. I found that this was interesting, as no one really mentions Ontario specifically as a centre for emerging talent. However, I do believe Tyler when he says this; he has refined his ability to spot talent over years and is well-renowned in this aspect. I’ve also personally seen the massive potential of Ontario through TKS Toronto, where I got to meet some really amazing people. So now that I knew this was the case, I wanted to explore how this happened.
When I started this exploration, there were some initial thoughts I had about why Ontario had so many talented people. One of them was the universities that we have here. In Silicon Valley, it’s pretty common for Canadians to come from primarily two schools: the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto. These are very well known institutions here and are known for their insane talent pool. However, the same can be said for Ivy League schools in the US, so why are these schools special?
For the University of Waterloo, it is special for its co-op program which lets students work jobs during their time there. This gives these students real-life experience that is fitted to their specific degree. Many universities have adopted this program, but Waterloo remains the most effective at it. This translates to many Waterloo alum working at big tech companies because they already have quality work experience. The University of Toronto (UofT) is similar in talent level, but stands out as the birthplace of AI, attracting a lot of talent. It is also one of the most prestigious schools in Canada, being one of the oldest universities. I think one of the biggest reasons why schools in Canada/Ontario produce a lot of talent though is because they have longer breaks. In the US, schools only have 2 months to rest before the new year starts; in Ontario it is double. This leaves students with a lot more time to focus on things they are passionate about and build cool things, thus producing more talent.
Even after this, I think there’s another reason why the university culture in Canada helps nurture talent even in high school. In the US, high school students often have to prepare years in advance to be accepted into an Ivy League school. This means taking a lot of AP classes, maintaining a high GPA (which makes no sense to me as a Canadian), and doing a lot of flashy extracurriculars. This is often combined with hours of homework after school that many students supplement with further review. I think the most harmful thing, however, is that students often feel the need to compete with each other to fight for these spots at universities. This leads to a lot of unneeded studying along with a fixation on school alone.
What’s different Canada is that the good schools such as UofT and Waterloo aren’t too bad to get into. Some programs like Waterloo engineering are difficult, but it is not at the level of Ivy League schools. This has a lot of effects such as students not having the need to compete, less focus on doing things that just look flashy, and an overall better schooling experience. The next thing is that programs such as AP don’t have a big effect on your application. Our schooling system only has three levels: academic, applied, and locally developed. If you want to apply to university, you have to take academic level courses which most students take anyways. This completely negates the need for students taking 30 AP classes just to stand out. Most of these classes aren’t useful at all and many students take them just for the sake of having the AP label. This saves students a lot of time as they are only taking courses that they need, without hindering their university application. I would also add the fact that we don’t require standardized tests for applying to universities such as AP exams and the SAT (saving the associated fees too…).
All of these factors play a role in Ontario’s vastly simpler education system, but how does this translate to more talent? Well, having more time translates to more time to focus on building projects and learning about a field. In high school, this effect compounds rapidly with these builders gaining experience with coding, biology, and robotics at a much faster rate than their US-based counterparts. While some would argue that this also gives room for kids to just sit around with more time on their hands, I would argue that making the school system harder would just make it easier for kids to fall behind. Some kids may even stop trying to do anything at all. In a simple school system, talent is able to build more, while others are still able to stay afloat.
When looking at this, I thought why Ontario was experiencing this effect only, not other parts of Canada or even Europe. Ontario is Canada’s most populated and developed province so it makes sense a lot more talent comes out of here. I personally am not too familiar with the other provinces and territories, so I cannot speak to their talent and schooling systems. However, talent is often amplified by being surrounded by other talented people, potentially explaining Ontario’s higher positioning compared to other provinces. But why not Europe then? Countries like the Netherlands are often heralded for their school system, so why doesn’t a lot more talent come from there? Well, I think this is primarily due to Canada’s geographical positioning. We are neighbours to the US, a relationship that gives several opportunities. We share the same language and have related cultures. Shorter flight times and less travel restrictions are also some of the benefits that this brings. That is why I believe Ontario has advantages over Europe in producing talent.
Now that we know how talent is produced in Ontario, I think it’s also time to explore why everyone leaves. This didn’t take a long time to figure out and I’m pretty sure most people can understand it. The US simply just has a bigger market for rewarding talent that Canada doesn’t have. This is especially true for companies in tech. With a bigger market, more investors, and also more experienced people, ambitious people will feel drawn to the US. This may potentially change over the next few years but I have not gone deep enough to give an answer to what that future may look like.
Thank you for reading.