In the spring, my colleague Cade Metz, who covers artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging technologies for The New York Times, declared Toronto “the third-largest tech hub in North America.”
Toronto came into that position, he said, because of investment from global technology giants, including Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft, all of which have offices in the city. During the pandemic, he discovered that a rapidly growing number of people were working from home for Meta, formerly Facebook. Days after Cade’s article appeared, Meta announced that it too was formally joining the Toronto stampede and would open a tech center employing 2,500 people.
Cade also met Tristan Jung, a Korean-born computer scientist who grew up in Toronto. After six years at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, Mr. Jung a tech center in Toronto that had hired over 100 people at the time.
[Read: Toronto, the Quietly Booming Tech Town]
A lot has changed. First came the collapse of technology stocks, then a wave of layoffs. This month, Meta laid off 11,000 employees, about 13 percent of its workforce, and imposed a hiring freeze that has cast doubt on the Toronto plan. Ottawa-based Shopify, which helps small retailers establish themselves online, soared to new heights during much of the pandemic. But the wave of online shopping has abated and in July the company, which also had a major operation in Toronto before largely moving out of traditional offices, laid off about 1,000 employees. Canadian workers were also among 10,000 people laid off this month by online retail giant Amazon.
The layoffs have trickled down to small Canadian tech companies and tech start-ups across the country as once-abundant funding has become scarce.
And then there’s Twitter, post-Elon Musk.
As with many things about Twitter since purchasing Mr. Musk, it is impossible to accurately determine the status of the company’s operations in Canada. But it seems it hasn’t been spared the deep cuts imposed by its new owner, or the wave of layoffs across the company. is among the dead Paul Brandsthe former CEO of Twitter for Canada.
[Read: Two Weeks of Chaos: Inside Elon Musk’s Takeover of Twitter]
As my colleagues and I have reported, several factors have turned the gaze of multinational technology companies towards Canada. Chief among these are immigration rules that make it easier to bring in workers from third countries than is possible in the United States, pioneering work in artificial intelligence at Canadian universities, the reputation of schools such as the University of Waterloo, and lower salaries than in for example , Silicon Valley.
Courtney Radsch, a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation who studies the technology industry, told me that the days when big tech moved north may be gone for good.
“The withdrawal by big tech companies is likely to affect Canada more than the US because there is a concurrent push to do more at home to provide jobs there,” she said.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing, she says. Most businesses today rely on technology, often to a significant degree. The current round of layoffs frees up people with skills companies need, while also no longer competing with companies like Meta on wages.
The withdrawal from big tech could also complicate the federal government’s ongoing battle with the four bills now before parliament that, if passed, will require tech companies to compensate Canadian news organizations, ensure Canadian videos have a home in the online world, improve privacy and increase security online.
Some of those bills are second attempts by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government after it failed to get similar legislation through parliament before last year’s election. However, the current tech turmoil shows how difficult it is to regulate an industry that is often in flux.
Twitter would be affected to varying degrees by all those bills. But David Reeveley, a reporter for The Logic, an online publication that often focuses on the relationship between government and technology, reported that since Mr. company. That absence comes at a time when concerns have never been higher about abuse on Twitter and the privacy of its users — two issues the government is trying to address through regulation.
Mr Reeveley’s reporting also suggests that the government no longer has any point of contact with the social media company it hopes to regulate.
Of course, it is possible that Twitter will stabilize and normal relations return. But there is also widespread and growing concern that it will collapse. Either way, the government may soon be faced with laws that are both new and outdated.
Trans Canada
This week’s Trans Canada section is curated by Vjosa Isai, a reporter-researcher for The New York Times based in Toronto.
Born in Windsor, Ontario, Ian Austen was educated in Toronto, lives in Ottawa and has reported on Canada for The New York Times for the past 16 years. Follow him on Twitter at @ianrausten.
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