As David Eby looked around the room of tech leaders, I saw my opening and shared my biggest gripe with the B.C. economy: The need for a foreign worker recruitment license.
He listened intently, nodded his head and took down a note. Now, let’s see what happens.
This was last month, when I had the chance to visit Victoria and meet with many B.C. government leaders, including the Premier himself with the Council of Canadian Innovators.
It was an educational experience and my hopes for change are lower than before the visit, so I’m writing this letter to spread the message and hopefully drive real change in how our government operates.
The issue I hope to change is that right now, B.C. requires companies to obtain a Foreign Worker Recruitment License before they can hire international talent. That process currently takes 15 weeks or almost four months! For a startup founder or a fast-growing tech company, 15 weeks isn’t a waiting period, it’s the difference between winning and losing in a global market. And it’s leading to millions in lost GDP and tax revenue for our province.
The cost of delay is huge.
A single senior tech hire contributes conservatively $10,000 per month in GDP-equivalent output. When that worker is stuck waiting on paperwork, that economic value disappears.
If 5,000 tech workers could have moved here faster over the last three years — but instead remained stalled due to licensing delays — the cost to B.C. is: $10,000 x 5,000 workers x 3.75 months = $187,500,000 in lost GDP.
That money could have been paid as taxes and spent in our local communities. And the engineers are also not able to meet their teams in person during this period, which further delays productivity.
This is a very solvable problem. In fact, the license only came out in 2022. Ideally, it can just be removed since no other province has this.
The B.C. government's new Look West plan is an exciting step toward transforming our province into Canada’s next economic powerhouse. The vision is bold: build skilled-workforce capacity, unleash growth in technology, AI, life sciences, and infrastructure, and create hundreds of thousands of good jobs. As someone who has spent the past decade helping global tech talent relocate to Canada, I believe deeply in that vision.
But there’s a major bottleneck slowing us down, and it’s something I deal with every day.
This isn’t a theoretical concern, delays like this threaten the success of Look West entirely.
As Kiersten Enemark from the Council of Canadian Innovators put it: “Highly skilled tech sector workers do an enormous amount to drive economic growth and create wealth in B.C… The bottom line is that we all want a thriving 21st-century innovation economy in B.C., and ensuring that our homegrown companies can hire talent from around the world is how we ensure that those companies are able to stay rooted here.”
I know this firsthand.
I founded VanHack 10 years ago with a simple mission: help great people connect with great companies, no matter where they’re from. Since then, we’ve helped over 2,200 software engineers relocate to Canada, 500 of them to B.C.
We’ve supported incredible companies like Clio, Thinkific, Global Relay, Traction on Demand and Article.
And here’s something important: these workers don’t only move to Vancouver. Many of them choose Vancouver Island, Kelowna, and other regional tech hubs, helping spread economic opportunity throughout the province.
As Abbas Abou Daya, CEO of Gearlay Technologies, one of B.C.’s fastest growing companies, told me recently: “In the fast-moving world of digital financial services, securing top software engineering talent is critical. As one of B.C.’s fastest-growing companies, we’re constantly working to shorten the time it takes to bring the best people on board. With senior talent in short supply across Canada, international recruitment is often essential. Any steps the government can take to cut red tape would directly strengthen our ability to maintain market leadership.”
If we want to deliver on the promise of Look West and add 400,000 new tech and skilled workers into B.C.’s economy, we must reduce friction in the hiring process.
Right now, B.C. has global demand, global credibility, and a global opportunity. But that means we’re also in a global fight for talent. Every delay pushes someone toward a jurisdiction that moves faster.
I love this province. I chose to build VanHack here because I believe B.C. can be a world leader in tech.
Let’s make the changes necessary to ensure Look West becomes more than an inspirational slogan, let’s make it a reality.
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