171 replies to this topic

[Matt R.]

Yep. It's a busy time all up and down Vancouver island and the gulf islands, goes for about three weeks as the spring breaks are staggered throughout the province. Last year Easter was at the end of spring break, this year it was in April.

Certainly nicer weather helps volume, of course. If you want to see spring break-like "huge" crowds come check out the Fulford ferry terminal the last weekend of spring break. You'll change your tune.

Matt.

[VicHockeyFan]

Too bad God is too screwed up to make Easter the same dates each year.

[Matt R.]

Worked for me this year, extra few grand in sales for sure. Thanks, God!

Matt.

[lanforod]

Imagine what it'll be like if the San Diego type temperature predictions hold true in a few decades...

[jonny]

Weather is a huge factor in local tourism / travel. I work in the industry. Trust me.

[spanky123]

Weather is a huge factor in local tourism / travel. I work in the industry. Trust me.

 

Agreed. My point was that it was actually warmer and there was exactly the same amount of rain as last year so blaming cold, wet weather for a drop in tourism year over year is silly. Conferences aren't planned at the last minute based on weather either so it would have had no impact on delegate days.

 

It appears as though the tourism and tech industries just make up stories to suite their needs and the TC runs them without any critical thought.

Edited by spanky123, 07 May 2017 - 03:17 PM.

[AllseeingEye]

Agreed. My point was that it was actually warmer and there was exactly the same amount of rain as last year so blaming cold, wet weather for a drop in tourism year over year is silly. Conferences aren't planned at the last minute based on weather either so it would have had no impact on delegate days.

 

It appears as though the tourism and tech industries just make up stories to suite their needs and the TC runs them without any critical thought.

.....you mean like the 26 billion flowers we supposedly counted last year as part of that silly Flower Count? They must be using uber-sophisticated spy satellites as part of the data collation process as there is no way in hell a small team of volunteers manually counts billions of flowers in a 6-day period. Oh, unless of course they're sort of, you know, um.....making stuff up......

Edited by AllseeingEye, 08 May 2017 - 09:53 PM.

[spanky123]

Remember the narrative that US tech workers were coming to Canada in droves because of Trump and our quality of life?

 

According to new research that is a bunch of BS, 66% of Canadian software engineering grads are moving to the US!

 

https://www.theglobe...es-for-silicon/

Edited by spanky123, 03 May 2018 - 09:02 AM.

[VicHockeyFan]

Remember the narrative that US tech workers were coming to Canada in droves because of Trump and our quality of life?

 

According to new research that is a bunch of BS, 66% of Canadian software engineering grads are moving to the US!

 

https://www.theglobe...es-for-silicon/

 

But is it "alarming"?

 

Canada’s best and brightest computer engineering graduates are leaving for jobs in Silicon Valley at alarmingly high rates, fuelling a worse “brain drain” than the mass exodus by Canadian doctors two decades ago, according to a new study.

 

 

Now, if my doctor goes south, that's a problem, I can no longer see him.  If my tech guy does, does it really matter?

 

In my daily business life, I pay fees to a few tech companies.  An invoicing program, an e-mail marketing system, US based.  I use US based free systems, Facebook and twitter mostly.  

 

If my Canadian tech guy goes to work in the US for MailChimp, does it really matter that much to me?

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 03 May 2018 - 09:15 AM.

[lanforod]

Maybe not directly, but if we could hire all these grads in Canada, how much better would the Canadian economy be doing? A better economy typically results in lower taxes or better services/infrastructure (or both), both of which affect you.

[Rob Randall]

If my Canadian tech guy goes to work in the US for MailChimp, does it really matter that much to me?

 

Don't make me bring Max out again. 

[VicHockeyFan]

If I was forced to use Canadian technology companies I might both pay too much for them and also have less productivity if they are inferior. So I might benefit by that Canadian tech guy working down there.

[lanforod]

I didn't say anything about Canadian tech companies. I said hire them in Canada. Example: Amazon Canada, Microsoft Canada. 

American companies or multi-national companies with Canadian offices.

[VicHockeyFan]

I didn't say anything about Canadian tech companies. I said hire them in Canada. Example: Amazon Canada, Microsoft Canada. 

American companies or multi-national companies with Canadian offices.

 

Well, again, how are you going to incentivize MailChimp to open a satellite office here, and repatriate my guy?

 

Or my GoDaddy guy?  I love my GoDaddy guy, he lives in Phoenix.

Edited by VicHockeyFan, 03 May 2018 - 10:24 AM.

[jonny]

I know people who work for companies in the Silicon Valley but live here and work primarily from their homes.

[tjv]

here is the reality, US Tech companies pay more money, have bigger projects to work on and snazzy offices.  Didn't someone here post an ad for a Tech professional with a wage of 65k or something ridiculous like that in Victoria.  Probably the same job in Seattle is 200k.  I know a few people in Victoria who work in Seattle during the week and fly home on the weekends

 

As for Tourism, who cares, its filled with minimum wage jobs with little room for advancement.  that's not an economy I want to promote

[Jackerbie]

From Vancouver's Amazon bid, via CBC.ca

[Mike K.]

Yup.

[PraiseKek]

If you know a developer that would work for ~77,000 CAD let me know. Fat chance in hell. Sometimes the BC government tries to hire in the 80k range and the posting lasts for months and months and months. I know a firm in town that hasn't been able to hire a developer for over a year.

Edited by PraiseKek, 03 May 2018 - 05:59 PM.

[AllseeingEye]

If you know a developer that would work for ~77,000 CAD let me know. Fat chance in hell. Sometimes the BC government tries to hire in the 80k range and the posting lasts for months and months and months. I know a firm in town that hasn't been able to hire a developer for over a year.

In general I agree but I' m pretty sure those figure$ are the top-down average for developers in that market in which case I would agree with those numbers. Sure senior dev resources can and do make far more but the gaming industry - and I've been in tech since 1993 - was particularly notorious when I lived in Vancouver for paying low salaries.

 

I worked at Seagate (now SAP) which was one of the largest tech firms in the world at the time, about 180,000 employees, and which had a direct underground pipeline to a certain very well known Burnaby-based gaming outfit notorious for paying their software gaming people low wages, burning their developers out, then not caring a whit once they'd had enough and walked the plank. We happily took them on, paid them 20% more, and they became dedicated employees thereafter.

Edited by AllseeingEye, 03 May 2018 - 06:47 PM.