For decades, the United States has been the global destination for high-skilled talent, drawing innovators who helped build Silicon Valley and powered its economic dominance. However,

immigration policy shifts — such as a proposed US$100,000 annual fee for companies hiring H-1B visa holders — signal a continuing retreat from openness.

The retreat offers Canada a unique opportunity to become the world’s premier destination for

entrepreneurial and innovative talent . But to seize it, we must confront not only America’s missteps, but our own.

Canada’s immigration system is at a crossroads. While our points-based model has long been admired, in recent years we have seen a drift toward volume over value, with no clear aim.

The Temporary Foreign Worker Program , foreign student streams and asylum systems have expanded rapidly, contributing to an estimated three million temporary residents. The result has been push-back and rising anti-immigrant sentiment in Canada.

But the problem isn’t immigration, it’s misaligned policy. Our rush to address abuses and an overwhelmed system has led to sweeping reforms, some of which do not address the true root of the issues and may even deter the high-skilled, entrepreneurial talent Canada needs to remain competitive. We are simply throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Canada’s long-standing productivity challenge demands a smarter approach, one that treats immigration as a strategic lever for

economic renewal . As our domestic population ages and fertility rates decline, the country’s tolerance for risk-taking decreases too. Immigrant entrepreneurs and innovators are essential to reversing this trend.

But entrepreneurship is only part of the story. Canada’s economy also depends on scaling existing firms in sectors — technology, life sciences, advanced manufacturing — that face chronic shortages of highly skilled workers. Without access to global talent, Canadian companies risk stagnation, losing ground to competitors in more agile jurisdictions.

To unlock potential, Canada must consider its immigration pathways and the viability of its entire entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Canada needs to restructure current immigration pathways and develop new streams for highly skilled workers and innovators, with processing timelines that match the speed of technological development and innovation.

Our main federal entrepreneurial program, the Start-Up Visa (SUV), is a clear failure in its current form. Shifting criteria, declining intake and staggering 53-month processing times indicate that this program has not operated as intended. It should be significantly reformed or scrapped altogether.

In contrast, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC)’s new proposal to create a Leadership and Innovation category, under the current permanent resident program, Express Entry, is a step in the right direction. This new category, potentially launching in 2026, aims to attract and fast-track senior managers, scientists and researchers, some of whom currently have no clear path to Canada.

Most urgently, Canada should immediately open an iteration of its H-1B visa-holder work permit program, which closed in 2023. This IRCC initiative granted certain H-1B visa holders a Canadian work permit for up to three years. It was extremely popular, reaching its quota within days of launching.

Finally, Canada should be working collaboratively with the provinces and territories through their respective nominee immigration programs to attract and retain talent.

Canada’s focus should not only be attracting talent but also enabling that talent. A smart immigration system doesn’t end at the border; it builds ecosystems that help newcomers thrive. This requires a cultural shift in our financial institutions, more support for early-stage risk-taking and a renewed focus on upward mobility.

Canada’s concentrated financial sector, dominated by a handful of large institutions, has not traditionally fostered competition or risk taking. This poses a structural barrier to entrepreneurship and innovation, particularly for newcomers who lack established credit histories or networks.

If we want immigrant-led innovation to flourish and our existing firms to scale, we need financial institutions and the early-stage investment community to evolve, offering more inclusive financing models and embracing the kind of risk that drives long-term growth.

For example, Canada should expand alternative financing channels — such as community lenders, credit unions and fintech platforms — that offer flexible underwriting and loans. Public-private partnerships could also help match skilled newcomers with firms in priority sectors like technology and artificial intelligence. Additionally, financial literacy and mentorship programs should be tailored to newcomers and scaled to ensure they can navigate the system and succeed.

  • The thorny dilemma of Canada’s temporary foreign workers
  • Trump’s $100,000 fee on H-1B visas will make tech workers ‘look north’

We also need to rethink how we measure success. Immigration policy should not be unduly influenced by intake numbers, short-term labour market absorption or the political headwinds of the day. Instead, we should be focusing on long-term economic contributions: business formation, job creation, export activity and productivity growth. These are the metrics that matter in a knowledge-based economy.

The solution is not to retreat from immigration like the United States, but to reform it and use it to our advantage. We need a system that is stable, transparent, agile and economically strategic, so Canada can become a global hub for innovation and a place where the

world’s best minds come to build . The time to act is now. J. Ari Pandes is an associate professor of finance and an associate dean at the University of Calgary’s Haskayne School of Business. Tara Pandes is a Canadian immigration lawyer and founder of Odyssey Law, a Calgary-based immigration law firm.