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| ▲ | 1attice 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Somewhat. Our provinces have fewer rights, powers and responsibilities than US states. The experience is more homogenous. It's only a nightmare if you hate all taxes and labour rights. So, you know, YC | | |
| ▲ | gucci-on-fleek 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Our provinces have fewer rights, powers and responsibilities than US states. It's complicated. In theory, US states have more rights and powers ("The powers not delegated to the United States [...] are reserved to the States" [0]), but in practice, the Commerce Clause lets the Federal government do essentially anything that it wants. Canada's provinces are only given control over a specific set of topics [1], but their powers are almost absolute in these areas, since the courts almost never let the Federal government interfere. So for labour code specifically, US companies need to adhere to both Federal and state labour codes, while Canadian companies only need to follow a single provincial labour code. (There is a Canadian Federal labour code, but that only applies to Federally-regulated companies, and those companies don't need to follow the provincial labour codes) [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_Act,_1867#Part_VI... | |
| ▲ | tptacek 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | You can still run a company from Canada under these terms, the same way every international YC batch company runs --- you can just go to the YC directory and select for EMEA, LATAM, APAC, &c. There's hundreds of them. Since this is purely about ownership structure and equity governing law, I'm curious what the intersection you're seeing between these terms and "labour rights" are. We're a US company with employees in Europe (not even an HQ in Europe, just employees there), and I've learned more about European labor law idiosyncracies over the last few years than over the whole rest of my career, because I've had to. | | |
| ▲ | gucci-on-fleek 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > You can still run a company from Canada under these terms, the same way every international YC batch company runs Having a Canada-registered company is usually required to get government grants and loans from Canadian banks, although that's probably not very important to VC-backed companies. There are also some tax advantages to running a Canada-registered company if you're based out of Canada, plus it's much easier to find a local professionals (lawyers, accountants, etc.) familiar with Canadian corporations than US corporations. None of these issues should cause too many problems, but if given a choice, as a Canadian I'd certainly prefer to run a Canada-registered company over a US-registered one. | | |
| ▲ | tptacek 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | I'm sure a lot of British people want to run UK-registered companies! I'm not saying Canadians wouldn't rationally prefer to have the option of taking investments in a Canadian corporation, just that it doesn't look like there's a lot more to this than details for your finance person, and that it's the same deal every other country gets. Read the thread: clearly a lot of people are reading this as "you can't HQ in Canada, your team has to move". | | |
| ▲ | gucci-on-fleek 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Right, I agree with you that where the business is incorporated has essentially zero bearing on where its HQ is, where it can operate, hire staff, etc. But I think that it counts for a little bit more than just "details for your finance person", since the tax and grant eligibility implications could mean that some startups would be better off incorporating in Canada and not taking the Y Combinator money. But if you're taking the VC funding route (which most applicants to Y Combinator are), then I agree that none of this should really matter very much. |
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| ▲ | ragall 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > We're a US company with employees in Europe (not even an HQ in Europe, just employees there) I don't think that's true. You can't have employees without a local subsidiary. If you're going through an EOR agency, they're contractors not employees. |
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