Last week, investors and founders from across Canada descended on Montreal for Startupfest, the city’s annual celebration of Canadian startups. As always, there were startups and supporters from across the country (Calgary pancake breakfast, anyone? 😋).

On my way back to Vancouver — while still basking in the glow of my week in Montreal — I spent part of my flight responding to a journalist’s inquiries for a soon-to-be-released report on the health of the BC tech ecosystem relative to the rest of Canada. Which made me think: why do Canadians spend so much time comparing themselves to each other?

In all my time living in the US, I never heard anyone from the Bay Area worrying about whether a company was based in San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose or Palo Alto. Same thing in New York. I promise you that no one there cares how many startups are in Brooklyn, Mid-Town or the Lower East Side. They’re all just repping NYC. And while certain VCs in Miami are desperate for attention, the rest of America’s tech ecosystems broadly speak as one.

But in Canada? We’re obsessed with local attribution and comparison. Is a company from Vancouver or Victoria? Toronto or Waterloo? Western Canada or Eastern Canada? We endlessly chase our tails worried about how we’re doing relative to each other. And it drags us all down.

We obviously need to track and discuss economic progress at different levels of the country. Cities, regions and provinces each have their own economic and political realities and are accountable to their local constituencies.

But beyond that, who the hell cares?

When something amazing happens in Quebec, we should all celebrate. 🎉
A big Series A in Newfoundland? Amazing! 🙌
IPO in Alberta? Pop open the bubbly. 🍾

That’s what other countries do. But in Canada, great achievements are inevitably followed by a wave of local media decrying the fact that province X is moving further ahead than province Y, cynical social media posts filled with doom and gloom, and complaints that someone’s city, region or province isn’t getting their “fair share.”

I’m over it. And you should be too.

Canada has the lowest GDP in the G7, yet instead of focusing on growing as a country, we argue over local attribution and incessantly compare our cities and provinces. (I can’t tell you how many hours of my life I’ve lost in conversations with Vancouverites comparing themselves to Toronto.)

Chris Neumann - Canada needs to stop competing with itself - east-coast media bias — “*The East-Coast media doesn’t care about us. All they care about is Toronto…*”

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Instead of worrying about which province is ahead this week, or which city ranks higher in some arbitrary list put together by the marketing department of a second-tier publication, let’s figure out ways to work better together. Let’s celebrate the unique accomplishments of each city, region and province, while increasing collaboration across all stages and sectors of the tech economy.

Let’s stop treating tech in Canada as a zero-sum game.

I, for one, am cheering for every single entrepreneur and investor across Canada to win. And it’s not just me. The entire Panache team is unabashedly “Team Canada,” as are many others in our country's tech community.

When any company, city or province wins, we all do. 🇨🇦

Canada Needs to Stop Competing With Itself

The Quiet Part Out Loud