It’s hardly Canada’s millennial magnet, either. Hello, Vancouver, for that.

Big name tech offices? Over to you, Toronto and Montreal.

And yet, Canada’s capital is tearing it up on the tech track.

Shopify, the hometown hero of ecommerce, is worth more than $20 billion, making it one of Canada’s most valuable companies. And it wants to add thousands more jobs in Ottawa, where it’s competing with the likes of Amazon and Apple – and 1,750 local tech companies – for talent and space.

Tech in the National Capital Region has expanded so quickly that it now accounts for about eight per cent of the local workforce – a higher concentration than in any other Canadian city.

The only thing Ottawa’s missing may be a bit more attitude.

“I would say Toronto and Montreal have much more swagger than Ottawa,” says Shopify’s head of international recruitment, Janeffer Gangji. “What we really need to be doing is to start building our story and talking about ourselves.”

I moderated a session with the Ottawa Chamber of Commerce to better understand what the city needs to thrive in the age of innovation, and was joined on stage by Gangji, Invest Ottawa’s Sonya Shorey and Jacques Beauvais, the University of Ottawa’s dean of engineering.

Their top answer? Swagger.

Here are five reasons Ottawa should have more of it:

1. Millennials

Shorey said the city’s early-stage companies are dominated by millennials drawn to its cheaper rent and high standard of living. And as the tech industry across North America matures, there’s more and more reason for young people to strike out on their own, especially in cities where they can afford to be an entrepreneur. As Shorey said, “Why go to California and be employee 10,001 at Google when you can be a vice president at KlipFolio, or at Mindbridge?”

2. Co-ops

Ottawa has two universities and two colleges, each with celebrated work-integrated learning programs. Beauvais said his school is aiming to take co-ops to a new frontier, by mixing arts and engineering students and working more closely with companies that want creative and technical teams speaking the same language. At Carleton University, the school has developed a new kind of work-integrated learning program with Shopify to allow students to complete a four-year Bachelor of Computer Science while working half-time at the company, which covers their tuition on top of a salary.

3. Startups

While not as famous as Communitech in Waterloo or MaRS in Toronto, Invest Ottawa has converted a 70-year-old industrial building along the Ottawa River into a destination for entrepreneurs. Bayview Yards is home to 35 startups, and according to Shorey is catching the eye of multinationals looking to scout the next generation of talent and ideas. “They’re looking for not only disruptive technology expertise but the ability to combine and integrate different types of technology approaches, create different business models, and bring truly new concepts to their products,” she said.

4. Coffee

Okay, it’s not Seattle. Yet. But Ottawa is dotted with third spaces serving up java and free wifi for budding entrepreneurs, including a local brand, Bridgehead Coffee, which has built itself up as a successful alternative to Starbucks. Bridgehead has even become part of Shopify’s origin story, as it’s where Harley Finkelstein, the company’s chief operating officer, first met its founder Tobias Lutke. Finkelstein points to the community feel – rare among G7 capitals – as central to an innovation culture that thrives on “collegiality and connectedness.”

5. Weather

Yes, weather. An Ottawa winter is perfect for two things: skating on the Rideau Canal and testing autonomous vehicles. Thanks to extreme conditions, the city is home to a new testing ground for self-driving cars – a joint project between the universities, Algonquin College, the local and provincial governments, and corporate partners including Nokia and Blackberry subsidiary QNX. It’s meant to be the most advanced AV project in the world, integrating into live infrastructure on public streets in all four seasons. You can’t get that in Silicon Valley. “California doesn’t have our ice, snow, sleet,” Shorey said. “That’s an advantage here.”

For more on the talent culture behind Ottawa’s thriving tech scene, I sat down with Harley Finkelstein at Shopify’s headquarters. Among his messages: “Ottawa and the entrepreneurs here certainly punch above their weight class. I hear a lot less discussion around looking to get acquired, and a lot more discussion about building the greatest company on the planet in that particular space.”

For more of our conversation, check out the latest RBCDisruptors podcast.

Their silent protests against police, and the handling of a possible serial killer case in Toronto’s gay village, demonstrated how far we have to go, too. It’s not just a public safety issue. For all the openness of the Pride Parades, employers have not done enough to create open and inclusive workplaces, especially for people who identify as LGBT+. Among minority groups, LQBT+ employees feel more discrimination and harassment than any other, according to new research from Diversio. The Toronto firm surveyed 2,100 employees in 20 firms across Canada, the U.S. and Britain, and found LGBT+ employees to be 3.7 times more likely than heterosexuals to say they had experienced mental, physical or sexual harassment at work. And they were nearly twice as likely to feel their opinions weren’t sought out or valued in the workplace. LGBT+ employees remain underrepresented in the workforce. The group accounts for just 8% of entry-level positions, 6% of management roles and none of the executive and board ranks surveyed, according to the Diversio study. We debated the problem at a recent Toronto roundtable with a group of community leaders, as part of an RBC Disruptors event featuring Dax Dasilva, the CEO and founder of Lightspeed, one of Canada’s fastest-growing tech companies. Here’s some of what they had to say:

1. Inclusion Is About More Than One Group

Companies need to encourage expressions of inclusion among all employees, regardless of their sexual identity. As an example, Dasilva said he attempts to celebrate religious holidays even if he doesn’t observe them. “I want people to feel represented and that we’re not just celebrating Pride or Martin Luther King Day because of a certain group,” he said.

2. Use the Power of Networks

Bruce McDonald, chair of the Canadian Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, said we need to do more to help LGBT+ entrepreneurs connect with large companies and government agencies, and to facilitate opportunities for financing and mentoring. He pointed out that emerging LGBT+ entrepreneurs often feel apprehensive when approaching large organizations. “While they’re comfortable in their own skin, they’re going into an environment where they’re not that comfortable,” McDonald said.

3. See the Economic Opportunity

It’s clear by now that the LGBT+ community has a measurable and significant impact on business. The community has a global spending power of US$3.5 trillion (yes, that’s trillion), according to LGBT Capital. Moreover, roughly one-fifth of millennials identified as LGBT+, according to GLAAD.

4. Showcase Success

Colin Druhan, executive director of Pride@Work Canada, tries to encourage companies to showcase LGBT+ role models to their staff, highlighting individuals from underrepresented communities who have done exceptional work in their field. “People need to realize there’s an importance to telling their story,” added Kary Cozens, executive vice president of StartProud, which helps LGBT+ students transition into the workforce. “Often people may think that they just want to be known for being good at their job, not for being a queer person. Well, why not? Why can’t you be both?”

5. Measure, Measure, Measure

If it’s not measured, it probably won’t get managed. And that’s where we’re seeing some progress. In the 2018 Corporate Equality Index, by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, 83% of Fortune 500 companies have gender identity protections that include transgendered people in their nondiscrimination policies, up from just 3% in 2002. As well, 82% of all businesses surveyed in the CEI — which polled more than 5,000 major brands — offered benefits to domestic partners. And of those, 89% extend these benefits to all partners, irrespective of the gender of the partner.

6. Think Long Term

The group stressed the need for patience, and to learn by doing. No organization is going to get it right at the start. But we won’t get it right if we don’t start. As Dasilva said: “Iteration is innovation.”

Back in 1990, when the parents of many of today’s post-secondary students were themselves in higher education, it took 293 hours of minimum-wage work to pay for the average tuition. Today, it takes 505 hours. Those numbers underscore a big shift in who pays for university education in Canada. Years of belt-tightening have led to a sharp reduction in governments’ share of funding for university education. It has fallen by nearly half since 1990, while the cost of tuition has risen by 2.7 times in real terms, according to a new RBC Economics report. While families have stepped in to fill the funding gap, many students—particularly those in lower-income households—have had to turn to borrowing. And that’s left a subset of new graduates entering the workforce with sizable debts. In the most recent academic year, the average annual tuition cost for an undergraduate degree in Canada (excluding Quebec) jumped by 3.1% to $7,600. That reflects a decades-long trend of tuition costs outpacing inflation. Compulsory fees add around $900 to the bill. (And for those studying away from home, living costs can tack on another $12,000 or more.) Families are picking up some of the tab. The share of Canadian households with children who had an RESP recently stood at 47%. While that was up from just 16% in 1999, higher-income households were more likely to have one, and on average contribute three times more. Universities have boosted support for students—they currently spend some $2 billion annually on scholarships and bursaries—but that assistance only partially blunts the rise in tuition costs. The upshot is that half of newly minted bachelor’s degree holders walk off campus with some form of student debt, and surveys show the percentage of those with a heavy debt load—more than $25,000—has doubled in the past decade. Three years after graduation, nearly a quarter of bachelor’s graduates with government student loans still owe more than $25,000. For those individuals, debt acts as a brake on other spending that we typically associate with entry into working life, such as buying a car or a home. Graduating students can find some comfort in the fact that the median university graduate employed full-time earns 63% more than the equivalent high school student. And that’s at the heart of why Canadian students and their parents are willing to work harder, save more, or borrow more, for ever-rising tuition rates.

Persistent dropout rates for high school youth and language barriers for many new Canadians are presenting the province – and its youth – with an acute challenge for the 2020s, as the Baby Boom retires and automation takes hold.

Will technology add to the burden, or ease it?

We debated the question at a recent Montreal roundtable, the first of a series with youth and education leaders across the country to explore the findings and recommendations of Humans Wanted, RBC’s landmark study of the Canadian workforce in an age of automation.

For Quebec, the economic benefits of technology are evident. According to RBC Economics, if the province can help its youth raise their productivity to the G7 average, it could add $7 billion to its economy.

Then there’s the social benefits of retaining and attracting a new generation to enhance Quebec’s place in the world.

But the status quo won’t do.

“We need to disrupt ourselves,” said Isabelle Bajeux-Besnainoux, dean of McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management.

Here’s how:

More High School Completion

A recent report from the Institut du Québec found the province’s high-school graduation rate (64%) to be the lowest in Canada, 20% lower than in Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It’s a challenge that’s deeply rooted in small towns and rural communities where youth still find good opportunities in the trades and manual labour. Trouble is, those jobs are being automated quickly, and many youth don’t have the breadth of skills they’ll need to move to the jobs of tomorrow, which will be much more tech-dependent.

More STEM

Quebec lags Canada in enrolment in science, technology, engineering and math and computer sciences, the so-called STEM streams. Statistics Canada data from 2016 show that of the province’s youth aged 20-29, the percentage who majored in STEM was only 17.7%, well behind Ontario (20.1%) and Alberta (21.5%). Pierre Dumouchel, who heads École de technologie supérieure, a Montreal engineering university, said Ontario has double the number of engineering students as Quebec. As a result, his school was able to fill only 3,600 of 6,000 available internships this past year. Dumochel calculates Québec will need to increase its engineering placements by 5.4% a year for another decade, with a heavy focus on software, to meet the current shortfall.

More Diversity

Quebec needs to boost the participation of women, indigenous youth and children of new Canadians in the STEM fields. That may require a rethinking of the prerequisites for engineering programs, which tend to exclude many girls who opt out of hard science courses in high school. Language barriers remains a challenge, too. Guy Breton, rector of Université de Montréal, said 40% of his students have neither French nor English as their primary language. It’s a growing issue in Montreal, where nearly one quarter of 20 to 24 year olds don’t claim French or English as their first language, up 21.2% from a decade ago. One idea: the province could make it easier for the 40,000 foreign students it graduates every year to transition into the workforce.

More Human Skills

François Bertrand, who heads the research, innovation and international affairs department at École Polytechnique, said there’s a need for a “C generation” of collaborators, communicators, and critical thinkers. He calls them “power skills,” which will be increasingly important to every job, from the surgeon to the sous-chef. Yet not enough Quebec schools are promoting, or measuring, those power skills. And not enough employers are sending signals to the market by hiring explicitly for them. An exception: the MBA program at HEC requires students to volunteer at non-profits to develop their human skills.

More Internships

Quebec leads Canada in practical learning, with 18.3% of its twenty-somethings holding an apprenticeship or trade certificate. That’s more than double the national average (8.3%). And it’s one reason Quebec has the lowest skills mismatch in Canada, with only 6.8% of STEM graduates holding jobs they’re over-qualified for, compared to 11.1% in Ontario and 12.1% in B.C., according to the 2016 census. Iris Unger, executive director of Youth Employment Services Montreal, cited paid internship programs as a critical bridge for youth into the workplace

More Space for Entrepreneurs

Caroline Brouillette, a social impact strategist at the consulting firm Credo, wants schools to explore new employment models, including flexible hours and “side hustles.” That would require more employers to create space for employees to pursue their entrepreneurial ambitions while also holding down a day job. And for many organizations, that would mean integrating entrepreneurship into their culture to help foster innovation among younger employees and attract quality talent.

 

The focus is now on people, not bins.

The charity requires donors to bring old clothing and household items to its centres, not just for efficiency, but to make contact with employees who are also Goodwill “clients.”

The 80-year-old organization is focussing on skills of the future, and how human skills can position socially disadvantaged youth for a very different world of work.

Hand-outs have given way to hands-on.

I visited Goodwill Ontario last week in London, Ontario with RBC CEO Dave McKay, to see how work-integrated learning can help youth from all backgrounds prepare for a changing economy. Too often when we talk about work-integrated learning, we focus on co-op students moving into the tech sector or apprentices training for major construction projects.

At Goodwill, they’re working with people like Mo, a single mother who is learning and working in the organization’s streetfront cafe, to develop skills for the hospitality sector. Or Alberto, who emigrated from Colombia and is building a green coffee importing business. Or Lela, an indigenous woman who left school in her teens and has since gained the education and skills to be a home care worker.

They call it “the power of work.”

Goodwill Ontario has gone from 300 employees to 700 in about seven years, as it sharpens its focus on training. Across North America, it has 130,000 employees and has built itself up to be a $5.87 billion social enterprise.

Many of those employees don’t have the formal credentials to pass a typical HR screen. Or they’ve never learned how to craft a resume or make eye contact in a job interview.

Most also lack that first job requirement that companies often demand before a candidate gets to first base. It’s the “no experience, no job” dilemma, and a key reason why there are nearly one million Canadian youth not in employment, education or training.

To help youth transition into the workplace, Goodwill’s programs focus on more than technical skills. They aim to develop the cultural fluency of work, through four key values:

• a willingness to work;
• a respect for other;
• a strong sense of self;
• a life plan.

As Canada develops a skills plan for the 2020s, and the age of automation, we should remind ourselves that work requires more than a skill. Social aptitudes, and resilience, are just as critical.

And work is about more than a paycheque. It’s a form of identity, and belonging. We can’t automate that.