Quebec's Preoccupation With French Is Limiting Its Startup Scene

Montreal is an attractive place to form a startup, if you can tolerate the snow. The rents are significantly lower than in any other major Canadian city. The universities, including "Harvard of the North" McGill, churn out thousands of highly skilled job applicants. There's universal health care. There are concentrated enclaves of young, creative minds, and the kind of nightlife that attracts them

The city has become a beacon for the gaming industry, and a burgeoning startup scene has begun to flourish. Montreal lures tech companies not so much with its low rents and plentiful Molson Dry, but mainly because of a generous tax credit for multimedia companies offered by the Quebec government, which pays 30% of employees' salaries, sweetening the pot with an extra 7.5% if the company includes a French translation of their product in its initial release. Read more...