WATERLOO, Ont. -- An open letter signed by members of Canada's tech community is calling for the federal government to offer visas to people whose lives have been left in limbo because of U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration ban.
and it praises Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's message that Canada will remain inclusive to all nationalities.
But the letter calls for further action, and requests a visa that would allow displaced people to live and work in Canada, with access to benefits until they can complete the application process for permanent residency, if they choose.
Jennifer Moss, who co-founded a tech company based in Waterloo, Ont., and speaks for Tech Without Borders, said the visa could help people who work in the tech sector in the U.S. but can't get back to their jobs.
The group said the letter has been signed by senior Canadian leaders at Shopify, Google and Facebook.
"If you're not interested in keeping people that are extremely talented, intelligent, brilliant minds from all around the world, and turning them away at the borders, we're happy to take those people in our country," Moss said about the immigration order, which blocks people who hold passports from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen said the Canadian government has been getting clarification from the U.S. about the new policy, and will monitor developments before making decisions on actions such as visas.
"We have always been welcome to those coming to Canada to add their skills to our economy and to our society," Hussen told a news conference on Sunday.
There is already evidence that some tech workers are interested in coming to Canada.
One Canadian tech entrepreneur, Kaz Nejatian, said he received over 50 CVs overnight Saturday after he put out a call on social media looking for people affected by Trump's travel ban.
He's forwarding them to the CEOs of Canadian companies, and said he's chatted with 14 of them about hiring workers hurt by the policy. Google has reportedly sent an internal email saying 187 of its employees were stranded by the order.
"Many of these people cannot get back into the United States. These are people with homes in the United States, with jobs in the United States, with cars in the United States, who have been security-checked and approved by the U.S. government," said Nejatian, who splits his time between Toronto and San Francisco, where he has an office for his retail-services application Kash.
"Some have been stranded at the border. I just said, 'Hey, look, there are lots of Canadian tech companies looking to hire. Let me see if I can connect them."'
Mark Organ, founder and CEO of Influitive, a Toronto-based marketing software firm with 150 employees, said even if Trump reverses the policy completely, the damage has already been done. His company recently hired a new director from India who opted to come to Toronto instead of accepting offers in the U.S., and has been receiving applications from Canadians in Silicon Valley who want to come home.
"The current situation is anything but stable, and I expect that the steady flow of talent coming to the technology centres in Canada will become a flood," Organ said in an email.
The U.S. State Department initially said the ban applied to dual citizens, but the Canadian government declared later that it had received a guarantee from Trump's national security advisor that Canadians would be spared.
For Nejatian, who was born in Iran, it was a confusing weekend of mixed messages and he said he's awaiting clearer written instructions.
He said this could be a golden opportunity for Canada. A former federal immigration official who worked for former minister Jason Kenney, Nejatian said successive federal governments have spent years trying to attract smart high-tech talent.
"We're conservative on immigration issues. We believe in secure borders. But there's an opportunity here for Canada to take advantage of, if the U.S. is closing up. And there's lots of smart people who will want to start companies. There's no reason those companies can't be started in Canada."
