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If you've clicked on this you are probably a lot like I was nearly a dozen years ago: American, whiteish, white-collar, liberal but not too dogmatic about it, upwardly mobile, interested in raising a family, and, most importantly, the proud recipient of a job offer from some place in CANADA. And you probably think to yourself, "Canada! It'll be just like the US but more progressive. They're so nice there. It will be a great place to make a new start." So the main purpose of this thread is to say the following directly to you: DON'T DO IT. "Too late!" you say. "The movers are packing up my stuff even as we speak!" Or "But I've already moved," you say, "And I think I know what you're talking about! Help!!!" The other purpose of this thread is to provide advice and therapeutically hilarious/bitter anecdotes about my own experience in order to help you deal with the transition and focus on your exit plan. Have an exit plan!! Ironically, being in Canada for over a decade has helped me to realize some life-long dreams. One is a childhood dream. It is to be a policeman. The other is a dream I didn't even know I had until I moved to Canada. That dream is to get the gently caress out of Canada. I am in the midst of a 2-year self-extraction plan that will allow me to achieve both of these dreams. Think of it! From a pretty well paid white collar worker in Canada to a medium-sized-town cop in the US! Canada causes some crazy poo poo to happen. First disclaimer: while many of the things I say in this thread are probably applicable to Canada as a whole, and while I would never never never recommend that any American (or other non-Canadian) move to any part of Canada for any reason, I should say that I am really talking about Ontario, and, more specifically, about Toronto. If you are a wilderness guide and you have the opportunity to move to Yellowknife, then maybe Canada really is for you. Honestly, I don't know. But if you are the kind of person who gets offered a job in Toronto, then I can assure you Toronto is NOT FOR YOU. So, please ask any questions you like. I am good at answering questions about general and specific differences between Americans and Canadians, the "culture" (such as it is) of Toronto, the immigration process and the possibilities of your partner getting a job if he/she immigrated with you but not with a job of his/her own, raising kids in Toronto, shopping and eating in Toronto, buying a house in Toronto, traveling to and from the US, dealing with Canadian postal service & customs problems, the advantages and disadvantages of "free" healthcare, and much more! This is not really meant to be a Canada-trashing thread, though Canadians will undoubtedly see it that way. I promise to give credit where it is due and to answer questions by pointing out, where possible, the good things that have happened to me here. But the basic point is this: in over 10 years in this country, working in a job that puts me in contact with a lot of ex-pats, I have not met ONE SINGLE fellow immigrant (this includes from the US, UK, Australia/NZ, Europe, Asia) who really likes being here or who isn't watching for the first opportunity to leave. All of these people came here, like me, eagerly and with an open mind, and all very very quickly (like within 3 months) realized that coming was a mistake. That's enough for the first post! I'll see if anyone actually has any questions before posting some anecdotes. You wait with bated breath, no doubt. Bring it on! SexyPatTO fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Jul 17, 2015 |
# ? Jul 17, 2015 16:44 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 07:58 |
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SexyPatTO posted:If you've clicked on this you are probably a lot like I was nearly a dozen years ago: American, whiteish, white-collar, liberal but not too dogmatic about it, upwardly mobile, interested in raising a family, and, most importantly, the proud recipient of a job offer from some place in CANADA. And you probably think to yourself, "Canada! It'll be just like the US but more progressive. They're so nice there. It will be a great place to make a new start." So the main purpose of this thread is to say the following directly to you: The rest of Canada agrees with you with regards to Toronto, just so you know. Also Vancouver for the most part, although they seem to have a better brainwashing program on arrival. I was born and raised in Calgary, and I'm not actively looking to get the hell out at the moment, but I certainly wouldn't turn down a decent offer that would take me elsewhere.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 16:48 |
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Since you skipped over answering your own thread title, I'll ask it. Why should I not move to Canada?
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 19:40 |
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Is one of the reasons that people shouldn't move there that Canada requires, by law, that your OP just be a big tease without any of the content that I'm sure is stuck in customs somewhere? Not just threadshitting legit curious about Canada.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 19:58 |
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I grew up in Ontario and now I'm moving to South Carolina in three weeks. Ask me how I feel about this.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 20:05 |
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:I grew up in Ontario and now I'm moving to South Carolina in three weeks. Ask me how I feel about this. Hey cool, questions. OK, let's start with this one, which will be a good way to make this thread less of a teaser (sorry). Obviously there are two possible answers to this. (1) I can't believe I have to move to that redneck hellhole - nothing in Ontario is that scary. (2) I am so excited to shake the dust off of this little province and go to somewhere that actually has a culture and a history and interesting people to talk to. It is a really ordinary thing for Canadians to boost Canada by comparing it to what they imagine is the shittiest part of the US. This is similar to their habit of crowing incessantly about their universal health care, i.e. "You'll love Canada when you're lying on your back in a hospital bed!" Now, I'll be the first to admit that it's a really nice thing to go into a doctor's office for your checkup or whatever and get checked up and then walk out without writing a check for a co-pay. When you pay 13% sales tax on goods that are already massively marked up because of duty and other import-related costs (so a pair of shoes that cost $100 in the US will cost $150 in Canada, and then you pay 13% on top of that), you drat well had better get some social benefits. They do seem to have figured the single-payer thing out up here for relatively healthy people (at least from what I understand- - fortunately I have no first-hand experience - if you have a serious health problem that needs immediate attention you hope to be able to afford to go to the US to get it deal with ...) and obviously the US health care system is massively hosed up, but I still get lots of private health benefits (incl dental) through my job that the unemployed or part-timer Joe Canada would not. And, Jesus Christ, just because a country has, like pretty much every other country in the world does, a better health care system than the US doesn't make it an earthly paradise. So if you plan to be both unemployed and needing lots of basic health care then, yes, I suppose Canada could be the place for you. What I'm saying is that the health care system is not really a selling point for people who are moving there because they are being recruited for jobs. As to South Carolina. I have been there once, and recall going to this unbelievable breakfast place where they dumped fistfuls of bacon onto your plate and put your over-easy eggs on top of these biscuits that were so flaky it would make you cry and I think my friend and I paid like $5 a piece. I'm sure that place is still there, and it is awesome. I hope you will get to go to it. I can say with absolute certainty that there is no place in all of, Toronto included, that has a breakfast of that quality and one, moreover, served to you by friendly, competent people. Now, you may justly say that "breakfast" is not exactly a selling point for a country to which you are immigrating ... But breakfast is the most important meal of the day it is definitely a strong point *against* Canada (which is, after all, the subject of this thread) - and now I should say that I'm only talking about / I only know about Ontario - that there are very, very few places to get a good, cheap, everyday meal. Don't even get me started on the lunchtime/deli/sandwich situation. In Toronto 90% of the restaurants are either very fancy and super expensive; or very shiny and overpriced and not very good, like the kind of place you see in a "theatre district" in a middle sized city; or just so lovely you can't believe it. I did not intend to get sidetracked by food, but I am cooking dinner right now, so my stomach is doing the talking. Next time I'll talk about the myth of Canadian politeness.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 21:13 |
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Literally no Canadian is going to disagree with you. Toronto is a poo poo place to live. Just an FYI.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:13 |
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SexyPatTO posted:
Have you been able to talk to any Native Americans about this myth? (I think they call them first nations up north.)
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:22 |
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I don't own a car, and live on foot and public transit in west coast cities built after World War II. Aside from their lovely day passes and tokens (the latter of which have been phased out) and the sleeping men in the glass boxes who verified said day passes, I thought Toronto seemed pretty wonderful. That's not to say that I wouldn't get the same experience of efficient mass transit in New York or Chicago, but not having to worry about so much gun use and worrying if this was the day a non-criminal was going to use their constitutionally protected right to firearms for bad purposes seemed like a bonus. If I could afford to, I'd get an education there in order to at least get a taste of the life. I got as far as Seneca mailing me a bunch of catalogues and information before I laughed at the costs and realized that no, no I wasn't interested. The McDonalds taste better, people like hockey (go Sharks!), and the newsmedia might not always be less sesnationalist than what we have but at least it seems less gullible. Why would I hate it compared to being an hourly mook where I already am? SexyPatTO posted:obviously the US health care system is massively hosed up, but I still get lots of private health benefits (incl dental) through my job that the unemployed or part-timer Joe Canada would not. And, Jesus Christ, just because a country has, like pretty much every other country in the world does, a better health care system than the US doesn't make it an earthly paradise. Although I guess I should say that in states that accepted the Medicaid expansion, Obamacare has helped unemployed Joe America (or rather, Joe MedicaidState) a lot. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Jul 17, 2015 |
# ? Jul 17, 2015 22:57 |
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Still not getting why I shouldn't move to Canada. It just sounds like a regular old boring place much like 99.9% of the world.
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# ? Jul 17, 2015 23:39 |
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SexyPatTO posted:Next time I'll talk about the myth of Canadian politeness. As an American who works almost exclusively with Canadians, I can say that they're all mean as gently caress. They're just really nice about it. OP, please convince me that Canada is worse than New England.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 02:57 |
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:I grew up in Ontario and now I'm moving to South Carolina in three weeks. Ask me how I feel about this. I grew up in South Carolina and now live in Alberta! It's not the worst but the winters suck. Otherwise it's not so bad living in the city. e: good loving luck though if you have a medical emergency before you have your provincial healthcare card, better hope you can afford to fly back to the states at the drop of a hat. I still had some leftover time on US healthcare but I needed my gallbladder removed and it would have cost me, without AHC, 5k just to be admitted to the hospital, before anything was even definitively diagnosed. I avoided clinic doctors like the plague until I got my card, even when I was pretty seriously ill, because a clinic visit would run me between $80 and $120, and then presciptions anywhere from $20-150. uranium grass fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Jul 18, 2015 |
# ? Jul 18, 2015 03:11 |
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Insanite posted:As an American who works almost exclusively with Canadians, I can say that they're all mean as gently caress. They're just really nice about it. Having lived in Toronto and Boston, they're pretty much equivalent. Toronto's douchier but with better food. E: Toronto is also a much better place to be poor in -- everything is pricier but the minimum wage, student aid, and free healthcare all own Saeku fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Jul 18, 2015 |
# ? Jul 18, 2015 03:19 |
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MOVIE MAJICK posted:I grew up in Ontario and now I'm moving to South Carolina in three weeks. Ask me how I feel about this. Depends on where in South Carolina. I prefer the northern parts myself. Columbia is a renters' nightmare, Rock Hill/Fort Mill actually isn't that bad, Chester used to be one of the STD capitals of the US and my dentist was missing teeth. However I got by comfortably as a single person on $400 a month. No car, but I didn't need one and when I needed one I bought one. Two roommates (three bedroom house_ which brought rent down to 250 a month, 60 on utilities (split three ways) and the rest on food and incidentals. It was pretty great. I lived in an amazing neighborhood too. South Carolina is hands down the cheapest place you could ever live. The pay is poo poo, but that's okay because you can live on almost nothing here. If you commute to Charlotte from SC you can live comfortably. You just have to deal with the traffic which is astoundingly bad because of terrible highway planning.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 05:20 |
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I thought the only place in North America I'd live in outside of NYC is Toronto. I guess I was wrong, because it sounds just as corrupting on one's soul as NYC. In terms of national politics, is Canada in a better position to recover from its right-wing government than most other parts of the world? I get the feeling that it is because the NDP is an actual challenger to rightward movement, which the Liberals aren't. Conversely, from what I see from afar in Australia, they might give Tony Abbott the boot, but it looks like Labor is totally ready to continue a lot of their policies while paying lip service to doing things differently- which is exactly the case when it comes to treating immigrants coming there on boats. Meanwhile, the other parties there just don't have the numbers to challenge Labor and the Liberals.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 06:18 |
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Y-Hat posted:I thought the only place in North America I'd live in outside of NYC is Toronto. I guess I was wrong, because it sounds just as corrupting on one's soul as NYC. It's questionable, because Harper runs a strong campaign and could still wring a minority government out of it. The Liberals are not supportive of an NDP-led government. A minority government is basically a coalition government.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 06:47 |
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No offense, but I'm still waiting to find out why I shouldn't move to the land of poutine. You probably have some solid reasons, so subscribed.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 15:07 |
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Most people react the identical way people on this thread are reacting to the proposition that Canada is not a place you want to move. "It can't be that bad," they say, "And you're just complaining about the fact that you can't get a decent burger [universally overcooked] or a decent slice of pizza [no sauce], but that's true of [insert name of X lovely city/town/hamlet where you live or someone else lives]." So, yes, Canada is not that bad. Manhattanite friends of ours, who also have children, and are involved in the standard knife-fighting that goes on there re. schooling, are very jealous of how easy, safe, relatively OK it is to raise and educate kids up here. Again: the extreme worst case of something proves that Canada is not really that bad when you think about it. But even in more absolute terms, there's lots of nice stuff for boring middle class people with kids and a decent amount of subsidized childcare so you can always find a place to take your squawking infant for two hours each morning and chat with other parents about child rearing. EXCEPT that you won't be doing a lot of chatting because if the person you are talking to is a white Canadian (i.e. not a Filipino nanny, not a Ukranian or South Asian immigrant, and not a fellow American) because the instant you reveal that you are an American they will get weirdly haughty/defensive/self-righteous, and then they will extricate themselves from the conversation and you will never talk to them again. Because, you see, YOU ARE AN IMMIGRANT and while Canada desperately needs immigrants, most Canadian-born Canadians (at least in Ontario) do not like immigrants. Want to get some small perspective on how skilled (or even unskilled!), "legal" Mexican immigrants to the US feel when the Republicans start spewing their hateful bullshit? Move to Canada. If you are trying to immigrate there as a skilled worker, even if you have been actively recruited by a company, you will be astonished at how deliberately difficult and unwelcoming they make the immigration process. You think Boston sucks? Because it's sort of a small town that thinks it's a big city, that has a chip on its shoulder about New York, that could be so much better than it is? Because it has a "city pride" that resembles the loyalty people have to their high school? Toronto is also that city. Except if you move there, you will be a foreigner and you will never be allowed to forget that they think you don't belong. I bet Charlotte NC is a lot like Boston in similar ways. But if you move to Charlotte and say "I'm from Boston," people will talk to you about it on equal terms, or they won't talk to you about it, but they also won't suggest that your being from Boston is an essential problem. To be continued...
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 17:44 |
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Ice Phisherman posted:Depends on where in South Carolina. I prefer the northern parts myself. Columbia is a renters' nightmare, Rock Hill/Fort Mill actually isn't that bad, Chester used to be one of the STD capitals of the US and my dentist was missing teeth. The apartment I got in Columbia is so cheap to me, coming from Ontario prices. Everything is so insanely cheap. People were so nice when I went to visit SC it blew me away. Ontarians airnt polite, they're aloof and boring. I'm happy to be done with Canada.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 18:20 |
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OP where are you from?
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 19:03 |
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Any American who dreams of moving here to get away from the big, mean conservatives needs to understand they exist here as well. They just aren't as openly dickish as the Donald Trumps of the world.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 19:40 |
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Terrorist Fistbump posted:OP where are you from? Washington DC, which is similar to Toronto in many ways: it is a medium sized city with a sprawling greater met area; it's kind of a sleepy town with not great food; its full of people who would rather be somewhere else. But DC is also different from Toronto in many ways: it is clean; it is beautiful; everyone (except some of the callow mover-shaker lawyer/Hill-staffer types) is very friendly. Want a perfect example of a historically super-hosed, racism-riven, rich-poor-gap American city? That is DC. There are some seriously poor, seriously miserable people there and some seriously rich assholes. DC's got a lot of problems. But just try walking past people on the street without getting a "hello" nod. Try standing in line at the supermarket without having a nice brief conversation with the person behind you and/or the cashier. In DC there is this weird sense of "we're all in this together, right?" and your day is routinely punctuated with pleasant human interactions. That is one reason (though not the only, the other is that DC knows it is a destination for patriotic tourists) that the city is clean - like really loving clean. Before I moved to Toronto I never saw people spit on the sidewalk, throw their cigarette wrappers out the window, leave their take-out wrappers on sidewalk benches. And the joke about this is that the first thing people in Toronto will tell you is that their city is clean and the people are friendly! A few years ago I was heading home for a couple of weeks and had a doctor's appointment before leaving and I mentioned that I was going out of town and my doctor asked where and I said "Washington DC," to which his reply was "Lots of crime." That is Ontario in a nutshell. If I were at a doctor in the US, and told him I was going to Toronto he would say, "What's in Toronto?" He wouldn't say it in a particularly interested or uninterested way - it would just be small talk - but he would genuinely be leaving open the possibility that there was something in Toronto I would want to mention and that he could not guess. It would be a human interaction. The human interaction is a rare part of daily life in Toronto. If you mention the US, Torontonians, Ontarians, probably most Canadians in general, think they have it all figured out already and are happy to tell you so.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:09 |
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SexyPatTO posted:Washington DC, which is similar to Toronto in many ways: it is a medium sized city with a sprawling greater met area; it's kind of a sleepy town with not great food; its full of people who would rather be somewhere else. But DC is also different from Toronto in many ways: it is clean; it is beautiful; everyone (except some of the callow mover-shaker lawyer/Hill-staffer types) is very friendly. Want a perfect example of a historically super-hosed, racism-riven, rich-poor-gap American city? That is DC. There are some seriously poor, seriously miserable people there and some seriously rich assholes. DC's got a lot of problems. But just try walking past people on the street without getting a "hello" nod. Try standing in line at the supermarket without having a nice brief conversation with the person behind you and/or the cashier. In DC there is this weird sense of "we're all in this together, right?" and your day is routinely punctuated with pleasant human interactions. That is one reason (though not the only, the other is that DC knows it is a destination for patriotic tourists) that the city is clean - like really loving clean. Before I moved to Toronto I never saw people spit on the sidewalk, throw their cigarette wrappers out the window, leave their take-out wrappers on sidewalk benches. And the joke about this is that the first thing people in Toronto will tell you is that their city is clean and the people are friendly! I'm starting to think you started this thread to bring up all the things that are better about Toronto than other medium-sized cities in the US. Everytime you make it seem like you're going to say, "what sucks about Toronto is..." you pull back and bring up city A in the states, describe something that's worse about city A than Toronto. So much worse in fact that people bring it up in polite conversation. This counts as Canadians being mean so we shouldn't move to Canada.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:34 |
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Skeesix posted:I'm starting to think you started this thread to bring up all the things that are better about Toronto than other medium-sized cities in the US. Everytime you make it seem like you're going to say, "what sucks about Toronto is..." you pull back and bring up city A in the states, describe something that's worse about city A than Toronto. So much worse in fact that people bring it up in polite conversation. This counts as Canadians being mean so we shouldn't move to Canada. Yikes! This is a bad misunderstanding, but I see what you mean. The problem arises from the problem I'm trying to address, which is that most Americans who move to Canada, or contemplate the move, imagine it as a kind of salvation: "this country sucks/this city sucks so I'll go somewhere that just has to be better." My point has been that, in one way, yeah, everyone's city sucks - we all have things to complain about, the one good restaurant we used to go to has always just closed, we wish people didn't try to act like it was New York, blah blah bah. Often these are the reasons people move, especially from the city to the suburbs or vice-versa. It's a bad mistake to let this kind of feeling energize a move to Canada, because, like usual, you'll find that the place you come to is not actually as good as you thought it would be AND you will now be a real-live immigrant in a place that is really hostile, in both active and passive ways, to immigrants. Quickly, for the moment, and more some other time: if you are recruited for a highly skilled job in Canada, and your husband/wife is also highly skilled but is not similarly being recruited, he/she will have an unbelievably hard time getting a job in Canada. Advanced degrees? Marketable skills? Years of experience? Doesn't matter. Because what he/she doesn't have, besides a job offer going in, is "Canadian experience." ... edit: I should point out in case it's not clear that I started this thread because I hate living in Canada with a blinding passion and I wish someone had set me straight before I'd moved there. Not that it would have stopped me, because I was young and foolish, but because at least then I would have had an idea of what I was getting into... SexyPatTO fucked around with this message at 22:37 on Jul 18, 2015 |
# ? Jul 18, 2015 21:45 |
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How and why would Canadians give a poo poo about Americans living there since there are tons of Canadians living in Florida(and elsewhere) and they're essentially indistinguishable from Americans unless they're from Quebec or something.
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 22:30 |
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im happy i dont live in a country where it is expected of you to talk in queues
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# ? Jul 18, 2015 23:09 |
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Everytime I meet a Quebecois I'm amazed that they are more of a caricature of themselves then I last remembered.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 03:17 |
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Of course Toronto sucks compared to DC! I thought you were going to say you were from Missouri or Idaho or some other part of flyover country, not a major East Coast city. DC has changed a lot for the better over the 20 years I've lived in the area, but I can't imagine a DC or metro area resident ever thinking Toronto is that much of an upgrade. I'm moving to loving NYC soon and sort of feel like it's a mistake to leave this city.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 04:12 |
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"Don't move to Canada" and "Don't move to Toronto" are rather different statements.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 04:21 |
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Bip Roberts posted:Everytime I meet a Quebecois I'm amazed that they are more of a caricature of themselves then I last remembered. OP could try moving temporarily to Montreal and then Toronto will seem like a blessed relief in comparison.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 04:26 |
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This is actually pretty interesting to me. The wife and I are looking at starting the Express Entry process next year after she finishes her undergraduate (architecture) and I get my graduate degree (applied computing). This is the reality we face right now (this is Brazil btw). Which of these points would be worse in Canada? - Economy: Inflation at 10% per year. Unemployment approaching 10% also. Forecasts predict shrinking of GDP by 1-2% by 2016. Currency has devalued by 12% in the last year (I guess Ukraine's is doing worse, small comfort). 13% yearly interest rate. - Healthcare: Single-payer, but wait times for simple procedures (say, doctor visits) are terrible, and approaching infinity for complex procedures (say, about a year for a PET scan and the like). Overall shortages of medications and supplies, horrible infrastructure, regular doctor strikes. - Education: Strikes, nonexistent infrastructure. Over 25% of the population is functionally illiterate. Public funding that supports research and development was slashed by 75% this year. - Crime: Homicide rate is 25 per 100k (last count was 50k murdered yearly). Weekly muggings and carjackings in our neighborhood. Monthly reports of rapes. Last year one of our neighbors was murdered and set on fire by the sidewalk. Every person was personally or knows of a friend or family member that was a victim of a robbery, or worse. We live downtown in the nation's capital. Overall sense is "when" not "if" something happens. As in "*when* something eventually happens to me or mine, hopefully it's something minor like a car jacking, and not something like a shooting or rape." - Politics: Rampant corruption (ranked 69th in the 2014 Corruptions Perceptions Index). The largest public oil company lost 60% of its value in the last year due to a massive scandal involving politicians from virtually every political party. The president is looking at impeachment (not very likely, but one can hope). Now, this isn't me being passive-agressive. I know it isn't all really perfect over there (I've been following the Canadian Debt Bubble and Politics threads, so that's one thing). But really, I spent some time in the States as a kid (in the south, no less), so dirty looks don't bother me. I don't mind getting even a menial job with a Master's, washing dishes, cutting lawns, whatever. My mother had to do all that when we lived in the States, and it didn't kill her. Even having to sell (and probably lose) everything I've worked for in the immigration process doesn't bother me, as long as my future children (if we both get to live long enough to have any) have a better shot than they'd have here. What do you think? Sulla fucked around with this message at 16:25 on Jul 19, 2015 |
# ? Jul 19, 2015 04:46 |
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You might find this blog interesting. This guy is an Argentinian who lived through the economic crisis there before getting out and immigrating to Northern Ireland. (He would have preferred the USA.) A lot of what he talks about sounds similar to your situation but worse. Collapsing economy, high crime, corruption at every level, people just wanting to get out. The blog and his books have a prepper slant, but are pretty firmly grounded in reality. He doesn't have a lot of patience for the James Rawles "flee for the hills, hide your roll of silver quarters" types. http://www.themodernsurvivalist.com/ Back on topic, I would like to hear more from people moving from Canada to the USA, and why.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 05:40 |
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Sulla posted:This is actually pretty interesting to me. The wife and I are looking at starting the Express Entry process next year after she finishes her undergraduate (architecture) and I get my graduate degree (applied computing). I guess my question would be why Canada and not the US? I realize there may be personal & political complexities here that I simply can't fathom. In many ways I did not think the thread title/original post through quite as thoroughly as I ought, and the ensuing discussion, which is more interesting than the one I probably had in my head, makes me realize how specifically I was talking about US-Canada immigration. There are a lot of South American and Central American and Southern European immigrants in Toronto. They are here in large part for reasons you describe: high unemployment, very unstable economy, rampant political corruption, etc. I was talking to this girl, probably 20 years old, who works at a cafe I go to sometimes. She is from Rome. "What are you doing *here*?" I asked, thinking "Rome is paradise!" And she said "There are no jobs in Italy, and no prospects for jobs." She hates it here, but here she is. Who am I to judge? So, yes, in Canada you'll find a safer environment, less political corruption (Canadian politics are boring/inconsequential to the point of comedy), an economy that I guess is pretty stable (though the Canadian dollar has lost 25% of its value over the last year or so, which makes travel out of the country almost prohibitively expensive and food in Canada even more crazily expensive than it already is), decent education (though hilariously jingoistic in its insistence on teaching the superiority of all things Canadian). It's pretty easy to live in Canada and obviously that's no small thing. But if you move to Toronto, or most other places in Ontario (except for rural places, where you probably won't find a job), you'll find it to be a very ugly city, insanely expensive (from groceries to gas to public transportation to rent to real estate), cultureless, and filled with angry immigrants who self-ghettoize and dream of home. I don't think the psychological dimension of immigrant-hood can be underestimated in its importance, especially if you end up doing work that is well below your training/qualifications. I am lucky enough to be making decent money doing the thing I was trained to do and I'm poo poo-canning it all for a serious career change at lower pay! Maybe I'm the idiot. To return to where I started, why not the US? Whatever you may hear in the news, the US is a *much* more immigrant-friendly place than Canada, and people who immigrate to the US are, in my experience, much happier, much more excited to stay and make a life there, than people who immigrate to Canada. This goes for people in my own white-collar field and also various friends and relatives I know who immigrated to the US from Paraguay and Mexico. It is also, despite what Canadians (most of whom have never lived anywhere else) will tell you, much easier to live, even to live poor, in the US than in Canada.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 19:03 |
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SexyPatTO posted:But if you move to Toronto, or most other places in Ontario (except for rural places, where you probably won't find a job), you'll find it to be a very ugly city, insanely expensive (from groceries to gas to public transportation to rent to real estate), cultureless, and filled with angry immigrants who self-ghettoize and dream of home. I don't think the psychological dimension of immigrant-hood can be underestimated in its importance, especially if you end up doing work that is well below your training/qualifications. I am lucky enough to be making decent money doing the thing I was trained to do and I'm poo poo-canning it all for a serious career change at lower pay! Maybe I'm the idiot. The problem with our attitude toward immigration is that the government officially believes in multiculturalism and the "cultural mosaic" model instead of the melting pot model of the States, and it's reflected in exactly what you describe. There's no pressure on immigrants to integrate into mainstream Canadian society, and in a lot of cases there are forces that discourage it (people being criticized for "giving up their culture"), so ultimately you get groups of people that feel like they don't really "belong" anywhere outside their own little community. I don't think anyone should have to give up their culture completely in order to be/feel Canadian, but it's beyond me why we don't ask for any level of integration. EDIT: And food is so loving expensive here compared to the States and even Europe, you're absolutely right. God forbid you enjoy tobacco or alcohol, either.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 19:17 |
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I live in Toronto and talk to lots of people all the time and they're usually friendly you are just a weirdo cop.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 20:38 |
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OP, have you considered that it might be you who is the problem?
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 20:42 |
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SexyPatTO posted:decent education (though hilariously jingoistic in its insistence on teaching the superiority of all things Canadian). Please, go on about our education system that I'm sure you are intimately familiar with. In one breath you complain about our "lack of culture" and in the next you criticize our education system for celebrating Canadian achievements. I grew up in small town Alberta, so maybe our curriculum differs from Ontario, but we were taught all about Canadian explorers and our involvement in the World Wars, among other things. I don't really recall anything about Canadian things being inherently superior, just that some Canadians have done some pretty cool things that we should recognize.
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 20:58 |
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Nessa posted:Please, go on about our education system that I'm sure you are intimately familiar with. Not focusing on American achievements = Jingoistic Canadian superiority
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 21:02 |
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PT6A posted:The rest of Canada agrees with you with regards to Toronto, just so you know. Also Vancouver for the most part, although they seem to have a better brainwashing program on arrival. An Albertan who doesn't like Toronto? How novel. At least you come by it honestly and aren't some self-hating Torontonian who's adopted the Albertan lifestyle and profited from it (you know, like our man Harper).
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# ? Jul 19, 2015 22:37 |
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# ? May 3, 2024 07:58 |
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The only real trouble with Toronto is traffic and public transit. Besides that it's just the same big city problems you get everywhere with a global recession.
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# ? Jul 20, 2015 03:39 |