Canadians and americans

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I noticed there are far fewer slowpokes up there.

I've been to major cities, and rural areas, all over the Western 1/2 or so of Canada & the USA all the way from Northern Alberta down to Mexico. There are regional differences in people and culture all over the place. Think about it.. the geographic distances between Provinces/States are greater than the differences between many European countries. There are definitely distinct differences in politics, attitude, culture etc all over our two countries.. so it's hard to just generalize Canadians vs. Americans when there are countless different types of each. Then there's still the Eastern 1/3 or so & the far North that I've yet to visit in person and have only met people who had travelled from those places. Accents change all over the place, too. In Vancouver we have accents from all over the world, but I still find it difficult to understand some people from Atlantic Canada when they speak.

Vancouver & Victoria are both gorgeous places. That "nice park" called Stanley Park has been voted best park in the World a few times now. It's really quite something and we're spoiled to have it, and the ocean, and the mountains and forests and everything else here. Thing is, many wealthy people - especially those from China, and now also from Europe, but mostly China - have decided that it's a beautiful place to be and they're moving here en masse and driving up real estate prices through the stratosphere. I'm talking like 15-25%+ gains per year that have driven the AVERAGE price of a home in Vancouver to upwards of $1.2Million. Locals are giving up on the idea of ever owning a house and the next generation of kids in Vancouver will be raised in ever smaller condos, Hong Kong style. It's still more feasible for people to buy houses in the suburbs at a relative value of ~$600K for a house, or ~$250-$400K for condos, or $350-$500K for townhomes.. but still, with the whole world deciding that Vancouver is awesome (and it truly is!) it's fast becoming the World's Whistler. ie Whistler is a resort town to Vancouver, now Vancouver is a resort town to the World.

Soooo, in the not so distant future you're better be a very wealthy person if you intend on moving to Vancouver and living a high quality of life. Otherwise you'd better be a hippy breatharian or something because affordability is pretty insane. I bet we're going to see a lot more roommate situations where 5 or 6 people split the rent in a 2 bedroom apartment, Manhattan style, that sort of thing. Still not sure what my long term plan is for staying here.. but I'm currently trying to save as much as I can so I can buy myself time to figure it out, and hopefully be able to afford to at least comfortably rent a place that's suitable for living and working from w/o breaking the bank. Thankfully, like many MANY adults in the region, I have the good fortune of being able to live with family at the moment in order to save money vs. be completely paycheque to paycheque and hand to mouth like the vast majority of the indebted working class here.

..yet I still have no interest in leaving here in pursuit of lower costs and much higher pay. Ideally I can grind it out here, live below my means, and slowly but surely get ahead until I'm comfortably set. The city itself is great sometimes, but it's the ocean, forests, mountains, and my friends (and family) that keep me here. Even when I'm working a daily grind routine and leave for work in the dark, get home in the dark, and don't see my friends for weeks or months at a time.. I still just don't want to be anywhere else if I can avoid it. I think this place holds that sort off magic over a lot of people, otherwise there would be an even greater economic exodus than the few who move North or East in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Never know though, if The Perfect work/career advancement opportunity came along, I might be open to temporarily relocating just to fill my bank account - but only temporarily.

...To what extent have you looked into/investigated your hope/wish of " escaping oop North " ?
I am apparently NG even for travel , at this point in time ~ and I was conceived there !
Can you travel there ?

Even though I have a Bachelor's, I probably would have a very difficult time establishing permanent residency in Canada.

...Why ?????


te="kraftiekortie"]Even though I have a Bachelor's, I probably would have a very difficult time establishing permanent residency in Canada.[/quote]

Because I'm not in one of the "skilled" fields which Canadians desire. I would be taking jobs from Canadians; there are many teachers/speech language pathologists in Canada already.

Basically, I would have to marry a Canadian in order to establish permanent residency there.

It's so laughable, especially that the country is so large and diverse. It's also silly how University Degrees gets you 'points' where all the jobs are in skilled trades. Strange that some immigrants where I live are lazy, entitled and have no useful skills.

Makes you wonder if some of these almost American-specific restrictions are designed to keep Americans in at the behest of the US.


Generally yes but it my experience we are getting worse by the day. I could not get over how much traffic there was in the USA and how fast it was but I found they were generally on par with Canada in terms of letting drivers merge, signaling, etc. They were also very good with pedestrians to my surprise.

I think what you stated applies to areas outside of cities.

In cities, traffic rules tend to be followed--but drivers are really impatient; you could see it on their faces!

Travelling on the 400's highways near Toronto is actually pretty harrowing!

But the Trans-Canada highway, in general, is easy to travel on.

I think this is true in all major cities in both countries. I do remember how Boston in particular the pedestrians were absolutely fearless. They literally ran out against the light all the time and nobody honked or yelled at them. While the traffic was insane nobody was a jerk although the dead look on driver's eyes was noticeable. The first time I visited Toronto all I could hear was constant horn honking and the traffic was at a standstill in all directions. Makes you wonder why any sane person would drive in those two cities in particular.

I was a nervous wreck after driving downtown Boston in rush hour. After doing that, I cannot imagine facing that day in day out!

I married a Canadian, and their immigration law is not the same as the US. My wife essentially was granted automatic entry into the US when I sponsored her under the fiancee visa as my future relative.

My admittedly cursory research into moving to Canada based on marriage made it clear that it was by no means the same green light situation. I actually respected Canada's law more than the US one. I think recent events have shown it should by no means be automatic that the spouse of a citizen be granted residence.

She misses her family in Canada, though, so I'm sure eventually I will have to move there.

As far as culturally, Minnesota and Ontario share a border, so there's a lot of similarities due to proximity. I would say Minnesota is more culturally akin to Canada than it is to Texas or Florida. A lot of that stems from regionalism, not from nationality, though.

I read at the time, that a lot of the restrictions [of the commonwealth nations] were put in place in the late 70s and early 80s in response to fears that with Ronnie Raygun in office that there'd be a new wave of people fleeing the draft, headed for Canada and such. so what you say about how we put Canada up to it makes sense.

I just read on The Weather Network that they're going to ban solar panels in Colorado because of fears that the panels "will suck all the energy out of the sun".



Someone replied that it had to be a joke, but I don't think it is. It's a little early for April Fool's Day.

that isn't the only place, there is another place I read about that did just about the same thing. what it really is about is energy companies not tolerating your dollars NOT going straight to them.

Allocation of subsidies in the United States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_subsidies

On March 13, 2013, Terry M. Dinan, senior advisor at the Congressional Budget Office, testified before the Subcommittee on Energy of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology in the U.S. House of Representatives that federal energy tax subsidies would cost $16.4 billion that fiscal year, broken down as follows:

Renewable energy: $7.3 billion (45 percent)
Energy efficiency: $4.8 billion (29 percent)
Fossil fuels: $3.2 billion (20 percent)
Nuclear energy: $1.1 billion (7 percent)


What about THOSE dollars of ours going straight to the companies? How about a little consistency? If you believe the energy companies are corrupt for trying to do a money grab on their customers, are not they equally corrupt for doing a money grab from the taxpayers?

the point is, they are corrupt for trying to ban competition.

Things like this are probably due to the fact that we grow up with so much exposure to American media -- television in particular. (I actually learned "zee" before "zed" from growing up watching American television, and as far as I know I don't ever say "zed" unless I'm talking to my dad ....because he likes to give me a hard time about it.) The reverse isn't true for Americans, as far as I know.