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Moving to Canada: Pros and Cons

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PhantomR said:
Coming from the perspective of an American here in Seattle.

Vancouver is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful city, incredible landscape. Beautiful beaches. Not as many homeless people either and the streets are very clean.

Beyond that? Seattle dominates in every other way.

We have:

Better food
Better nightlife
Far more opportunities for work (Does Vancouver have Amazon? Microsoft? Nintendo? Starbucks? Boeing? lolno)
Much more important cultural relevance (When Vancouver creates their own Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Jimi Hendrix let me know)
More ethnic diversity


And the "free healthcare" argument is kinda lame. My health insurance is pretty freaking awesome at the company I work for. I pay $25 for copay for doctors visits and that's it. I see my doctor when I need to. No waiting lists. No lines. And it's cheap.

Canada is a great country. Great people.

USA is the FUCKING SHIT country.


Oh yeah...is pot legal in BC? lolno.

We win. :D
Click to expand...

somebody's insecure.
 
Vancouver is nice.
also has really odd climate for being that far north. hardly any harsh freezing.
There are even palm trees growing.

would you think these are pics of a city located north of Oregon?
Drfv1nn.jpg

Bd5sQPc.jpg
 
iamaustrian said:
Vancouver is nice.
also has really odd climate for being that far north. hardly any harsh freezing.
There are even palm trees growing.

would you think these are pics of a city located north of Oregon?
Drfv1nn.jpg

Bd5sQPc.jpg
Click to expand...

We have palm trees? That's news to me.

Lots of cherry tress though. And Asians. They have nothing to do with one another.
 
Cake Boss said:
the fuck?

ibrp4n50mkmAS9.gif
Click to expand...

Lol, craziest GIF ever.

Actually I've lived in Canada my whole life and it took me a very long while to warm up and appreciate the following the sport. This is coming from a guy who grew up in it and played it(street hockey, floor hockey, ice hockey, field hockey....ect...)

I liked and still like Basketball more. But damn if I don't say going to a live game is one of the most fun and enjoyable experiences ever. God damn.
 
I wasn't really serious. Neither do I hate hockey nor do I dislike canadians.

More entertaining than any other sport
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well I respectfully disagree, though it really is a blast when you're watching it live. On TV not so much.
 
I've lived in Toronto most of my life. I just moved to Montreal last year from Toronto and yes the women and the nightlife is way way better here. Also the people in general seem to be less stuck up. The Canadian media from what I've gathered makes the language barrier and separation issue seem worse than it actually is. From what I've gathered a lot of francophones hate Marois too.

No one's given me any trouble for not speaking french though I do have to deal with the occasional joke at work where someone will toss my name at the end of a totally unrelated conversation they're having in french to make me feel like I'm in trouble or something.

I do hate the awful awful road conditions, bad drivers (driving downtown can be a nightmare) and higher gas prices (the moment you leave Quebec the prices drop almost 20 cents).
 
One thing bad about Canada is that we have some bizarre inter regional hostilities that some take further than good natured ribbing.
 
It always makes me laugh when people say "Hey, health care is free in Canada!".

No, it sure as hell ain't free. The average family in Quebec pays $11000 for health care per year. Even if you don't go see a doctor ever.

That's the beauty of socialism, you can take people's money and they will not realize it and be happy about it, thinking it's "free".
 
PhantomR said:
Coming from the perspective of an American here in Seattle.

Vancouver is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful city, incredible landscape. Beautiful beaches. Not as many homeless people either and the streets are very clean.

Beyond that? Seattle dominates in every other way.

We have:

Better food
Better nightlife
Far more opportunities for work (Does Vancouver have Amazon? Microsoft? Nintendo? Starbucks? Boeing? lolno)
Much more important cultural relevance (When Vancouver creates their own Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or Jimi Hendrix let me know)
More ethnic diversity

And the "free healthcare" argument is kinda lame. My health insurance is pretty freaking awesome at the company I work for. I pay $25 for copay for doctors visits and that's it. I see my doctor when I need to. No waiting lists. No lines. And it's cheap.

Canada is a great country. Great people.

USA is the FUCKING SHIT country.

Oh yeah...is pot legal in BC? lolno.

We win. :D
Click to expand...

I agree about Seattle "beating" Vancouver culturally, but lol at the rest of your post.
 
As a recent immigrant to Canada I'm totally fine with bagged milk.
And very happy that everyone says "sorry" 32 times instead of "what?"

It might be a bit bland outside of Montreal but I take bland and nice gladly at this point in my life.
 
Hellraizah said:
It always makes me laugh when people say "Hey, health care is free in Canada!".

No, it sure as hell ain't free. The average family in Quebec pays $11000 for health care per year. Even if you don't go see a doctor ever.

That's the beauty of socialism, you can take people's money and they will not realize it and be happy about it, thinking it's "free".
Click to expand...

Except you're wrong
 
BattleMonkey said:
How is he wrong? Canadian healthcare is not truly free, it's all in the taxation. He wasn't comparing it to the costs of US care.
Click to expand...

Well for one thing if you're between jobs or can't work for some reason, you aren't paying taxes and still getting the care.
 
Azih said:
Mississauga actually has a very nice skyline going now. I had family from San Jose over and they were kinda impressed by it.
Click to expand...

Give it 5 more years, I saw some future plans for Mississauga and it really looks nice, almost dubai ish...

It's a shame the city is so spread out.
 
gutter_trash said:
You did not read, Americans pay more in taxes combined with their insurance. Yes, Americans pay public taxes into healthcare that goes into fuddle duddle
Click to expand...

I did read thank you.

I don't know what America has to do with anything here, as he was replying to the person saying that's it's not truly free for Canadians. He wasn't comparing or talking about America.
 
BattleMonkey said:
I did read thank you.

I don't know what America has to do with anything here, as he was replying to the person saying that's it's not truly free for Canadians. He wasn't comparing or talking about America.
Click to expand...

He was criticizing socialized medicine as if the other option was better at not ripping people off
 
Hellraizah said:
It always makes me laugh when people say "Hey, health care is free in Canada!".

No, it sure as hell ain't free. The average family in Quebec pays $11000 for health care per year. Even if you don't go see a doctor ever.

That's the beauty of socialism, you can take people's money and they will not realize it and be happy about it, thinking it's "free".
Click to expand...

Check out the post earlier in the thread where it shows that Americans pay more in taxes for healthcare than Canadians. Not in total, but merely in taxes. They pay more for senior's medicare and medicaid (which the majority don't get to use because they aren't old enough) per capita than we do for universal coverage. And then they pay for private insurance on top of that.

Also, as to the statement of Seattle being more ethnically diverse than Vancouver, that is false.

Vancouver: Population - 2,300,000
Visible minority population: ~47%

Seattle: Population - 3,400,000
Visible minority population: ~39%
 
Cold is good, or at least better than hot. You can keep putting on clothes until you're warm.


major con here (I live in Vancouver) is the French. I have nothing against the language itself but as I don't understand it and it therefore looks terrible written, it sucks seeing it all over the place.

90% of the time you're eating cereal at the table in the morning with the cereal box out and you want to read it for something to do, you have to flip it around to read it.

Also, they decided the french word for grape is, rather than an original word, "raisin". Okay... little weird of them to do that, but something to keep an eye out for when you want a juicebox.

The worst is how it taints your possessions that you consider special and pristine. For example, the people behind the design of the Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray Extended Edition put a lot of work into crafting this beautiful majestic box with the ring in the front and this unique font of the names of the movies, it's a valuable item. Then Pierre Elliot Trudeau comes along and slaps on this foreign text under it all in block letters and it really lessens the value of the item.
 
I went to Vancouver when I was 15, I fell in love with everything about the city and I remember I said that one day I'd live there.

I still want. But I guess canadians are more strict than americans about the inmigrants. By the way I went for a month (July) and it never rained!
 
ChimpBottle said:
Cold is good, or at least better than hot. You can keep putting on clothes until you're warm.


major con here (I live in Vancouver) is the French. I have nothing against the language itself but as I don't understand it and it therefore looks terrible written, it sucks seeing it all over the place.

90% of the time you're eating cereal at the table in the morning with the cereal box out and you want to read it for something to do, you have to flip it around to read it.

Also, they decided the french word for grape is, rather than an original word, "raisin". Okay... little weird of them to do that, but something to keep an eye out for when you want a juicebox.

The worst is how it taints your possessions that you consider special and pristine. For example, the people behind the design of the Lord of the Rings Blu-Ray Extended Edition put a lot of work into crafting this beautiful majestic box with the ring in the front and this unique font of the names of the movies, it's a valuable item. Then Pierre Elliot Trudeau comes along and slaps on this foreign text under it all in block letters and it really lessens the value of the item.
Click to expand...

I have a friend who was like you until he started dating a hot girl from Montreal, then he was like: "I don't get the hate for the french language man, it's beautiful you should learn it too you know? I am learning french to impress my girlfriend's parents."
 
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