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Comment by ransom1538 | Hacker News Reader

Canada is about to become a 2nd world country. No industry, no ability to own a home, no healthcare [1], only one party, banking restrictions, etc etc,.

1. Healthcare is where you can see a doctor.

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Almost all of these make absolutely no sense, they sound like propaganda zingers, not actual reflections of reality. The housing crisis is the only thing you can reliably hold against Canada, but it's far from the only first-world country to be facing that issue. Canada currently has five parties sitting in parliament. What banking restrictions? (I have no idea what even is described here). As for healthcare, there is a doctor shortage but you will get treatment in an emergency, the biggest choke point for wait times is people moving and having to wait to get a GP assigned to them.

Source: I actually live there

Yes, been waiting for that GP for about 6 years now… treatment for emergencies is great but they won’t do preventive checkups… I’d rather not have to wait for a thing to become an emergency. Maybe banking restrictions refers to lacking a credit score when you land? No idea.

I also had trouble when we needed to see a GP when we lived in Canada. Seemed strange.

The hospital seemed functional, at least.

Thats not what a second world country is. Second world was used to describe Soviet Communist block countries as opposed to Western Industrialized Capitalist Democracies. Third World was everyone else, what we would now refer to as the global south (because apparently economist much like Eurovision organizers are a bit fuzzy on geography and seem to believe Australia and New Zealand to be somewhere in the atlantic)

I think they intentionally meant second world. They mention "one party" (presumably one political party), which was generally a feature of the second world instead of third. Additionally, the third world generally allows you to own your house, which is another one of their examples.

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