- Lower wealth inequality
- Safer, with lower crime rates, especially violent crime
- Higher life expectancy
FWIW, my view of Canada has dimmed considerably. The two things that I felt really set us apart when I left and over those ten years were (and these are intertwined) the stronger Canadian social safety net and the sense that, in general, Canadian culture was kinder, more progressive, smarter, and less racist. But the last few years have really put that to the test. Meanwhile, in my time in the US, I really started to appreciate the aspects of American culture that are lacking up here.
It's been kind of heartbreaking. I was seriously thinking of exploring going back to the US permanently. And then last November happened, and it's too unpalatable at this juncture, once again.
It is much more accessible, much easier to get about, far less hostile and any loss in wealth is offset by actually being able to enjoy my time more.
The US is good to anyone who can pay. And my career made it such that I earn a lot more in the US that I would in Canada, so the US has been good to me. It's unclear how widespread that experience actually is. There's a lot of statistics that this is one of the best times to be alive (despite our very cynical / negative attitude about it).
But personally, I have no intent of going back, if only because of the weather.
We bought a place 2 years ago and are in the process of fixing up (it was used as a vacation home).
Have you considered Canada?
I don't think there is a single right place for everyone. Each person needs to do their own checklist of requirements.
That's certainly not the norm. Where, more specifically?
There's certainly more wealth available if you have the means to get it though.
Genuinely curious whats better under Canadian system for the young and old.
The young, old, and those too unhealthy to work full-time. And to answer your question: a better social safety net, IMO.
Edit: Because this topic is flamebait, I'm preemptively declaring that I'm not going to argue about my opinion. YMMV.
The Federal government even had the gall to refuse my 2 year old's passport renewal for example because I only paid the renewal fee, and not an additional fee for the passport getting destroyed before expiration date that was buried under 10 pages of fine print that I missed because we were homeless with a toddler. And they already had my CC# on the application anyway, but because I didn't explicitly mark down the extra fee, the application was refused.
Now we've found a new home in a new town at our own expense, and we can't see a doctor. My 2 year old can't see a doctor. There's not enough doctors and practices won't take on new patients unless you go on a years-long wait list. This is our "free" healthcare. If you're dying, you can go to an emergency room and wait for 8 hours to see a doctor. If you need anything routine you're fucked if you don't have a family doctor. We had one, but our town burnt down and now it'll be years before we have one again.
You know how we access healthcare? We go to Europe. We go to my wife's country of origin twice a year to visit family and get healthcare. I had a surgery there (wait in Canada was 2 years, in the EU I got it done in 2 days), our son has had all his checkups and most of his vaccines done there.
This social safety net is a myth, a theory. It exists until you actually try to access it.
edit - the only help we received was our insurance company, a private corporation. So what's the difference versus the US apart from our much higher taxes and lower wages?
Your second problem is the responsibility of your provincial government. Your Conservative provincial government.
On one hand, I guess your tragic situation is exactly what I'd expect private home insurance to cover, aside from burglary and other natural disasters, but on the other it's becoming an annual occurrence anywhere west of Calgary, and like many other tragedies, massive holes are being exposed in the artificially scarce and super inflated stock of available housing in any given area; living in a town in a national park is somewhat exceptional on every front, but having literally no backup plan if a whole town disappears is revealing of comically inept levels of government. I know some Lytton residents! are also basically camping, waiting on help from the province that may never come.
That is to say, some parts of our social service systems and economy work—or at least aren't horribly broken—if and only if nothing unexpected happens or we don't grow or shrink population wise or culturally at all. There's basically no margin.
One could say things would be better with more money, but that's just a matter of degree, it's not like GDP going up would automatically prevent displacement or create more doctors, it would just give individuals a bit more leverage potentially when something bad happens. We desperately require better feedback loops tied into the bedrock of our society, better incentives.
Both the US and European models are valid IMO. But in Canada we get the worst of both.
Keep in mind when you google Canadian tax rates, you see the federal rate. The provincial rate is another 10-15% on top, plus sales taxes which can total over 10%.
I know this is true in Alberta (I assume you lived in Jasper?)
Any tips or advice?
You go to border control, tell them you're applying for a TN, hand them a copy of your identification, resume, credentials, and offer letter. Then you wait for a couple of hours while they process you, and you're set for the next few years. Rinse and repeat until your job sponsors you for an H1-B or you marry an American citizen and can apply for a Green Card.
Of course, there's other ways - talk to an immigration lawyer - but that's the simplest.
Going from TN to an immigrant visa via AOS is only risky in the sense that:
- After you've filed your i485 you will no longer be able to get TN status, this applies regardless of your non-immigrant status.
- You can't travel abroad between filing the i485 and receiving AP, which could be 6+ months.
On the plus side you get a Green Card and don't have to play the H1-B lottery.
[0] https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/90-day-rule-...
You can get a TN visa cancelled for expressing desire to stay permanently
They are.
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/visa-inf...
> You can get a TN visa cancelled for expressing desire to stay permanently
That is not true provided you follow the 90 day rule.
An H1b allows the person to enter the country with the intention of getting a GC and can do so without having to leave the country.
A TN visa is re issued every single time you cross the border and can be denied by a border guard on any amount of misrepresentation
Secondly, your advice about the 90 day rule without context is both bad advice and can get someone's visa cancelled and stuck out of the country.
For future readers. Don't take this advice, ask a lawyer and if you intend to get a GC don't go on a TN unless you want legal complexity.
We agree on one thing however, consult a lawyer (you will have to anyway if you are pursuing a GC). A good lawyer will tell you the same thing.
It's a pathway thousands of Canadians have taken and will continue to take. Don't delay your life over the broken H1-B system.
With that being said for source you can review this site and many others that will say the same thing about intention to permanently reside with a TN visa
https://manifestlaw.com/blog/tn-visa-to-green-card
Lastly your statement of incorrectness also sites no sources so I guess we just both have our opinions at this point
Nothing in that article contradicts anything I have said.
Not a great article either. Very boiler-plate and doesn't mention the 90 day rule for either TN to EB GC or marriage based GC.
> Lastly your statement of incorrectness also sites no sources so I guess we just both have our opinions at this point
Those figures are not public but it's a reasonable statement considering NAFTA has been in place since 1994, over fifty thousand Canadians have been awarded green cards over the last five years[0] and I am one of those people.
[0] - Page 2 - https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Diversity-Visa/DV...
Being poor or sick sucks here.
For the years that i was living in Ontario there were only 3 MRI machines across the entire province. The waiting period for that diagnostic MRI ranged from anywhere between 10 and 24 months. If doctors were even convinced you were worth getting it.
You could die from something before you could even end up getting properly diagnosed with it.
You might not have competent enough doctors in some countries for specialist treatment if you need it. A popular Canadian Youtuber who lives in Japan (which generally has great medical care) decided to relocate to the United States during the time they were undergoing their particular cancer treatment a couple of years ago. Japanese yakuza bosses pretty famously obtained their illegal organ transplants at UCLA Medical instead of in Japan...
The US's system is certainly flawed but it guarantees that you can obtain the best care possible if you can afford it. That's much better than not being able to get the care even if you can afford it.
Saying "oh that's just first come first serve" is totally missing the fact that the service level can be woefully inadequate.
What's really crazy is that I live in a small city of about 100k people and there are about a dozen hospitals that I can choose from, first-class trauma centers, multiple renowned research centers (affiliated with three different universities). None of that is counting all of the urgent care and other facilities in the area. I have an order of magnitude more options for treatment than I did when living in New York City...
The only way I could open myself up to more/better care options would be to move to Texas.
You get superb care for the rich and mediocre care for the average guy and very little for the rest.
None of this is to defend the US system in particular, which wildly overspends on the outcomes it achieves. But generally, when it comes to managing chronic and acute health conditions, those outcomes are very good.
Jesus. I've got more MRI machines than that within walking distance of my house.
It does seem to have improved significantly, as in 2020 Ontario had 124 (which made it the best provisioned province at the time). When were you there?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/821422/number-of-mri-uni...
CT scans were bad too. Everyone I knew just drove to New York to get diagnostic scan and dental work done at the time.
But even then: Ontario has 15 million people and 124 machines? NYC has 8 million residents and 470 machines.
We could definitely use more and our healthcare system could definitely use serious improvements, but the way it's talked about amongst Americans often seems a little divorced from reality.
From the Economist: https://archive.is/UdixF/ec46ebf7fe812cd5e9432f45f68bd142e6c...
Their housing is more expensive than the US, but taxes are higher and wages are lower.
If Canada’s provinces were states, the populated ones would be poorer than the poorest US states, along with higher taxes and expensive housing.
https://brilliantmaps.com/us-vs-canada-gdp-per-capita/
British Columbia is now poorer than Idaho, again, while being much more expensive. Ontario and Quebec and Canada as a whole are now poorer than West Virginia.
Toronto: $84k CAD ($58k USD)
Montgomery: $55k
The person living in Montgomery can easily afford a house and a middle-class life. Can the person in Toronto?
Would I rather live in Toronto personally? Yes. But on a median salary, no way.
https://www.city-data.com/income/income-Montgomery-Alabama.h...
https://www.toronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/9877-City-...
Of course not. But a person living in New York City - making the much higher median household income of 75K USD - also can't afford a house or a middle-class life there. And yet across almost every metric New York is considered a better place to live with higher quality of life than Alabama.
So can you compare cost of living between NYC and Toronto and does the difference in median account for COL difference ?
Would be interesting to hear some first hand experiences from people who lived in both or similarly comparable US/Canadian cities. I was under the impression that Chinese investment in Canadian real estate really destroyed the housign market. I feel like the growing popularity of investing in residential real estate is a global phenomena but some markets are more exposed to some effects than others so it's possible to get some intuition on what impacts it.
Toronto is definitely cheaper than NYC. However Toronto represents a WAYYYY higher percentage of Canadians than NY does.
Rough numbers.
GTA population ~7 million
NYC population ~8.5 million
By representation GTA represents 10x the amount of the country that NYC does.
Major cities being unaffordable in Canada pretty much means Canada is unaffordable.
The same case is not true in the US
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toronto
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City
Edit: actually I take that back the metropolitan NY area seems to encompass a much larger area than the GTA and goes across multiple states.
Which often happens in the US as well. I recall having to wait 3 months to get in to see a gastroenterologist about 10 years ago. People living in rural areas of the US often face this so it's not like it's a problem exclusive to Canada or other countries with universal healthcare.
Can't say for the rest of Canada, but the healthcare is deplorable in Québec.