Canada
jenn.site
jenn.site
It's actually really wild to think I spent a couple of years working in Boston more than a decade ago, and I used my zipcar subscription way more often than I've ever had to use a communauto in fake london (a city no one would mistake for having good urban planning).
They're integral to the fabric of society in my view.
For low-income families and people up to 25 years old this drops to €48 per year.
There aren't libraries in the Netherlands?
Pretty sure Europe is diverse enough that there are countries where the access to public libraries is free.
> When I think about the counterfactual me that grew up in a large American city, New York or L.A. instead of Toronto, I see someone who's more stunted than me, in important ways. No skating classes, libraries too far to walk to on a regular basis and more poorly stocked. Student debt. Without generous public incentives, that version of me would only have the life that her own parents can afford to provide for her.
I wonder if the author would have a better outlook on their counterfactual American self if that person had grown up in a smaller town like myself. I can walk to the library, grocery store, school, park and coffee shop; nothing is locked behind shelves in our pharmacies or stores; my nephews are in skating classes and play in a little league Hockey team, in rural Iowa of all places.
Yes, infant formula, and yes, student debt. Canada has the US beat for sure in social safety nets.
As a tangent: I wonder how writing a piece on appreciating my own upbringing in rural America might be received.
I ask because a lot of Canadians can't fathom having to worry about those sorts of bills, given that many employers don't offer great insurance, and especially if you happen to be between employers. Like how do you handle a sudden $20k bill that insurance won't cover?
> especially if you happen to be between employers. Like how do you handle a sudden $20k bill that insurance won't cover?
My wife is, for all intents and purposes, unemployed (she's a photographer starting her own business). When she left her job at the end of 2023, she was able to get on state-sponsored insurance pretty quickly and easily without any hassle. It's better insurance than I have, they've covered every appointment, walk-in and emergency she's had without any charge to her. And this is in a deep red republican state that isn't known for supporting public health insurance.
As for how I would handle that bill? I'd first try to use the patient advocates at the hospital or my insurance company (that sounds scripted but I've used them before) to reverse the decision. At the same time I'd work with the hospital to set up a debt repayment/forgiveness plan. Tax-exempt hospitals in the US (which is almost all of them I think) are required to have financial assistance policies to maintain their tax-exempt status. If I'm broke and out of a job/insurance, I should be able to make it manageable or put it on forbearance until I'm able to pay it or get it forgiven.
Note: none of this is to say that I like the insurance situation here. I would prefer a public option.
Despite this, like the author, I was able to have an incredibly well rounded childhood full of activities through our recreation centers, a short 10 minute walk from my home (not so short in the winter!)
There are many times I look with frustration at the payroll taxes I incur paying my colleagues. Articles like this serve as a great reminder that my capabilities are not innate, but built through the sweat and tears of those before me.
I love Canada, and though I have had the incredible privilege to visit (and for short periods, live in!) many countries and every continent, there's nowhere I'd rather call home, nowhere I'd rather contribute to.
Canada may have a "go for bronze" attitude, but it doesn't have to stay that way. We can decide to go for gold, one day at a time.
The biggest problem, by far, was medical care. I didn't see a dentist for the first time until I was in my 20s. Any medical problem felt like a disaster that could put us on the street if not managed carefully. I'm very envious of Canada on this front.
Interestingly, I have a similar feeling of gratitude to the US the author has to Canada. Food stamps, and eventually tuition wavers and scholarships, let me break out of poverty. I'm so, so grateful I had those opportunities.
Like the author, I feel we could do a hell of a lot better in a lot of ways (especially lately!), but the core we have is still pretty dang good and I still feel lucky for having access to it.
I'm just a datapoint, but in Chicago suburbia i had all that the author laments as unavailable to American kids. Mom made sister and me take skating classes, though we already could (ice hockey on ponds with friends, figure skating classes for variety, though i didn't like that as much as hockey), no student debt (top 5 US engineering universities included one in my state), kick ass library bike ride away, awesome park district in a tree covered suburbia, and so on.
I mention this because I'm in no way unique among american kids (a couple decades or so later), and, with the author, we agree these things are great.
The US is not one country. It's two that are radically different.
There's wealthy America. The top 5% to 10% that have healthcare, have their own safety nets, don't need to worry about money, their kids go to select schools that they can buy into (mostly by buying into the right neighborhoods), an amazing pension plan, etc. My kids go to a fancy library with reading time, puppets and classical music. All the things I love about Canada and more.
That country is amazing and the quality of life is unparalleled unless you're obscenely wealthy.
The bottom 80 to 90% percent of Americans live a life that is far inferior to any western and even many developing countries. They have no safety nets, no job security, no retirement, housing insecurity, they're even the smallest accident away from ruin, etc.
In other countries people know roughly how badly or how well they're treated by the system. Only in the US have I experienced the level of brainwashing where people are thankful for the horrors of this system, and somehow wash away anything they see or hear about anywhere else in the world.
Because your family mostly decides if which America you live in, most people don't understand the other side at all and can't comprehend how they live.
That having a bit more money matters when your employer can fire you for any reason. When college costs are astronomical. When you can lose your healthcare for any reason. When getting cancer might mean losing your house. When housing costs mean that anyone who rents could well be thrown out into the street.
But your tv is bigger than three average tv in Germany. For sure!
That's not quality of life. That's trinkets to hide the horrors. All good as long as you don't think about it and get lucky.
Wealthy America is great though.
The median canadian earns more than the median USian and we do it without letting kids go hungry in schools or murder squads.
Average tax rates for people with the median income are basically the same in Canada or the US.
For WA state - we only pay federal tax so the comparable tax rate is 12% [1].
These rates mirror my perception when I lived in Montreal, Toronto, WA state.
[0] https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/tax/individ...
[1] https://www.irs.gov/filing/federal-income-tax-rates-and-brac...
(I think it is you who needs explaining not me....)
Looks like the USA in 2024 was $51K USD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
I know we need to adjust for health care, but I think the median income in the USA is higher.
So rich people do not care about the decaying infrastructure around them.
I think the US will end up like Brazil: rich people go from sky scrapers to sky scraper via helicopters, while the favelas surround the skyscrapers. The poor are kept in check in the favelas with the help of a brutal police force. BTW: Brazil is a democracy.
If you live even just comfortably, you are the 1%. Such has been and continues to be the prevailing squalor of the world as a whole.
In the US, the polarisation between the poor (and working poor) and the wealthy is stark. But let's be clear that this is (sadly) nothing new in the history of human society. When the poor have had a chance, they have occasionally risen in starving, ragged fury against plutocrats.
But the US is still one nation under its current federal government. This government has consolidated its power over its own citizens. People are being seized without warrants; people are being killed by armed, masked government agents who appear to murder with impunity. The rule of law has vanished. Previously independent (or arm's length) government entities are now run by toadies and cronies of a brazen regime.
In perhaps the most tragic _self-own_ in modern history, the US has fallen to insidious elements from within. Other countries are watching not just a former ally -- but a former leading light -- extinguish itself and collapse into destructive dementia.
I can't help but roll my eyes. I understand this is supposed to be figurative and not literally mean there are two countries, but I still roll my eyes because no, it is just one country. It is one country that collectively decides stratification to this extent is fine.
This reminds me of when some people say "America isn't bad, it's the other party that's keeping us hostage." The rest of the world really doesn't care and is waiting for the US to get it together already. Other countries couldn't care less about a completely different country's peculiar internal differences that contribute to its overall terrible behavior. The US is one country and the buck stops there. If you can't get your house in order, then yes, the house is bad and can't take responsibility for domestic affairs.
I grew up leveraging many of the same programs, this post helped illuminate how lucky I was to have them. Thank you!
Is anyone currently moving from Canada to the US?
If so, are they the "smartest", or do they simply have different priorities than a lot of equally smart people?
I think somewhere between 70-90% of Waterloo graduates in CS leave every year.
Turns out doubling or tripling your take home compensation is absolutely worth it.
You can buy a house instead of renting an apartment with roommates. You can afford to marry and have children. You can buy all the things the government would've provided you had it not been dysfunctional.
Plus, there are just more jobs in SWE in the USA. Many of my classmates graduating last year in June are still unemployed since you have to be exceptional to get a job here.
Pretty much anyone who can get TN1/H1B/L1B does, unless you were born wealthy, have an extreme sense of patriotism, or have a very strong attachment to family.
Also, anecdotally, I would wager that schools with significant numbers of Americans (e.g., McGill) probably have more US students staying in Canada than vice versa at this point (with perhaps the exception of CS).
And how does the "dysfunction" of the current Canadian government compare to what is happening in the US, in your eyes?
> Plus, there are just more jobs in SWE in the USA.
There is the rational answer... for graduates in software.
If Carney really wants to make this happen, he'd have to thread the needle on deflating the property bubble in order to make venture capital and productivity investments more attractive compared to real estate, all while managing the rest of the highly US dependent economy for the upcoming years.
Switzerland has fewer sociocultural problems than the US, but it's also a smaller relatively homogenous society with far less immigration, and a highly educated and politically involved population.
Is this what Canadians actually believe? NYC has, off the top of my head, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art--does Toronto, or even the entire rest of Canada, have anything remotely comparable, to even just one of those institutions? And these museums, BTW, are typically free or "pay what you want" for NY residents and children. And the NYPL has plenty of locations, though I'm not sure what the author's definition of "walking distance" is: https://www.nypl.org/locations
I never thought I'd see someone describe life in NYC or LA as "stunting," especially relative to Toronto, yet here it is.
America has long been a place where hardship or trauma for a subset of the population has been seen as the system working "correctly".
It's just that the makeup of that subset has shifted over time (although much less so for black Americans).
You'll find many people here that will believe that without deprivation of basics and even comforts, nobody would want to pursue or achieve anything.
This is often believed by people living in communities that - because of wealth clustering -provide basics and comforts, as well as growth opportunities, and sometimes especially by the few people who escaped deprivation into comfort and security through their grit, thereby assuming that is the best route for all of society.
We think we did it all ourselves, without any helping hand up, while often being ignorant of our own privilege.
Canada, and much of Europe, optimise for QoL. But in Europe at least, this impinges on people's mental ability to invest in growth, to have a risk taker mentality and "ownership of your own life" kind of thing.
US is the opposite. Screw QoL, screw inequality, go for growth and the rest will come. The poor will get more crumbs if the country grows more quickly, and over time will be better off than those in generous but stagnant European countries. Maybe.
Is Canada somehow finding a happy path? I'm getting mixed opinions. But would be great to know what Europe could learn from our friendly North American cousins.
From my side I can say, I visited Canada twice in my life, a very long time ago, and absolutely loved it. So I'm always rooting for the Maple Leaf people vs Team Orange (headed by Agent Orange..?).
From an economical perspective, it makes less sense because of, well, the Atlantic ocean. Nevertheless, Canada has what Europe needs - oil, LNG, minerals. To a certain extent, things can work out.
In the (non-binding) "Briefing No 23 Legal questions of enlargement" of the European Parliamentary Research Service, this criteria is described as follows:
The sole material condition laid down by Article O of the TEU is that the applicant must be a 'European State'. There is no unequivocal interpretation of that criterion. It can be read equally well in geographical, cultural or political terms.
In 1987 an application to become a Member of the Communities was received from Morocco. The application was rejected by the Council on the grounds that Morocco was not a European State [...]. In the case of Turkey, Article 28 of the Association Agreement signed in 1963 incudes the option of Turkey's eventually acceding to the Communities. Turkey in fact lodged an application to accede on 14 April 1987. Historically, Turkey has formed part of the so-called 'European concert'. Although part of Turkey's territory is located geographically in Asia, Parliament, the Council and the Commission have confirmed Turkey's eligibility [...]. This example shows that the term 'European State' need not be interpreted in a strictly geographical sense. It is at all events a criterion subject to political assessment.[1]
In this perspective, countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc. might be electible for membership. -- And there is always the option that the EU amends or officially clarifies its accession conditions.
[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/enlargement/briefings/23a2_en...
Also Canada has far better yogurt.
As to who becomes a party leader: Party leaders are picked internally by party members via leadership races, not by the general public. This is good because the leader is selected not by "Low Information Voters" swayed by short-term issues like egg prices (as in the US), but by people who have gone through a qualification filter.
Post-election, the PM must sustain the House's confidence, with no-confidence votes possible anytime. So it is not necessary to watch helplessly for 4 years while your PM destroys the country.
Correct.
> not by the general public. This is good because the leader is selected not by "Low Information Voters" […] but by people who have gone through a qualification filter
Not really. It's true that only party members can vote, but the only requirements to be a party member are to be a Canadian citizen and to not be a member of another party [0] [1], which is effectively the exact same requirements that the US primaries have.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Liberal_Party_of_Canada_l...
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/how-will-canadas-next...
And while it's true that there are no confidence votes, Harper has prorogued the parliament before in order to prevent such a vote.
Canadian politics is healthier in general than in the US but it's not a panacea.
That is literally how Adolf Hitler became Chancellor (Prime Minister), as leader of the NSDAP.
Achedemics recently claimed that herodtudus was wrong when he wrote in 500bc that the pyramids were built by slaves. Their evidence: archeolgy shows that the builders were given food, housing, and medicine. Were they "slaves" or did we just adjust the meaning of the word to conform to the barbarism of colonists?
so, if they WERE slaves...what would that make me in the modern US?
Wildly inaccurate statistic.
Bottom 10% live on less than $800 per year. [1]
Bottom 30% around $2000 - $3000 per year. [2]
Global median income is about $3000 per person per year. [2]
[1] https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/poverty-prosperity-...
I don't get it, you seem to be confirming the claim.
Than translates to "most families on this planet make less than $500 per year"
Canada today might be expensive to rent in and buy in, but the quality of life in terms of safety, culture, political stability, nature, and medicine (minus the temporary shortage in health professionals) is still unmatched globally. Canadians who complain about Canada haven’t faced or lived life outside of Canada
Case in point, I live in Japan. Some things are worse than Canada, but the things that are better line up with my priorities in life.
Don’t fall for the americanism of being blind to the rest of the world and thinking we’re the best. There’s plenty of areas for Canada to improve on.
That's not what the person was saying, though. They never implied that Canada is the best, they only said that Canada is a good place to live in, and that people who try to say otherwise (like the parent of this thread) lack perspective. Any Canadian that lived in other first-world countries (except maybe the US) will probably say that in many ways, the other countries can be better than us. We've got plenty of issues, but Canada's still up there. There's some things that are good here, some that need a lot of work - but on average, it's still really good by world standards. There's nothing wrong with saying that we need to improve in many critical areas, but there is in posting ragebait talking about 'true Canada' being long gone, Canada being a failed state and so on, like what you see above and across many parts of the internet.
Agreed on the second half though.
I suspect there are agents of lesser minds at work hoping to stir instability. We aren’t swindled as easily as other peoples.
Canada is going to get very poor soon. These social goods will be gone, and we will be worse for it.
And just think, those are the American areas most common to Canada.
There are places in America where those counterfactuals do not exist, where the necessities aren't locked behind counters, where community is thriving, and where the normality of civic life is an expectation.
I expect no honors for those parts of the country. If Canada didn't have an air of superiority to comfort itself with, it would have nothing at all.
Canada might be known for many things, but you're the first I've heard refer to an "air of superiority" that we carry around. "Nice" and "polite" maybe. Sorry you feel this way. Have a good day.
The question becomes: if you're traveling on a line, and you see the destination looks dark ahead of you, do you turn around or keep going?
Canada's notoriously polite deference led them to align with those powerful tech, marketing, and financial hubs in the US. A cheerleader on the sidelines. But everyone gets to pick. There's a lack of acknowledgement that there's even a choice; the dog that didn't bark one could say. But it's part and parcel of why modern Canada is the way it is.