[Mikeb85]

Yup I'm applying for an EU country passport myself (via family ties). Canada is a terrible place if you want to start a business, now house prices are getting insane and the recent encroachment on freedoms as well as lack of pushback from the population is pretty much the last straw for me. You can make more money and pay less taxes while having more affordable housing and better healthcare and education in a number of countries.

[abraxas]

As a European who immigrated to Canada I will respectfully disagree. Yes house prices are insane but this is true of much of the world now. However, Canada has a friendly society that is open to newcomers. The Europeans especially in the northern and western parts fancy themselves as tolerant peoples but this is just skin deep fakery. Don't fall for it. Even coming from a western country you will never be truly embraced as one of them. What sets Canada apart and the US to a lesser degree is that here if you make an effort you can actually integrate into the society and be considered a real Canadian even if you grew up elsewhere. By that I mean you will be invited to the Sunday game and your kids will be welcome to the sports team and treated as any other no matter skin color, accent or religion.

Also in Canada there is a certain level of maturity and compassion that most other societies do not have. This is well illustrated by the COVID vaccination figures and the whole response to this crisis as well as the previous ones.

No country is perfect but one would need to search long and hard to beat Canada.

[Mikeb85]

I mean, there is no Canadian identity so in that sense we're welcoming. I grew up with family that spoke Ukrainian every day on one side and French on the other (and I have never lived in Quebec either). I have no idea what Canadian identity is despite having been born here. To me Canada is prairies, mountains, and small Ukrainian, French, Nordic and German enclaves/towns dotting the countryside. I can't relate to a 10th generation Canadian from Ontario.

Economically though things were way better 20 years ago. We're losing ground on every single economic metric. Almost all of my family has already left for the US or back to Europe. All of my classmates I kind of kept up with have left the country. A bunch of the immigrants I used to know left.

If you have a good job and a house I'm sure things are fine. You can live a good life here if you do have a good income stream and already own a home. You can live well anywhere. I'm currently in the rocky mountains and it is nice.

But just looking at things critically (since my partner and I are looking to settle down and have kids, she has an EU country passport, I have a Canadian one, we both have family everywhere, she just bought an investment property in Europe), our taxes are too high for the services we receive, wages are too low for the cost of living, and things are objectively worse than they were before.

[abraxas]

I don’t have this frame of reference since taxes haven’t changed much since I arrived. And yes I have a tract house with a two car garage and hardwood floors. Nothing exuberant but I’m content. This is more than I could buy in the countries I used to live in. Yes, the European cities are awesome by comparison but unfortunately they are inhabited by snobby cliquey Europeans. I’d know because I used to be one of them.

[Mikeb85]

Gotcha. Anyhow I did update my post a little as I thought about it. And for the record Canada isn't awful. Just kind of sad seeing it become a lot less affordable just in my lifetime (and I'm only a millennial!).

[amscanne]

Europe is a big place with a lot of cultural differences. You can get away with painting Canada (35mm people) with a broad brush, but you probably shouldn’t do broad comparisons to Europe as a whole (750mm people).

[abraxas]

Yes, I will make a bit of an exception to the rule and say that Southern Europeans are maybe a bit warmer than the rest.

Eastern Europe though is just the meaner, cruder version of Western Europe with the xenophobia dialed up from 8 to 11.

[curation]

As a Canadian who has lived in Europe as well as America, I experienced more sameness than difference. As Saskia Sassen writes, global metropoles of elites all have the same culture really. You can get a craft beer everywhere now. As I write from St. Petersburg, I can say that it too fits this, but, there is a sense of alienation - in a good way - wherein people ..don't even imagine what you are thinking or judge what you are up to .. it's hard to describe - like they do in the West. For example, there are signs everywhere for masks but few wear them, and I do sometimes and sometimes I do not. No one really notices. Vs in the West there is a mask fetish as it stands for one's inner moral position or something. That space - the space we all inhabit most of the time of our own fantasies and stuff we say to ourselves - remains inviolate here. I am not saying anything else about the problems in this country which are legion and I don't want to wade into that here - but on a subjectival level, in the context of 2021, I feel calm here.

[barbazoo]

I wouldn't agree it's as bad as you make it sound.

However, I'm also not sure which other first world country has lower taxes, more "freedoms", higher salaries and cheap housing though.

[Mikeb85]

The US is a very obvious example.

Take a look at housing affordability indexes, Canada is behind the EU average and certainly behind the top EU destinations. Also behind Australia, the UK, the US. Toronto and Vancouver are literally 2 of the most unaffordable places on the planet.

Also the US, UK and half the EU have lower taxes. The only places with comparable taxes have better healthcare and cheaper or free education.

Honestly, go to the US, UK, Australia, nearly any EU country and you'll find housing prices more in line with local salaries, better infrastructure, better services, more bang for your tax dollar, etc...

In what country can you give away 40% of your paycheck making less than 6 figures to then pay for dental work, prescriptions and education out of pocket while needing to make 3x the average salary to afford an average house?

[jpambrun]

A quick verification reveal that at 100k you pay 33% income tax in Quebec, and this is before any deductions. Education is very affordable at about 3k/year for university.

House are out hand tho, but this is more related to older generation greed than gouvernement..

[Mikeb85]

The point is that EU countries with comparable taxes (or even slightly lower) that offer free dental, drugs and university.

And the house prices absolutely can be pinned on governments, we're one of the few countries globally that allows non residents to buy property.

[Jordrok]

> In what country can you give away 40% of your paycheck making less than 6 figures to then pay for dental work, prescriptions and education out of pocket while needing to make 3x the average salary to afford an average house?

Yeah, I dunno... Maybe there's a little bit of the "grass is greener on the other side of the fence" effect going on here, but as an American, if I hadn't read the rest of your post, I would have sworn you were giving a brutally accurate description of the US in that last sentence.

[Mikeb85]

I think a big difference between the US and Canada is that living in Denver, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, etc... is way more desirable than living in Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa or Winnipeg...

In Canada, Toronto and Vancouver are the only real 'destinations' and they're SF and NYC expensive but with jobs that pay less than half...