A lot of Americans complain how shitty they got it, For Canadians it is like heaven here. You can actually buy a house in a major city and afford nice things and earn a decent salary.
This is not possible in the majority of Canadian cities. Canada is a great place to visit but it is a shitty place to work and live, unless your parents own a house and have a couple of rentals (in Vancouver or Toronto) that you're going to inherit.
Even 100k salary in Toronto is poverty these days, I don't know how people do it anymore. Private industry pays like shit and unless your a Gov Employee it's just tough.
Honestly its tough. I apply to American jobs but they minute they find out I am Canadian they will pass on my application even jobs I overqualified for.
Can confirm 100k salary in Vancouver is nothing. Even 200k I wasn't saving money.
What makes me angry is learning 1/4 jobs in Canada is a government job. Taxes, housing, society (I don't even feel like I live in Canada sometimes).
I don't know what other options there are. It's quite bleak and living in Canada takes a toll on your mental health.
> What makes me angry is learning 1/4 jobs in Canada is a government job.
Not that surprising when you include teachers, doctors, nurses, etc. I imagine the usa would probably be similar to us if they had socialized healthcare.
> Can confirm 100k salary in Vancouver is nothing. Even 200k I wasn't saving money.
That is rediculous. Vancouver is expensive. Its not so expensive that you cannot afford to live there on 200k.
> Taxes
Highest marginal tax rate in california is 49% vs 53% in BC. That is a bit higher, but its not like the difference is that big. Although maybe how it falls out might be worse if you are middle class.
> I apply to American jobs but they minute they find out I am Canadian they will pass on my application even jobs I overqualified for.
I have worked remotely for american companies from canada. Not every company will go for it, but it definitely do-able.
Have you considered we are in a bit of a market downturn right now, and you might still get rejected even if american?
In any case, if you dont like living in canada, why not move? NAFTA makes moving to the usa a hell of a lot easier from canada than it is in most countries.
At 200k you can buy. 2 bedrooms during covid were going for 700 to 900, you can get in with 150k downpayment roughly, or even lower with cmhc.
This does assume you manage your finances properly
Vancouver housing is crazy. I think Montreal is the only one of the three that still have affordable housing, albeit not 100% sure. But you should be fine with a 100K salary at least.
However, QC has its own issues, infrastructure and hospital waiting time are pretty bad.
i hope the rent in montreal goes down to justify living there. the road is in awful shape which makes driving tough. public infrastructure is barely functional. i dont even know about the healthcare there but i assume its overloaded too.
the weather tax too doesn't make sense. extremely cold and hot weather. at least in BC its functional and get little snow.
i donno where to go tbh, hoping to land a remote gig somehow but job market is super tough.
My dream right now is living in East Asia working remotely earning USD. Canada has remained stagnant while that region surpassed it in many areas.
Yeah it's far from perfect. We don't speak French so that cuts off about half of the retirement jobs. We are considering Ottawa and its surrounding areas. I heard housing is not too crazy but you still get ON pay, as long as you can get a tech job -- and it's close to Kanata which is a mini tech center.
But the best thing is probably a remote job paid in USD. It's possible but relies on a lot of luck and connection. Another thing to consider is working on two remote contractor jobs at the same time -- maximize expense and move to a place that doesn't f**ing rain. MTL has too much rain these two years and I'm afraid it's going to lose its summer charm.
School shootings are horrible and scary, but the US is a huge country, and your kids are not likely to experience them. They’re much more likely to be hurt or killed in a car accident, but you won’t hesitate to drive them around, do you?
The healthcare situation is also horrendous overall, but if you and your family are currently healthy and you have a good job with good insurance (as software engineers tend to), then the risk to you and yours specifically may be low. If you can afford it, you also have access to higher quality of care than almost anywhere else. If I had a severe disease or got into a bad accident, I would want to be a well-to-do American with good insurance living in a major city.
> If you can afford it, you also have access to higher quality of care than almost anywhere else. If I had a severe disease or got into a bad accident, I would want to be a well-to-do American with good insurance living in a major city.
Have you tested that?
Good family friends had a baby in California. They’re both high level teachers, have been for 15 years at this point. Gets complicated, c section.
Less that 10 hours later someone comes to the bedside and says this is costing the insurance company $60k a day and they have to move to a new hospital. Now. In their own car. With no wheelchair. With a 10 hour old baby and a wife that just had a c section.
They have great health insurance, have paid premiums their entire lives.
What a scam.
Also, heaven forbid you want to take a year or two off to be with family or write a book or just live.
Also my partner currently has 18 month’s maternity leave, fully paid.
Eh, half of my family is in the US, and I honestly think it’s not much worse here other than buying a house. That being said, it really sucks for new grads and younger people.
>ive lost all faith in my own country. there is no leadership, no rules, no regulation.
There most certainly is regulation, and that's why housing prices are so high. If you got rid of the regulation, builders would build new housing. It's like this all across Western nations now: they can't build new housing in the needed quantity because of zoning regulations.
“because of zoning regulations” seems so vague. Is there a concrete example of what particular regulations are stopping building and how they are doing it? I know people in the construction business and they aren’t hurting for work. In fact they are constantly working to the point where I can’t even hire them to do small repair jobs on my own home. Nobody will even bother to pick up the phone for less than $10,000, there’s so much building going on. And this is California, the most notorious place for (hand wavey) “regulations.”
There are many well intentioned regulations that end up restricting the housing supply by making it more expensive to build. Some of them definitely sound good (and are good?), but collectively have done a lot of bad.
Note the important point here that these don’t “stop building” but rather simply make it more expensive or more time consuming. Increased time is essentially equivalent to increased cost since you must pay lawyers and employees and so forth as time increases.
- minimum parking requirements
- single family zoning restrictions
- height restrictions
- environmental reviews
- historical preservation review
- local input on many/most decisions
There is a whole universe of stuff written around this topic. You can Google around for it with the topic of “YIMBY” or “housing abundance” or similar.
What I know is mostly from Seattle, but applies in most places:
- Usage Restriction. Seattle is famous for having the highest percentage of land zone exclusively for single family housing. This puts a hard limit to how much can be built.
- Parking Minimum. These can drive construction costs a lot, so much that a lot of projects can't be build profitably.
- Endless "Environmental" review processes. While these do sound good in theory, they have (at least in Seattle) very rarely been used to actually protect the environment. They're typically used by NIMBYs to slow down and delay projects forever so that developers abandon.
There is a lot more, but those are some of the main things people talk about when they point to "zoning regulations".
Thankfully those are mostly going away. Single family zoning is no longer a thing. Parking minima are gone. Environmental reviews are more streamlined.
We still get people being like, "No my neighborhood character is changing!" But thankfully most of them are drowned out by people asking for up zoning and more housing.
Same. It's completed flooded. I know ppl won't even allow the remotest criticism of immigration on HN but trust me Canadians are fed up with the huge surge from India.
I've even heard people lament saying they miss Chinese international students who would spend a lot of money, creating jobs but these new Indian "students" just show up at food banks taking everything, overcrowding homes, taking advantage of government benefits, jobs meant for new graduates, nepotism, just DDOSing the whole Canadian infrastructure as a whole is the popular opinion.
I don't know what to do about it and neither do the politicians. I'm not exactly thrilled to be importing this many people from India, a country which I frankly don't have any interest or passion for.
Everyday I just long to be away from it all but tough to do that when you rely on payment from one location.
I’m unhappy about the immigration but not because I don’t want people from other countries here. That part is mostly irrelevant to me.
I’m unhappy about it because we need them to immigrate here because we’ve utterly failed to create a thriving, functional, sustainable, balanced economy with people who have legitimate means and incentives to participate in it across the board.
This mass immigration strategy is a lifeline whether we like it or not. It’s not a good situation no matter how you slice it in my opinion, but I suspect things would be worse without immigration.
I recently started a business and I’ve been completely blown away by how much it sucks in this country. The start up costs were reasonable until I discovered my type of business requires light industrial space to get a permit. I can’t get the permit to operate from my residence due to zoning, not because I want a store front or anything, but because I’d need to drain water more often than residential zones are allowed. I mean, someone who has a lot of baths will drain far more water than I’d need to, but whatever. I need to rent the space to operate.
So I look around my city and discover this can cost around $100k per year for remarkably small spaces. Like, barely larger than my 2 car garage. The cheapest I found was $65k for what is essentially the same situation as my garage, but I’d be able to get the permit. It’s dirtier, far away from my home, only has 120V service, no internet, would need serious renovation to be suitable for basic lab work, etc.
I thought I must be missing something and started digging into historical pricing. Around 15 years ago the same place was leased for 3 years at $15k per year.
How are we supposed to build our economy in these conditions? Why would I take on that risk? I don’t want to build the next unicorn here; I just want to tissue culture some plants. I like it. It’s insane to bother doing it legitimately though. What a mess.
Canada is failing to make entrepreneurship appealing or even sensible. Regular employment is becoming less rewarding for most people each year. As a result I think we’ve got a shrinking and relatively unmotivated workforce. Unless that were to change, we absolutely need to import labour to fill the gaps. It’s going to feel strange to live here in 20 years, I think. It won’t be the same. I hope it works out well for the people who are coming here, at least.
For the actual context outside the extremely online immigrant hatred:
Canada lowered its student immigration target and then MISSED it [1]. Students in India are acutely aware Canadians don't want them (or more accurately, don't have the infrastructure to handle them). So now a whole generation of potential immigrants have spread the word that Canada is not worth it (and that fire will spread fast).
This plus the standard developed country birth rate (i.e. low) but a lack of adequate infrastructure is now going to push Canada into anemic to negative economic and population growth. Think Japan without the infrastructure.
Unless something is done to turn around this degrowth, and without immigrants to blame this time, Canada has nowhere to go but simply become America's little shrunken brother.
What is actually unpopular to say is that a certain sector of Canadians got annoyed at too many different looking people in their towns and instead of demanding the government build infrastructure and housing, they demanded the government choke growth. And well, they're gonna get what they demanded..
Doesn't seem to be a problem in California. Earthquakes aren't a big deal in Japan; they're part of everyday life. Unlike some other countries, the construction industry here knows how to build structures that don't fall down every time the earth shakes.
In the US a minimal welfare system, semi-religious adherence to civil rights and informal networks of privilege make high immigration rates work out okay. The three solve the problems of citizens being upset by newcomers taking up more services than they return in taxes, ethnic conflicts exploding out of government unfairness, and the skilled labor to capital exchange ratio shifting too far in favor of capital for the middle class to accept. It is not a utopia but it can handle the massive immigration that built it.
A census was performed in 2021, but I wouldn't trust its findings to be relevant. It was done in the middle of harsh government-imposed lockdowns and other severe disruptions throughout the whole country. A lot of foreigners who could temporarily leave Canada did so, and many foreign "students" and "temporary workers" delayed their arrivals. There has been a huge influx of foreigners since then, too. Unfortunately, we'll have to wait until 2026 for the next census and more recent data.
This also isn't a subject that sees objective study in academic settings, either. I don't think that it would even be possible to study objectively in such a setting, given then the lucrative financial ties between foreign "students" and Canada's universities themselves.
Any researcher daring to even consider the subject in an objective manner would likely face significant persecution from a variety of sources.
For their own personal safety, it's a topic that most Canadians are not willing to openly and honestly discuss with people they don't know and trust, including academics, pollsters, and others engaging in data collection. Expressing the "wrong" opinion can easily result in various types of harassment and abuse, if not worse. The downvoting of deisteve's comment is an example of this in practice.
In private, and when among trusted individuals, Canadians are far more willing to honestly discuss this subject.
You might not want to believe it, but what deisteve expressed is highly relevant.
> I've even heard people lament saying they miss Chinese international students who would spend a lot of money, creating jobs but these new Indian "students" just show up at food banks taking everything, overcrowding homes, taking advantage of government benefits, jobs meant for new graduates, nepotism, just DDOSing the whole Canadian infrastructure as a whole is the popular opinion.
I mean how hard is it to find some data supporting racist generalizations like this?
If you and deisteve can draw and propagate generalizations like this without data, an unbiased person can also state objectively you and deisteve are bigoted.
What you mischaracterize as "racist generalizations" are simply objective descriptions of what a lot of people in Canada (of many different origins and appearances) are currently experiencing and witnessing for themselves each and every day, especially in the major cities, but now also in the smaller cities and even the towns.
Some of the people I've heard from who are most opposed to what's happening are actually Indians who immigrated decades ago, and especially the Canada-born-and-raised descendants of Indians who immigrated in the past.
The first group find themselves once again starting to experience the sort of environment and problems that they intentionally wanted to leave behind.
The second group, especially those in their 20s and 30s, find that their reputations are being tarnished thanks to the negative impacts that unrelated foreigners who happen to have similar appearances and similar names are imposing on Canadian society as a whole.
Also, keep in mind that your false accusations of "racism" and "bigotry" are exactly why so many people in Canada are hesitant to discuss this matter openly and honestly, and why the "data" you claim to want probably don't (and effectively can't) exist.
While some of us are thicker-skinned and have come to expect false allegations like yours, many others just completely avoid the situation by remaining silent and hiding what they're actually thinking, or by giving a "safe" answer that they don't believe. Such people only share their experiences and true thoughts with individuals they've come to trust won't harass them merely for being honest.
ex) Eastern european Canadians vs Irish Canadians vs British Canadians vs French Canadian. Totally different vibes and even culture event though they look similar.
color of skin isnt the issue, its who contributes to taxes and society in balance so as many surface areas can be served without anyone feeling left out
singapore's multiculturalism works but why doesnt Japan's?
I think the poster is saying that a society that is fine both perpetrating and turning a blind eye toward the kinds of atrocities (I don’t think I am exaggerating with this word choices) toward the indigenous population for decades, is also going to be the kind of society that is callous at best about the plight of the average working Joe. This is a country built for the elites and there is zero compassion for anyone else unless they serve those elites.
What a horrible, horrible rendition of events, predicated upon misinterpreted actions.
Modern Canada has not turned a "blind eye". I accept absolutely no blame, none, nada for a single thing any ancestor of mine has done. None. I am not responsible for anything my ancestors have done.
The federal goverments covering multiple parties over the last few decades have poured money into settlements, investigating claims, resolving issues. I agree with settling claims if there was a contract, otherwise not. All over the planet, in every single country that exists, people are on "other people's land". There is not a single place free of this, anywhere. You only need go back far enough to discover "someone else was here".
It should be noted that this also holds true for virtually all natives in Canada today. All took land from prior waves of settlers, and all warred against one another for land and resources. To somehow claim or believe that no war, to strife, to taking of others land occurred before that "horrible horrible white man" showed up is a fist full of lies.
In terms of "atrocities", there has never been "mass graves" found in Canada, ever. Please differentiate between "suspected" and "we've validated that suspicion". It should be noted that for mass graves, there are federal funds given to native communities to investigate any such claims, millions being spent this very moment, yet again -- never, ever been found.
The issues with the church abusing natives in the past is a sad, and indeed horrible event. Yet one must view this in the optics of ALL societies at this time. It was done with an intent to help, not hurt. Again, it was wrong, but the motive was not intended as such.
And to put this in perspective, look at what happened to white Canadian children placed in the care of the church. Ever hear of priests raping young boys? Of orphanages beating young children? This happened to white people as well, and while none of it was right, to native or to white, my point is that it happened to us too.
And if you think that's it, Google the "home children". An example being that my great-great grandfather died during WWI, resulting in his wife and children being without a provider. Mores being as they were back then, this meant the wife had two choices, put the children up for adoption, as they would all starve otherwise, and then remarry -- for no man would take another's children back then.
This is how war heroes were treated in the early 20th. Thanks for your life, your wife and children are now screwed.
Thus my grandfather was eventually shipped out indentured, which is on the edge of slavery, to Canada from the UK. My greatuncle was shipped to Australia. My great-aunts, unknown. To this day we have no idea where our family is in the world, or even if they survived. Some home children were treated atrociously, starving conditions, raped, beat, and more. To run meant the law would catch you and bring you back.
My grandfather was "lucky", in that he was only worked 18 hours a day as a youth, and being a farm he had food. But that farmer bought my grandfather's contract, and had him until 18.
You may say "So what", but my point here is this was the world of the time.
And you may say that Canada is a horrible country, but from my perspective screw you. Look at the world today, where more than 1/2 of it are committing acts that are far, far more barbarous than anything done 100+ years ago in Canada.
And for the last decades we've been working towards resolution.
Canada is not perfect, but it a light of glowing enlightenment compared to the rest of the world.
I'm sure you're going to come back with "But, this happened!" and yes some of it likely did. But is it happening today? Are you seriously trying to claim people aren't aware today? Are you seriously trying to say the billions upon billions spent in the last few decades aren't an attempt to try to fix things?
I’ll reply to both of you. To be clear, this isn’t something that happened way back in the past “centuries ago”. The last residential school was closed in 1997 and there were many open in the 90s. Canada turned a blind eye to things occurring in our lifetimes, and continues to today with respect to the living conditions on reserves (e.g. poisoned water). Huge portions of our country are built on unceded land.
My point wasn’t to litigate whether everyone’s history includes atrocities. My point is that a government that allowed these things to happen very recently is not the type of government that has the average person (who has as little voice as indigenous people on a reserve) in mind when making policy. Our government is beholden to corporate interests and elites. Not sure why you are defending that.
A lot of Americans complain how shitty they got it, For Canadians it is like heaven here. You can actually buy a house in a major city and afford nice things and earn a decent salary.
This is not possible in the majority of Canadian cities. Canada is a great place to visit but it is a shitty place to work and live, unless your parents own a house and have a couple of rentals (in Vancouver or Toronto) that you're going to inherit.
Even 100k salary in Toronto is poverty these days, I don't know how people do it anymore. Private industry pays like shit and unless your a Gov Employee it's just tough.
-ExPat...never coming back.....