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I am in a unique position to observe the best and worst of Canada. My dad was born and raised in Canada but emigrated to the USA in the 1930's and met my mother and married and became a US Citizen and we lived the first 4 years of my life in NYC and the rest in Buffalo on the Canadian border. I have made thousands of trips to Canada and spent considerable time there. I met my 2nd (and current and last) wife there. If it weren't for Canada I wouldn't be here and I wouldn't be happily married to the most wonderful woman in the world.
My favorite things:
Natural beauty: Canada is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever been to with miles of unspoiled wilderness, lakes, mountains,coastlines and rivers.
Friendly people: Canadians are for the most part much friendlier than Americans. When I cross the border the line is almost always much shorter entering Canada and the agents are almost always very friendly. People in general are much nicer.
Toronto: One of the nicest cities I have ever been to and a fraction of the cost of NYC for similar hotels, restaurants and entertainment
Public Transit: Infinitely better than the USA with buses and trains actually taking you places.
Airports: Much nicer,much cleaner and friendlier customs agents
Cleaner: Canada is generally much cleaner than the USA
Immigration: Canada is much more welcoming to immigrants
Cultural diversity: There is a little bit of everything in Canada with accompanying restaurants, shoppes and cultural events
Excellent education system: many fine Colleges and Universities with affordable tuition and financing.
My least favorite things:
Health care: The socialist, one payer health system is great if you are young and healthy and rarely need it and live in a big city. If you are infirmed or elderly its dreadful. For example my friends father was diagnosed with cancer and there was a 6 month wait to begin treatment and he passed away, my mother in law had a heart attack on Saturday and it was Wednesday before they finally transported her to a cardiac care unit. Fortunately she survived. My same mother in law has had a pain in her right side for 2 years and they still don't know the cause. A friend had a severe migraine attack and waited 6 hours for treatment. We frequently have to wait hours just for a walk in clinic and the hospital is 3-6 hours even if there is no one else waiting. The problem was exacerbated by changing from paying doctors by the patient to paying them by the hour. No incentive to see more patients. Basically health care is rationed since there is just so much money and lots of people using it. The doctors are not the greatest either and in my experience most are from a foreign country. Of course there are many excellent doctors but many in the hospital are overworked. My friend needed a major operation and wasted away in the hospital before the could do his surgery. When they finally did it the doctor had started early in the morning and it was the evening before they did his surgery. The prescription medicine is also not the latest. Wealthy people come to the US for treatment.
Housing prices: Prices in Canada were crazy 10 years now they are insane.The mortgages are not fixed for 15 or 30 years like in the USA. Its more like 5 and then you need a new one. Canada is forced to keep their interest rates low or else millions of people will be forced out of their overpriced homes.
Lack of buying choices: Target just went out of business in Canada, as did Zellers, Sears is closing stores left and right, Sony, Mexx, Future Shop (bought out by Best Buy). Cell phone service is expensive and lacking in choices. If you live in a large city its different there are more choices but those in smaller areas have a lot less to pick from.
Social Welfare State: Canada is a social welfare state which encourages people not to work. You have to pretend you are looking for a job but the job opportunities are not that great. I realize this is a blanket statement but from my actual experience with recent graduated people the employment opportunities are limited. It also breeds a generation after generation dependence on public assistance.
Climate: If you are an Eskimo,Polar bear or a skiing enthusiast Canada is for you. Its very cold half the year and most people live near the border. Its a bit better out west but its cold, cold, cold.
High Taxes: In Ontario there is a 13% HST sales tax on most everything except food. Personal income tax is also quite high.
Would I ever live in Canada? No because of the healthcare, cold weather and overpriced houses. But it will always hold a special place in my heart.
Anecdotal stories about any H.C system aren't too hard to find.. I've written my own H.C success stories in Canada with respect to my parents. Particularly my father who was diagnosed and treated successfully for stage IV metastatic cancer. From diagnosis to treatment was a case of two weeks (surgery) and obviously longer for oncological treatment as they can't do that until you recover from the surgery. Your anecdotal story, nor mine is going to encapsulate the Canadian H.C system in a nutshell.. It would be the same about a success or horror story regarding the American one. Something to keep in mind.
Also I had to laugh about you talking about the cold weather up here.. Thundarr you live in BUFFALO man lol.. Toronto is a 90 minute drive from Buffalo dude. There is NO difference between a Buffalo (WNY) winter and a Toronto/GTA winter whatsoever. A quarter of Canada lives in the Golden Horseshoe which is within a two hour drive from you....I can even recall Toronto sending snow plowing equipment to Buffalo last year when it got hammered by a blizzard we were largely not impacted by.. There is no magical cold snap that happens as soon as you cross the border - its more gradual than that and certainly a Buffalonian has no cause to be judging a Canadian winter at all... That is the funniest thing ever..
I agree the weather in Buffalo is dreadful. I remember the blizzard of 77. When I moved into my current house 9 years ago there was an Ice Storm and I had no power for almost 3 weeks. Tree branches everywhere (and of course I had an electric chainsaw). When I was done dragging them to the street I had a pile 20 feet high, 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep. They even sent a news crew to my street to film my block being the LAST ONE getting its power back.
AS my screen name suggests, I am a Canadian. I am 69 and I have lived in Canada all my life.
The OP has a number of things wrong.........
For a start, Doctors in Canada are NOT paid by the hour, that is nonsense. They are paid for the specific procedure, or service that they have performed, base on the negotiated rate, that is set every two years between the Province, and the Medical Association of that Province. Every 30 days the MD submits their charges, by electronic billing, to the Provincial Ministry of Health. After verification, they are paid by computer transfer, to their bank account. Out of that amount, they have to pay their expenses, such as office rent, secretarial service, accountant, malpractice insurance and of course Income Taxes. The average annual income of a MD in the Province of Ontario is about $350.000. Net would be about $175,000. A specialist can make up to a maximum of $ 550.000.
One of the expenses that a Canadian MD does NOT have to pay, is the cost of having a number of office clerks whose job it is to fill in and submit insurance claims to various private insurance companies, and also chase patients who `didn`t pay `. NONE of that happens in Canada, as our system doesn`t include private medical insurance companies, and because the MD knows that they will be paid for their services, from the Province, they don`t need to employ collection agencies. Compare that to the US system .
Six months to wait for cancer treatment to begin . BS and nonsense. In my personal experience, with my Mother, who was 88 years old at the time.........she was diagnosed and began treatment within 14 days. I am sure that many Canadians will be along very soon to set him straight on this subject.
The OP may THINK that he knows something about the health care system in Canada, but he is woefully miss-informed.
My in-laws were wealthy enough to immediately rush to the States for health care, when their son was diagnosed with a very serious brain condition. Or else he would not be here today. The waiting list was unreal in Canada.
We have absolutely nothing like that problem in the U.S.
Quantity of doctors and specialists is always a problem in Canada. Nova Scotia has a four year wait list for some procedures. I am not making that up. But that is just one example.
My own Maine area has many Canadian doctors who have just moved over here to work.
Just to clarify my post, the emergency room physicians, who are what many people count on, are paid on a salaried basis and therefore have no incentive to see more patients. I do not know about every physician in Canadian emergency rooms but from my experience and research some are. "Canadian Citizen" if you read my post carefully, it says people in large cities like Toronto have access to better and more prompt healthcare than people in other areas. If your personal experience with your mother was good my friends with his father was not. As far as having to wait for treatment my wife's doctor prescribed PT 3 years ago and we are still waiting. Doctors on the fee for service basis, scam the system by having patients come back for useless office visits so they can bill the province for a visit.
........ As far as having to wait for treatment my wife's doctor prescribed PT 3 years ago and we are still waiting. .....Doctors on the fee for service basis, scam the system by having patients come back for useless office visits so they can bill the province for a visit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thundarr457
........ We frequently have to wait hours just for a walk in clinic and the hospital is 3-6 hours even if there is no one else waiting......
Your posts are confusing and it sounds like there's some conflict of interests happening. You have said that you don't live in Canada, never have lived in Canada and never will. But you have made comments about you and your wife having to wait for treatments in Canada. Can you clarify - does your wife live in Canada and you live in America and you just go there from time to time to visit her? .... or what?
Why doesn't your wife live with you in America so that she wouldn't have to wait to get timely medical treatments?
If she does live with you in America then why is she waiting for treatment in Canada and how does she qualify for provincial healthcare in Canada?
Lack of buying choices: Target just went out of business in Canada, as did Zellers, Sears is closing stores left and right, Sony, Mexx, Future Shop (bought out by Best Buy). Cell phone service is expensive and lacking in choices. If you live in a large city its different there are more choices but those in smaller areas have a lot less to pick from.
This is an interesting topic, just for comparison's sake, that I've followed for a while. The US has the most retail per square foot on the planet, so keep that in mind.
Until about ten years ago, Canada had much lower retail sales per capita than the US, and far fewer US store chains were here. It's about even now.
Some Canadian and foreign chains have shuttered recently, but there've been a lot of US chains arriving here (not just Target, which ended up closing up after a poor year with half-stocked shelves and some other logistic issues that weren't going to be solved anytime soon). The chains that closed did it due to competition, not because Canadians weren't spending money--they just weren't spending it at Mexx or Zellers.
Nordstrom has opened some stores here in the past few months, and the one in Ottawa seems to be doing well. A Tangier outlet mall opened here almost a year ago and is doing well, despite the low Canadian dollar. Saks Fifth Avenue is opening in Toronto in 2016. H&M, Topshop, Zara, Forever21, and several other chains have come to larger Canadian cities and expanded over the past several years. Simons, a Canadian department store that's big in Montreal, is opening a huge store in downtown Ottawa next year.
US chains stay alive in the US for a long time, but just this year alone, they've had to shrink considerably and close many stores... Dollar Tree, Office Depot, Radio Shack, Gap, Barnes and Noble, Wet Seal, Childrens Place, Abercrombie and Fitch, Walgreens, announced the closure of 170+ stores each, in 2015. Macys is going to close 40 stores. Things are competitive out there.
French & English bilingualism
Metric system
National healthcare
Mandatory paid days off from work
No first and second amendment
Less political correctness
More liked by the world
Less poverty
Cleaner
Less crime
Canadian flag
Quebec
Justin Trudeau
Large and diverse country
Borders the states
History
Beauty
Affordable rent/housing
Dislike:
High sales tax (esp. not being included on advertised price)
Not as famous and superpower as in the states
Winters may be too cold
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