My impression- How different is Canada from US

[canada_dream100]

Here are my observations about Canada and the differences between US and Canada,
These are entirely my opinion. You may or may not aggree but most of the people who move from
US to Canada will find a lot of truth and will be able to relate to them once they come here . People who are moving
from other countries may not find it useful and can ignore then info given below

Canada is not a mirror image of US. This is what i came to realize after coming here. I was expecting it
to be a lot similar but the reality is far different. US is far superior to Canada

People in Canada are rude on an average. Most of them dont have any knowledge
of customer eccentricity and hence you can expect the person at the gas station or a tim hortons employee
or a zellers associate to be fairly rude and mannerless

Milk is priced a $5.5 a gallon compared to $2.7 in US... Yes this is true.. Start drinking black tea friends

Gas is priced at $4.75 a gallon as compared to $3.3 in US...this is where is say ... Ohh SH****T

I havent seen any real canadians in toronto at least and its immigrants all around.

Expect to meet people everywhere who want to rip you apart. Be it on the road or in a bank or a store. Its just like India where you find salesmen all around just trying to grab a buck out of ur pocket

Road ettiquetes dont seem to exist. Honking and crossing speed limits seems to be quite common

Food items are expensive. Butter for instance is $4-5 one brick. Similarly juice, other dairy products, vegetables
etc all are around 20-50% more expensive than US(varying from item to item)

Clothes are very expensive. I havent shopped for any clothes till now but thats what my colleagues who have come
from US have told me

Rents are pretty high and most of the appartment building ask for 2 months of rent upfront and some even 3 months rent

Driving licence costs $75 compared to $15-20 in US...

Advertised basements /appartements are very different to whats shown in the picture. I am indian and hence can speak of
our community here. Most of the ones rented by desis are not good. They say completely opposite of what the place actually is
Most of these are damp, dark basements and they still want you to believe its a nice place to live

Insurance rates very high. i used to pay $550 for 6 months full auto insurance in US. the quotes which i am getting here
are around 450 per month. Yes it is this high. This is with 3.5 years good driving record in US

I will suggest you all moving here to try and get a job before moving as this is a costly country compared to US. so if you are earning 60 K per annum in US the ideal to ask here would be 80K. so basically 60 k in US is comparatively equivalent to 80 K here.
thats what i am feeling based upon what the expenses are.

bank accounts come with a annual fee, a fee to get check books , a fee for getting a money wired into ur account, a fee for every service u can think of.

the entire population here consists of immigrants. all fighting to get hold of odd jobs to make ends meet. frankly speaking it is
depressing to see this scenario. people are working 2 .. sometime 3 shifts to support themselves.

Friends please dont take any of this personally but this is what i have seen and observed. let me know if you need any more info


Avi

@ avi_15
U commented on the behaviour, culture, morality, ethnicity, drive, attitude, mentality, integrity and what may by just ur observation/assessment of 15 days! (to be noted that u just 'landed' on Feb-3, 2012). Ppl take a lifetime to understand those. I must say, "u r one hell of a man, we need to learn a lot from u"!

for me avi & qoarx both are correct, but both have different prism and level of maturity.

qoarx is highly experienced & a person who is mature enough before sharing his statement.
while avi is looking for comfort and avoiding existing issues (problems) but correct from his prospective.

Whatever avi has said I have faced after moving to Mississauga (20 KM from Toronto), but prefer not to make it as issue for two reasons,
-I am able to get reason-able salary & full-fill my family's needs (even though its costlier compare to USA & double sales taxes)
-But primary reason for not making it an issue is because it was my well thought decision to move to Canada after living for 7 years in USA.
Canada gave me opportunity for PR and my family has freedom to do what ever we want to do. Study-work, no periodical application of visa extension, freedom to choose employer for me - in-short peace of mind. Even though I am paying more for gas/milk/cloths, and yes, behavior of people is not exactly like in USA. But that depends origin & habits of people. If I move to french dominated are like Montreal, I may have different experience.

I prefer to look to bigger picture, that we have total freedom & peace of mind from visa applications vs. having little less savings.
My company filed my GC for EB3, and I don't wan't to work with sword handing on neck, what would happen on next extension application. - Avi, what's your pick?

 

[hondubai]

US commodities are cheaper than the Canadians. Your observation Avi about prices is largely correct. However, Canada offers many free services and programs for immigrants like skills development training, language, child benefits, health..etc

Apart from money issue which we could agree or disagree about it, Canada is a better place to live in. evidence? Usually there are 3 Canadian cities in the top 10 of the most liveble cities in the world while no US city rank in the top ten.

All the best.

 

[AAL1984]

All the U.S cheapness can go out the door if hit with a medical problem and not covered by excellent health insurance. My Uncle was a self employed person in the U.S, he had his own business installing and maintaining cooling systems. He had a little bit of an accident, where he fell of the roof and injured his head.

He required a one month hospital stay, and extensive rehabilitation. He only had very basic health Insurance, nothing special, however he didn't have it long enough to be covered for everything.

His hospital bills came out to $98,000 dollars , there goes the U.S cheapness out the door. I was there when his accident happened, and I drove my aunt to the hospital to see him.

We were both so worried, but as soon as we walked in and asked about him, instead of telling us where he is or if he's ok, the hospital staff handed us an expensive ambulance bill, and inquired if we had insurance, this was their first concern.

Can you imagine the pain my aunt went through? Her husband just got injured and the first concern of the hospital people is if he has insurance, and who is going to pay the ambulance bill.

My uncle was lucky in the fact that all his brothers and sisters pulled together and paid his bill, other people are not so lucky and go into serious debt and can lose their homes.

 

[hondubai]

And Canadian in general are very polite, friendly and tolerant..Racism almost doesn't exist in Canada and any exception doesn't set up a role. Also any misfortunate or bad experience is against many other bright and successful stories.

 

[canadastar]

All the U.S cheapness can go out the door if hit with a medical problem and not covered by excellent health insurance. My Uncle was a self employed person in the U.S, he had his own business installing and maintaining cooling systems. He had a little bit of an accident, where he fell of the roof and injured his head.

He required a one month hospital stay, and extensive rehabilitation. He only had very basic health Insurance, nothing special, however he didn't have it long enough to be covered for everything.

His hospital bills came out to $98,000 dollars , there goes the U.S cheapness out the door. I was there when his accident happened, and I drove my aunt to the hospital to see him.

We were both so worried, but as soon as we walked in and asked about him, instead of telling us where he is or if he's ok, the hospital staff handed us an expensive ambulance bill, and inquired if we had insurance, this was their first concern.

Can you imagine the pain my aunt went through? Her husband just got injured and the first concern of the hospital people is if he has insurance, and who is going to pay the ambulance bill.

My uncle was lucky in the fact that all his brothers and sisters pulled together and paid his bill, other people are not so lucky and go into serious debt and can lose their homes.

what is ur uncle's age?, if he is eligible to get medicare, they will pay every thing for free of cost, if he has low income, will be eligible to take medicaid, govt pays even pharmacy and cab chargers to go to your house, do you know that?, these two policies are even extended to illegal immigrants, first, u need to know, wt is available.

 

[canadastar]

I have to agree with the costs, Canada can be more expensive for everyday items, just is what it is. UK is even more expensive than Canada, and so are places like Norway and Sweden.

I've had the opportunity to live in both Canada, the US, and Europe, I personally like Canada the best, but that's just my opinion.

I mean yes the U.S is cheap, but there is a reason it's cheap, just like Mexico is even cheaper than the U.S, crappy places tend to be cheaper. For example my wife's family lives in a nice part of Houston Texas, a nice suburban community built around 2005, you can get a very large house there for around 200K.

However, even there , there are robberies all the time, etc..She was shocked at how much safer and cleaner Calgary was.

In terms of jobs, go to Houston, you find tons of immigrants with high end degrees working at gas stations, there is no paradise down there either. Also the cost of University is much much higher than Canada, many people simply can't afford going to University and end up going to some useless community college.

In Canada I was able to go to a great University and graduate with my Bachelors, and go on to obtain my CA designation, and obtain a great job which pays me more money than I need.My university cost was about $25,000, which my parents paid for easily. In the U.S if I had gotten the same degree it would have cost much more, and many students who graduate are far more heavily in debt than Canadian students, it's not uncommon to find students who are 80K-100K in debt.

Further in Houston property values are low, they don't rise much. In Calgary my we bought a condo for 150K in 1999, and sold it for around 400K in 2006.

My family has made so much more money in Calgary than anywhere else.

Dear AAL1984,

you are not correct about education in USA, here i did master and doing Ph.d in same university, every body will get 100% assistance ship and 1500 per month, 2500 for Phd, i dint pay anything, see, that's always depend on ur GPA, university, GRE and toefl scores, not other things, i tried post doc in canada, there only just paying 2500 per month, where as in us, it is almost 3500 to 4500 depends on the university. see the difference man, dont go with flow always, think first or consult somebody.

thanks body, i hope this will help.

 

[229334]

good drama going here. people are mocking each other and proving each other wrong. good show. i don't want to watch tv if an entertainment like that is here.

 

[kishunji]

God ohh God


$450 per month for auto insurance ??????. Canada seems out of its mind. What a ripper.

damm.... I just pay $260 for 6 months in us. I am here in US for 6 years, I have done my medical and waiting for PPR. You scared me.

 

[AAL1984]

what is ur uncle's age?, if he is eligible to get medicare, they will pay every thing for free of cost, if he has low income, will be eligible to take medicaid, govt pays even pharmacy and cab chargers to go to your house, do you know that?, these two policies are even extended to illegal immigrants, first, u need to know, wt is available.

My uncle is 44 a US citizen, he did not qualify for medicare or medicaid, he asked about that, based on his 1040 and income he was disallowed. We had to pay the 98000 bill, he is lucky in that his brothers all put money together and paid of his debt.

 

[AAL1984]

Dear AAL1984,

you are not correct about education in USA, here i did master and doing Ph.d in same university, every body will get 100% assistance ship and 1500 per month, 2500 for Phd, i dint pay anything, see, that's always depend on ur GPA, university, GRE and toefl scores, not other things, i tried post doc in canada, there only just paying 2500 per month, where as in us, it is almost 3500 to 4500 depends on the university. see the difference man, dont go with flow always, think first or consult somebody.

thanks body, i hope this will help.

Ok look tuition fees in the US are higher thats just a fact. In Canada the gov subsidizes tuitions. Also what you are talking about is assistance/scholorships, i'm talking about tuition fees . I have like 15 cousins in the Usa all citizens all graduated or in University I know their situation quite well. Many graduated wij
over 80k in debt.

 

[229334]

i am liking arguments from both sides.... ;D

so far canada is winning.... ;D

come on usa show some strength.... ;D

 

[SenoritaBella]

Well, how do people imagine the gov't sustains universal health card in Canada and many other subsidies? Ofcourse, you have to pay higher prices for many items and that's just life. The fact that you can be out of job but not have to worry about going to the doctor is worth it in my opinion.

 

[AAL1984]

i am liking arguments from both sides.... ;D

so far canada is winning.... ;D

come on usa show some strength.... ;D

Lol man, its futile to argue online, anyway its a beautiful long weekend Im going skiing in Banff see you guys later.

I just find it funny that some people are such losers that they have nothing to do but come online and talk crap about Canada, if you dont like it please leave. Why spread so much hate for a beautiful country which has one of the highest qualities of life.

I love all of North America my wife is an American and i have so much family there, love them both.

 

[229334]

Lol man, its futile to argue online, anyway its a beautiful ling weekend Im going skiing in Banff see you guys later.

I just find it funny that some people are such losers that they have nothing to do but come online and talk crap about Canada, if you dont like it please leave. Why spread so much hate for a beautiful country which has one of the highest qualities of life.

I love all of North America my wife is an American and i have so much family there, love them both.

kool dude...see ya laterz...have fun.... bring me a macdonald on your way back...

 

[AAL1984]

OK I will bring you back a BIG MAC from sunshine village, enjoy your long weekend as well dude, I'll try and post some pictures here.