Canada Moves to Keep Skilled Workers 1067
ashitaka writes "Just in time for all those who have vowed to leave the United States in response to government policies and mainstream cultural malaise, the Canadian government is announcing a C$700 million initiative to help skilled workers stay in Canada and become citizens. If you had the choice, would you really uproot to a new country especially one where the lifestyle isn't that much different than your own?"
Lifestyle (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that a lifestyle that includes warm weather would be reason enough.
Warm weather (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:5, Funny)
Except for that part where we peel our faces off and reveal ourselves to our god. Wait, forget I said that. Everything is fine.
Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's say you have a good job skill set and can get a job more or less either north or south of the 49th parallel. If you speak French as a native language, you'll most likely feel more comfortable in Quebec. If you speak Spanish as a home language, Miami, Los Angeles, or New York would be more confortable. This issue
Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:5, Informative)
At just about any income level, a family with a single income, filing jointly, and owning their home will be much better off just about anywhere in the U.S. compared to Canada: there is no deduction for morgtage interest for non-investment property in Canada, and couples with a single income can't file jointly (and the spousal credit is mediocre, about CA$7-8k at the *lowest* marginal tax rate taken off your gross tax burden).
I once figured out that for marrieds, taxes in the U.S., in a no-income tax state, are generally lower once income goes above $US15k.
It's the main reason we left Canada for the U.S. -- we could not afford to live in Canada anymore with the high taxes, and mediocre health care (free, perhaps, but non-existent for the most part).
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
The Republican necons in our Congress are trying to remove the mortgage interest deduction as we speak. Now how does the US look if that's gone?
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
You did, of course, not being a disingenious shill, include the $200-600 (depending on employment type/other factors) a month health insurance per-person in the household in the US equation, right? Right?
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:5, Interesting)
Nope. 80% of Americans get their health insurance paid for by their employers. It is in fact very likely.
Most people employed in the only area of job expansion in the US - the burger flipping.
Nope. Here are the fastest growing ocupations in the US over the past 10 years:
Health aides 138%
Human service workers 136%
Personal and home care aids 130%
Computer engineers and scientists 112%
Systems analysts 110%
Physical and corrective therapy assistants and aides 93%
Physical therapists 88%
Paralegals 86%
Teachers, special education 74%
Medical assistants 71%
In general the top categories are in health care. It seems to me that a nation with the terrible health care problems you claim would not be adding health care workers at that rate.
Wal-Mart and other "service" industries do not have any such benefits
Wal-Mart does in fact offer health covereage to it's workers. The problem here is that their pay rate is so low that about half of them decline coverage.
Such benefits are today restricted mostly to the CEO class.
Utter nonsense. My insurance coverage, which I pay $25 a month for includes 100% hospital coverage, free prescriptions and $5 a visit copay to the doctor. Two years ago I needed an MRI for an ankle injury and was able to get an appointment in 3 days. Out of pocket cost was $0. I am definitely NOT a CEO class person.
An economist my ass.
A Nobel Prize winning economicist, actually.
It seems to me that you are living in some sort of weird fantasy world not connected in any way to what the reality is.
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
Source?
Health aides 138% Human service workers 136% Personal and home care aids 130% Computer engineers and scientists 112% Systems analysts 110% Physical and corrective therapy assistants and aides 93% Physical therapists 88% Paralegals 86% Teachers, special education 74% Medical assistants 71%
Most of these are service, part-time, contract or self-employed (i.e. "consultants") "workers". Explain to
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
Not so. The parent is spinning, which I pointed out in my reply.
Many Canadians I've met can not understand how the U.S. can function at all without universal healthcare. But, function it does.
That depends on your definition of "function".
But, when one looks deeper, one sees that the percentage of the population in the worst case scenario is (a) actually quite small and (b) there is opportunity to move out of poverty.
What is (a) the number then and (b) I have the "opportunity" to become the Kin
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason that they are cheap here is because otherwise the 20 year patent protections which Canadian government granted to them under the condition of price controls would be removed. Followed by Canada's generic drug makers becoming the suppliers of drugs to 90% of USA. But you knew that, didn't you?
Funny. Doctors weren't scare in Canada until there was universal health care coverage and their fees were fixed by the government
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:4, Interesting)
There are not many people like you there statistically. You are an elite exception. Also a huge, $1200 a month, tax on an employer is supposedly somehow better then personal taxation how again?
and it's for far better care than I can get in Canada -
And that would be how precisely? Blow jobs by nurses? 1400 square feet bed-rooms with French maids? What?
much of what it covers is not covered by provincial health care programs.
Ouija boards or Chinese Astrological Brick To The Head Therapy I presume?
Even then, it's still cheaper
$1200 a month is cheaper? Does it cover whatever that thing is you are smoking right now too?
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:4, Informative)
There's also no taxes owing for capital gains when you sell that non-investment property. My house in Vancouver, BC has gone up in value by more than $125,000 in the last 3 years. Given a choice between a 17% deduction on the interest portion of my mortgage versus $125,000 in tax-free cash I think I'll take the latter....
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Informative)
The mortgage deduction really doesn't kick in unless your mortgage is about $100k (so say a $120k house with 24k down)and up because of the "standard" deduction.
The mortgage deduction is really a subsidy for rich people who are buying million dollar houses and getting 2 grand a month off their taxes. The "fai
Re:Income tax misnomer (Score:3, Interesting)
Non-Existent is an exageration. Thats what the ultra right wing fasists will have you believe so that they can consid
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Informative)
US: "Life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness"
Canada: "Peace, order, and good government"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace,_order_and_goo
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Informative)
Although I found housing to be cheaper, and many consumer goods...food was the same price, which meant everything was 20-30% more expensive. The tax rate was chaper, but there were more types of taxes. for example, I had to paid a tax to the city for the car, which I had never done in Canada, and the cost of health care insurance was huge. Drugs w
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to point you towards the Forbes 500 richest list. I think you will see several Waltons with billion dollar fortunes. So, the money DOES NOT go back to the people. If you add up all the cost of all the extra insurance and pension funds that you need here in the US, I think you'll find that the difference is marginal if any at all. Lower taxes and ch
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:4, Insightful)
When the economy tanks in the next year or so, all that hoarded wealth will be released to purchase stock and real estate at greatly deflated prices. They'll make a bundle on our economic disaster, eventually, when the US climbs out of its debt hole (by raising taxes and cutting public spending) and the value of the holdings they will purchase at fire-sale prices go back up.
Supply side economics, as Reagan's budget director David Stockman admitted, is a con to lower taxes on the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. He should know, as he was Reagan's salesman to congress.
Supply side cuts have failed. Jobs are gone, poverty is up, aid to the poor is going, we're trillions in the hole in debt to China, the wealthy are insanely wealthy and poised to become mega-wealthy after the crash caused by the tax cuts and borrowing. Bush believes in his supply side cuts. But, as we've seen, his beliefs are gut-based, not fact-based, and his gut is unbelieveably incorrect about reality. He simply didn't believe in his own college education, and certainly had his own ideas about economics, his Harvard professor says. Faith-based economics, welfare is communism, government is evil, all that.
Economic booms are based on the price of oil, not tax cuts. Reagan cut taxes and increased spending, sending us into a spiral that mirrors today's death swirl, but he was saved by one thing: OPEC's pricing discipline collapsed in the early Eighties. So much wealth, which had been hemorraging to the middle eastern princes since 1973, suddenly flooded into the American economy. We sang with power and money and grew, even as the debt ballooned. Reagan was a lucky bugger: his supply side con would have ruined him had OPEC not collapsed.
Bush the senior had to raise taxes to stop the disaster that supply side created. He paid for it by losing a chance at a second term.
Bush the junior came into office believing, as all the other conservatives did, in the Reagan Miracle. He was wrong: the miracle was the OPEC collapse that saved the old fool from the folly of believing the pack of thieves that sold him on the supply-side con.
So, Bush slammed straight into OPEC and the oil companies ascendant, believing that tax cuts were the solution to all, that government was the problem, and that debt would eventually force the death of the New Deal programs the wealthy hated so. It's five years later, and the International Monetary Fund is telling us we can crash hard or crash soft -- but we will crash, when the Chinese and all the others lending us money cut us off. They will dictates terms to US. And Bush will probably react by screaming at his aides and locking himself away from the public, which is pretty much his reponse to every challenge.
After the crash, the very people who keep selling the supply side con will be flush with offshore cash. They will swoop in and buy cheap, while taxes for the lesser mortals go up 20% to try to stop the bleeding. And oh yep -- they will be the ones who'll be lending us money to shore up the tax base, so they'll make a trillion bucks in interest alone in the next couple of decades -- paid for by tax payers.
Yup, the money is in the mattress - for now.
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Canada vs. USA (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Lifestyle (Score:3, Interesting)
The lifestyle IS different! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The lifestyle IS different! (Score:5, Funny)
Every time I've been to Canada the land has been white.
Re:The lifestyle IS different! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:The lifestyle IS different! (Score:5, Interesting)
I moved from 1 state to another and life is very different for me. Turns out I like where I live now, I don't ever want to move back. And if I travel to different parts of my state, life is quite different.
Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:5, Informative)
Well respected? Maybe but I keep sensing that other countries find us about as annoying as a nat flying around your head.
Saying that, I love this country and would never move.
Re:Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:5, Interesting)
For those who are curious, the above is not an exaggeration [onthefencefilms.com], as shown by this film.
As partially summarized by a Canadian blogger [blogs.com], "When you have finished watching this film several images will remain with you for some time to come. A woman who spent two years waiting for knee surgery and innocently asks the American filmmakers whether the waiting lists are as long there as they are here. The moment when she begins to grasp that a health care waiting list is a concept alien to most sick Americans, though sadly not health care compelled bankruptcy, is something that cannot be explained. More stories follow of addiction to pain killers brought on by wait times, of the suffering families go through, of men and women calmly contemplating death for ailments which medical science long ago conquered, but which government control has placed out of reach."
The wait vs. the cost (Score:5, Insightful)
(Actually, in America, you might get turfed out in critical situations anyway. Many hospitals don't have an emergency room, as they cost more than they make and US hospitals are there for profit not care. Those ER rooms that do exist are hopelessly overcrowded, overworked and are considered by the CDC to be extremely high risk areas in the event of an outbreak of a contageous disease. If bird flu ever goes critical, it will likely do so in a US emergency room.)
The American situation, unlike the British and Canadian counterparts, is not fixable. Because hospitals in the US are profit ventures, not health-care centers, they have no interest in doing anything that will cost more than it will earn. Proper emergency care is expensive and earns little, as most accident and crime victims are uninsured and/or flat broke. They have no interest in lowering prices, because the bulk of "paying" customers have health insurance and so never see the real price tag and therefore have no reason to care what it is.
Insurance companies in the US are also money-grubbers and they know how to rake the money in. By charging the companies a "reduced rate" for bulk purchases, they can absolutely guarantee that customers never see the real cost to their paychecks. The victim - errr, employee - only sees a given deduction for their deduction. What they don't see is what the company is really paying and therefore what the company is really calculating payscales on. In the end, you pay the full cost but you only see a fraction of it on the pay stub.
By these accounting tricks and other fraud, the US employees are bilked billions of dollars and somehow consider themselves better off because they don't have the wait. Trust me, if you threw billions of dollars out the window in England, you'd get prompt healthcare too. Well, just as soon as anyone realized that was real money and not something from a Monopoly game.
(For that matter, there's always BUPA, if you insist on the insurance thing in more civilized lands.)
Re:The wait vs. the cost (Score:3, Insightful)
Medicare fraud sucks, but it's something to deal with, but it's there for those that need the care,
Re:The wait vs. the cost (Score:3, Insightful)
The US is fixing the "No one sees the price tag" problem, its called HSA's. Hundreds of companies are moving to them, I own a small business its how my employees get coverage, we save tons of money on premiums, and we save tons of money
Re:Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:3, Informative)
No longer true. In the US it has been replaced by health care compelled indentured servitude. The bankruptcy laws have been tightened up so that now it is almost impossible for an individual to write off debts. Despite the fact that approx. 70% of bankruptcy in the US was due to health care bills. In addition, you are forced into counsummer credit counseling, often for profit organizations. Sometimes these counseling services are fraudulent driving the vicitm
Re:Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Bullsh*t (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Healthcare is great if you don't get sick (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As an american currently living in canada... (Score:3, Interesting)
Canadian healthcare does the job -- everyone has a basic level of care. For specialized services that are not life threatening, you wait. In the US, if you are fortunate enough to have good insurance, you can fight your way through the system and get care...once. After that, you're hosed unless you manage to keep insurance through your work, because you'll never get insurance personally again.
My wife
Re:No! You are mis-informed (Score:3, Insightful)
Billions are already spent on providing what SHOULD be excellent living conditions for a virtual handful of people. Instead, their corrupt self-government combines with the pitiful behaviour of people on reserves, leaving taxpayers with the cheque -- The Prime Minister just allocated 5
Vancouver vs. The Frozen North (Score:3, Interesting)
ho (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, Canada! (Score:5, Informative)
No worries about healthcare, low crime, fantastic local beers, hockey in the winter, Tim Hortons...er, what am I not supposed to like, again?
Re:Oh, Canada! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Oh, Canada! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Oh, Canada! (Score:5, Interesting)
On the flip side, if you're a student in the US, you can shell out $100 a month for CRAP healthcare -- as in, if the Student Heath Center is open and you don't go there first, you can pay your own bills, and unless it's an emergency (life-threatening), you had better not even think of going to see a doctor, because the student insurance won't cover it. Oh, and it won't cover anything out-of-network, so I owe my dentist $150 because the student insurance I forked out about won't cover cleanings with my regular dentist.
At least I have healthcare; half of the people I go to school with don't, because $100 a month is more than they can afford.
Now that I'm working 'full time' again, things are better (back to real healthcare), but having experienced 'cheap healthcare' for a year, I'd rather see us Americans with a better system.
I hate to say it, but I think the Japanese have something going with the way they run things -- even without being on the 'National Insurance', I was able to go to a Japanese clinic and have my cough diagnosed as a really nasty case of pneumonia -- and was out the door after a total of an hour, with a small bag filled with about five different kinds of medication, and all for about $200 (IIRC). I shudder to think of what two sets of chest X-rays and about two weeks of meds would have cost in the U.S. without insurance.
Re:Oh, Canada! (Score:3, Insightful)
Empty promise (Score:5, Informative)
For those unaware of Canadian politics, the government faces a non-confidence vote Monday or Tuesday. It is expected to fall and call a December election.
For campaign reasons, the government has announced a flurry of new spending over the last week, most of which is expected to never materialise, whether the governing party wins again or not.
Re:Empty promise (Score:3)
Of course where is the gun registry office? [hint: How do you keep unemployable easterners happy...]
That said, I'd rather live in Canada than the USA. Mostly because it's so cold the terrorists are few and far between. Who the fuck would bomb an office in -20C weather?
Tom
Nice (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
Quick question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they have any interest in achieving their goal, shouldn't they be sending a loud message to the rest of the world, inviting like-minded individuals to come live there instead? Or perhaps convince their neighbors to read a newspaper?
Oh, wait. That would involve effort. Never mind - I forgot who I was talking about.
The Real Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quick question.... (Score:5, Insightful)
In my case, I would like to move to an area that is much more socially liberal than the US, and has more social services. Personally, I don't mind paying more in taxes if the government is going to use those taxes to help the people of the country.
Basically, you say, "if you don't like X, why not try to change it, and invite other people to come and help", whereas I say "If most people in the area like X, but I don't, would I not be better served by going to a place where people share my ideas instead inviting fruther fragmentation into the area I am at, and trying to strong arm my own views onto others?"
Re:Quick question.... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the president of the USA telling atheist citizens that they don't belong in the country. Other members of this administration have made similar remarks about atheists, collage professors, environmentalists, femminists, homosexuals and other people they hate.
Why stay in a country that you are not wanted in? Why not move to a place where people don't hate you?
It's a cop-out (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't know how much worse things might have been, either. We say, and it's true, that the domestic opposition didn't prevent the administration from invading Iraq. Well, that was a failure. There is literally no way of knowing what else they might have done if given free reign - Miers on the SCOTUS is only the start of it.
In case you haven't been paying attention - the two last US elections have been very close, and their outcomes (especially in 2000) have had a tremendous impact on the rest of human history. In spite of those election results, public opinion here in the US still plays a big role in determining what the administration can and cannot get away with. If you're really concerned with human civilization, and not with melodrama, you move to a purple state, not to Canada.
Re:It's a cop-out (Score:3, Insightful)
For once someone gets it. If we ever meet in person I'll buy you a beer [or whatever ya drink].
As a Canadian [and fellow North Americaner] all I have to say is it's good to see someone gets it. Too many foreigners flee their country for safety reasons then just pursue the culture that bred it here [often with the problems just following behind them].
Moving China to Toronto, Vancouver and a few other cities won't fix the problems they have in China.
That said, if you guys don't open up the poles to a
Re:It's a cop-out (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm, some people say that current US administration is arrogant in their attempt to change "human history", but it is really funny to see the same attitude from their opponents!
Is it possible to have somewhat "balanced" (if not "fair") discussion here?
Paul B.
Re:It's a cop-out (Score:3, Informative)
You sound like a decent enough person but for god's sake put down the koolaid. Even the most cursory examination of recent history provides a dozen examples of coutries which have suffered far greater catastrophe and they too will leave as much impact as the fall of Pitcairn's society. The WTC towers didn't mean spit o
Re:It's a cop-out (Score:4, Insightful)
Large scale societal dynamics are the things which shape history, not so much the politics of the day. Politics in a vacuum looks very impressive, but you look closer, and you'll often find that it is a mirror which reflects what's actually happening in the world.
Re:It's a cop-out (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, I feel better about myself, just not being there. I feel better that I never have to see Fox News ever again. I feel better knowing that even as Dubya spirals the country into the ground and half the people cheer as they go down, I don't have to ride along with them. Hell, I don't even have to pay attention.
Sorry for the cop-out... but I know I'm much happier. Life'
Funny this should pop up on slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
I come from Europe and, no offense to our American friends, find Canada a much more appealing choice than the USA - exactly because I perceive Canada and Canadian mentality to be much closer to a European mindset.
I admit this may just be a whim, but coming from a country where everybody under 40 years of age is suffering from financial rape from the older generation, Canada sure does look appealing.
financial rape (Score:4, Insightful)
Prepostorous! (Score:5, Funny)
No one can move an entire country, not even Superman!
Look at who this applies to... (Score:3, Informative)
"Ottawa will spend $700 million over the coming years in a two-pronged initiative to make it easier for skilled immigrants to stay in the country while at the same tackling a big backlog of people waiting to get into Canada."
Also:
"Immigration Minister Joe Volpe will join the flurry of pre-election promises with his announcement today."
The minority government in Canada is about to fall, this is just one of the many, many promises the Liberal Party is making before they lose a no confidence vote next week, think of all these spending promises as the beginning of their campaign and react accordingly.
First we take Manhattan, then we take.... Toronto? (Score:4, Insightful)
Japan in this case.
I just couldn't get past America re-electing the failed
ideologues in the White House. Pity the people have seen the err of
their ways all too late. (ref: Bush's declining approval rating)
Barring stumbling into marriage over here, I can't see myself
staying forever though. A place like Canada is *extremely* attractive
to me on a number of levels - it's similarity to America being just one.
Having spent a bit of time in Toronto and Vancouver, they're both places
I can easily see myself living in. They're not New York or Tokyo, mind
you... but they do seem to be everything America believes itself to be -
with Jesus wonderfully absent.
The only problem I can see being an issue is that I don't particularly
care for hockey... Is that a deal-breaker on naturalization?
What seperates Canada from the US (Score:4, Interesting)
US citizens already speak english, work with dollars and cents, drive cars on the right, etc. At the core, they're basically the same (less some cultural differences) as Canadians. Less government money spent on teaching them english or how to drive.
Right now the Canadian dollar is at $0.85USD. The minimum wage in Ontario is at $7.45CDN/hour for an adult (slightly less for people who serve food/beverages and are subject to gratuities), which is more than $6.25USD/hour. Bear in mind too, that minimum wage is typically only paid to entry level jobs, and most other jobs pay more. I've heard horror stories of US Wal-Mart workers making maybe $5/hour - come up here and get a pay raise!
Come on up boys, We've got plenty of room!
Re:What seperates Canada from the US (Score:3, Interesting)
I do not agree. Firstly, the Canadian govt spends sweet fa on teaching immigrants anything. In fact it typically insists that they spend their own money getting "qualified" for something they can already do back in their home country. This might make it quicker for an American working in Canada under current NAFTA rules to just get residency, but Americans who move here seldom have any trouble becoming residents (other than the u
You can be a thief, too! (Score:3)
It is the same thing. Don't believe the hype, read deeper.
Re:You can be a thief, too! (Score:3, Informative)
Canada Sucks. (Score:5, Funny)
American style socialism (Score:4, Interesting)
Only difference is that most of the American style "socialism" is more towards the military and defense sector (ie. Halliburton, Bechtel, etc
America has all kinds of socialistic institutions like:
The Federal Reserve Bank,
Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac,
Social Security,
The US Postal Service,
Pension Benefit Guarnaty Corporation,
Medicare,
Medicaid,
Amtrak,
etc
Ya don't say! (Score:4, Insightful)
I left Arizona for Vancouver BC in Jan 2003. I've been telecommuting with the little web services outfit (still in AZ) ever since. I married a local last June, and she's sponsoring me for Perm Residency soon.
It was a great relief. My first coherent thought after 9/11 was "This is how tyrants are made". I seem to have been right.
I have absolutely no regrets. Answer your question?
Canada isn't all that it's cracked up to be (Score:5, Informative)
Healthcare up here is abysmal. Trying to find a family doctor is nearly impossible, and there are long wait times for elective procedures and medical imaging. One of our family friends died of a heart attack after waiting nearly a year for bypass surgery. I'm paying more for health care up here than I ever did in the US due to my premiums.
Education is a joke up here too. Ontario, for example, passes ALL children unless they basically hand in nothing or choose to do nothing throughout the year. My neighbor's son got straight "R" grades ("F" is no longer politically correct), yet somehow passed to Grade 5 last year. That'll keep happening until he graduates high school, even though this kid still can't read a basic "See Jane Run" type book.
Daily life is ok, but there are some things you have to be aware of. Although the overall murder rate is lower in Canada, per-capita rates of rape and property crime are all higher than in the United States. I feel less safe here than I did in the San Francisco Bay area and much less safe than in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania. Try rolling through Toronto and see what it's like these days. Forget about the unbelievably bitter cold, excessive snow if you live in Eastern Canada, and generally longer winters. Weather counts for a lot.
Then there's the financial aspect of it. Sure, people don't get bankrupted here, but if you're not chronically or seriously ill you are better off in the US. I've paid more for health care here since my employer doesn't cover my premiums (yes, we pay premiums, $60/month/person). Auto insurance is 50% more expensive than what I paid for in California, plus I can't remove tickets from my record with traffic school. House prices are insane; I can't buy a fully-detached house with two car garage for under $400k, and I can't deduct my mortgage interest or property taxes from my federal taxes. I get paid less in equivalent dollars than any job in the US, and all of my Canadian friends who have worked both places want to go back south unless they have significant family obligations north of the 49th. I pay more in taxes, especially at the till (15% sales tax on a car is insane!). The government's overly-liberal immigration policies make unemployment consistently 2% higher at a minimum than in the United States so I'm always looking over my shoulder thinking when my time might be next.
Finally, there's the government. Lots of
Canada is still a great option (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in your district. This month in Toronto I found one in about 20 minutes using the Physicians directory. (Despite the dribble of objections from the middle class who have captured the notion that privatisation solves everything, some level of public health service is necessary in a socially just state. That's one big point in Canada's favour...)
(What does "excessive snow" actually mean? How is snow "excessive"? It's snow, for goodness' sake. If you
I was born in Canada... (Score:3, Funny)
Germany is cool too, no pun intended! (Score:3, Interesting)
The health care system here is also socialized but with an option for private health care (either exclusive or in addition to) your basic health care.
Naturally there is the language problem. You can live here if you don't speak German but it would be very very difficult. For me, that's not a problem though.
The immigration laws are extremely strict for most nationalities but not nearly as bad for Americans. They do kindof use a Catch22 system though. You can't get residence permission without employment and a registered address here. You can't rent an apartment or get a job without residence permission though. There are loopholes but it's tough.
Of course, if anyone in your family tree, has or had, even the slightest percentage of German blood you can get citizenship pretty easily.
If you're married to a German, you don't have to change your citizenship to live here. Of course you can if you want to but it's not required which is my case.
Crime is extremely low everywhere and the weather is similar to the Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York region.
The IT market is somewhat thin, similar to the US, but there are plenty of jobs out there.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well it's the UK, but same logic... (Score:5, Funny)
More precisley, you haven't exactly figured out who to keep in. I guess the Americans and Australians weren't the rejects that you suspected they were
Re:Well it's the UK, but same logic... (Score:3, Interesting)
We're doing fine at keeping skilled doctors etc. in, working the NHS etc., the problem is the non-workers. I was waiting at a bus stand a few months back and i started talking to this guy there. He told me he was a South African and that he was only here to get his family transported over so his son could have an operation free on the NHS. I don't exactly call that a good reason to be over here, given that the goverment are already EXTREMELY generous to immigrants, wh
Re:Well it's the UK, but same logic... (Score:3, Interesting)
In all seriousness though, I agree with you that the American and British laws and/or their enforcement tend to be favorable to immigrants and are prone to abuse. It doesn't particularly bother me though, I'd certainly rather that then the inverse elitist anti-immigrant mentality (anyone heard of the hoops one has to jump through to earn Swiss or Japanese citizenship?
Re:Well it's the UK, but same logic... (Score:3, Funny)
As for Americans, we need them here because...
I'll get back to you on that one.
Re:Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that the baby boom is over, and it's going to be quite a while until the echo boomers are ready to take over those positions. In the meantime, everyone wants to be a doctor or a lawyer or some other job they see glamourized on TV, so nobody wants to be a tradesman anymore -- the median age of tradespeople is aggregating towards 55 now, which means that there is a vacuum. Lots of jobless people with IT skills, but nobody who can turn a wrench.
This is great
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Compare that to the US and the H1-B system, where if you're outside the US you must have an offer letter and apply for the visa from outside the country (3-6 month wait for the visa to be granted, if you're lucky) and your degree has to be directly related to the job you've got the offer for.
So yeah, the basic criteria to be able to go to Canada and look for a job 'on spec' are; hold an Advanced Degree, speak either English or French fluently, and have a passing familiarity with the other.
Re:Yes. (Score:3, Interesting)
As an unskilled worker, neither America's nor Canada's system are any use to me, I can't go there.
Re:So what are geek wages like? (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it proba
Re:How about giving up the Socialism, eh? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about giving up the Socialism, eh? (Score:3, Interesting)
Only because people dropped off unemployment completely and thus disappeared from the statistics. Had we been counting actual bodies and not just checks we'd still be in the hole right now.
Re:How about giving up the Socialism, eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
People leave Canada for a country with a better economy, and the government's solution is to spend more tax money! Brilliant move, eh?
I presume you're talking about the US - one of the most socialist countries on the planet (or have you opted out of the endless socialist pork projects, massive socialist war machine, and corporate welfare? Is that a checkbox on your income tax return?). Of course it isn't to benefit the poor, so Americans lift their chins up and talk about their great "capitalism" versus the evil "socialism" (of the REST OF THE 1ST WORLD), strangely imagining some moral high road.
Absolutely amazing that any American, with the enormous pork and tax-grabbing bloat of its government, can bleat the word socialist in any manner other than humor or self-deprecation.
What's even more remarkable is the fact that the all-in tax load in the US is, in many cases, similar to or greater than a comparable person in Canada. Don't tell Americans this, though - it might upset their imaginary world.
Re:How about giving up the Socialism, eh? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How about giving up the Socialism, eh? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:To become a real Canadian... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The only catch (Score:5, Funny)
So, just live across the border in Washington State and commute every morning on your wife.