# All of Canada is NOT the same



## gringotim (Jan 5, 2011)

I started reading this forum several months ago and noticed that alot of people were asking questions that were too general to be answerred with one answer, and one thing people using this forum to get answers about Canada should realize is that you need to take everything you are told with a grain of salt, (don't believe everything you hear). If you want a more pricise answer you need to state what part of the country you are interested in, and remember, Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. All have different cost of living, taxes, healthcare, labour laws, wage rules, weather, etc etc. For example; someone in Ontario, or even anywhere east or north of SW BC answerring a question about the weather in winter will give a completely different answer than someone in southwestern BC, where we get little or no snow, temps more often than not above freezing, sometimes even up to the low/mid teens (celcius). In Ontario, the minimum wage is $10.25 per hour, but in BC it is only $8.00, but if you are new to the workforce your employor need only pay you $6 per hour for the first 500 hours. Housing costs in say Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal are very high, but are not indicative of housing cost throughout the country. ie: in mid or northern BC you can buy a large house on 50 acres for less than a small condo in Vancouver. In BC you can wait months or even years for some types of insurance covered surgery, (hip, knee, joint etc) but might only have to wait weeks in other provinces, the same goes for Catscans, MRI's. Its just like the cost of groceries varies not just by area but store by store, my mom and i buy the same brand of milk, but she pays $1.20 more for 4 liters of milk than i do because she shops at a more expensive grocery store, she recently bought a six pack of 710ml Pepsi bottles for$5.99, i never pay more than about$3.50. My point is, you can't always ask, what is this in Canada, or that in Canada, because the answer you get might only apply to a small area of the country, and may have nothing to do with the area you plan on moving to.:noidea:


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## IOWgirl (Nov 7, 2008)

Really good point Gringotim. For many, say someone from UK, would have no idea how different things can be from one part of the country to another.


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## EVHB (Feb 11, 2008)

I always compare it this way:
suppose somebody from Canada wants to move to "Europe" (with different countries instead of provinces). Hey, living in Madrid can not be compared to living in a farmers town in Sweden! 

And even within parts of the province, the weather can be very different. We are living in Oakville, our friends are living in Markham. Most of the time they have more snow, rain and little bit lower temperature. And I don't even speak about our friends in Barrie, and that's only a one hour drive... (their prices in the supermarket are less high, as are their temperatures and they get much more snow)


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## gringotim (Jan 5, 2011)

*Its beyond me*



IOWgirl said:


> Really good point Gringotim. For many, say someone from UK, would have no idea how different things can be from one part of the country to another.


It's beyond me how someone can move to a country they have never been to and know little to nothing about, especially considerring most of them say they are coming to Canada for a better life. My wife and I are moving to Manzanillo Mexico when we retire, but before we decided on Manzanillo we also went to other areas of Mexico, but soon realized that Manzanillo was the place for us to retire to. We spent alot of time researching online, but have also been there in person more than just once, and we know what its like for cost of living and housing, safety, healthcare, infrastructure, weather etc etc. But searching online is not the same as being there in person, but yet alot of people, (mostly seem to be from Europe), seem to be coming to live in Canada having never even been here before, and not knowing anything about housing, healthcare, education, taxes, and thinking all of Canada is frozen solid all winter, and not even knowing the differences from one part of the country to the other. I met a couple in there 60's visiting from Ireland in December, they were surprised that there was no snow on the ground and 7 degrees celcius, they asked me where they could see some teepees, and couldn't believe to hear that the local aboriginals lived in houses and not in teepees and that most of them actually had jobs. Do people in Europe not "GOOGLE", or do they just rely on stereotypes. :confused2:


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## Marianne2010 (Dec 22, 2010)

Funny one!
People in Europe do google. But they might google only in their own language, which can be pretty much leaving the base of the iceberg below water.
I for myself find also funny that you point out differences between different territories in Canada and say that differences do occur between European countries and that we should be aware that for a large country like Canada it is likely to be the same. I find it funny because most of the same people would not consider moving to another town in their own country as it would be "so different"... event in a very small country like The Netherlands for example.
Also the dream of "moving away" is still alive. In many case it dies when people actually go there (wherever there is) and see that it is not that better. Many information you get is from movies, TV and so on. Who wouldn't want to move to New Zealand if NZ was the actual country of Lord Of The Rings? Or to Los Angeles if all you see is sea surf and sun?
I second your opinion 100%
Marianne


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## carlb (Feb 11, 2011)

*Google more*



gringotim said:


> It's beyond me how someone can move to a country they have never been to and know little to nothing about, especially considerring most of them say they are coming to Canada for a better life. My wife and I are moving to Manzanillo Mexico when we retire, but before we decided on Manzanillo we also went to other areas of Mexico, but soon realized that Manzanillo was the place for us to retire to. We spent alot of time researching online, but have also been there in person more than just once, and we know what its like for cost of living and housing, safety, healthcare, infrastructure, weather etc etc. But searching online is not the same as being there in person, but yet alot of people, (mostly seem to be from Europe), seem to be coming to live in Canada having never even been here before, and not knowing anything about housing, healthcare, education, taxes, and thinking all of Canada is frozen solid all winter, and not even knowing the differences from one part of the country to the other. I met a couple in there 60's visiting from Ireland in December, they were surprised that there was no snow on the ground and 7 degrees celcius, they asked me where they could see some teepees, and couldn't believe to hear that the local aboriginals lived in houses and not in teepees and that most of them actually had jobs. Do people in Europe not "GOOGLE", or do they just rely on stereotypes. :confused2:


 I agree with your comments, I find that while most people who come to Canada, do think the entire country is frozen solid and burried in snow all winter, they just don't realize just HOW COLD and how much snow SOME areas can get. Over the last few years I have worked with expats who first moved to places like Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario, from places like India, Spain, UK, NZ and Australia, but after their first winters there, decided to move to southern BC, because they just couldn't handle the cold and all the snow. They all say they never really looked into the weather before deciding where to move to. Several have even moved back to their homeland because they couldn't handle the high cost of living in Canada. Not one of them said they looked into the weather differences throughout Canada or the overal high cost of living in Canada before immigrating here. Which begs the question, WHY NOT? anyone reading this has access to a computer, which means they have acces to Google, Yahoo etc, so why not utilize them to find out as much info as you can about a country you want to move to. Reading some of the questions on here, I think some people are only relying on this forum to have questions answerred or to get info that can be found online, but for whatever reason don't want to put in the time it takes to type a few words into Google. :ranger:


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## Fisherking (Jan 16, 2011)

I'm originally from Vancouver and it's amazing to see how things change so fast. I mean you think you know one area but then after 5 years it's all gone and full of Korean shops selling everything from haircuts to groceries. My point being that all of Canada changes so fast you really have to be there to see what's going on.


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## gringotim (Jan 5, 2011)

*Not Specific*



carlb said:


> I agree with your comments, I find that while most people who come to Canada, do think the entire country is frozen solid and burried in snow all winter, they just don't realize just HOW COLD and how much snow SOME areas can get. Over the last few years I have worked with expats who first moved to places like Manitoba, Alberta and Ontario, from places like India, Spain, UK, NZ and Australia, but after their first winters there, decided to move to southern BC, because they just couldn't handle the cold and all the snow. They all say they never really looked into the weather before deciding where to move to. Several have even moved back to their homeland because they couldn't handle the high cost of living in Canada. Not one of them said they looked into the weather differences throughout Canada or the overal high cost of living in Canada before immigrating here. Which begs the question, WHY NOT? anyone reading this has access to a computer, which means they have acces to Google, Yahoo etc, so why not utilize them to find out as much info as you can about a country you want to move to. Reading some of the questions on here, I think some people are only relying on this forum to have questions answerred or to get info that can be found online, but for whatever reason don't want to put in the time it takes to type a few words into Google. :ranger:


A big problem I have seen is that some people on here will answer a question with out saying where they are reffering to. If someone for example asks about the weather in Canada, they will answer there is 5ft of snow and -20celcius, but leave out that they are talking about somewhere in northern Alberta or southern Ontario durring a blizzard, or someone answers an employment or health care question and not say they are in Ontario which is different than BC, or any number of other questions, but people asking questions are just as much at fault by saying they want to move to Canada but not saying what part they want info on. Someone recently asked if their Honda would work in Canada, :shocked:which shows that some people who say they want to move here, know nothing about the country or the differences from one part to the other, so how can they legitimately say they want to come. I get the fealing that some people haven't even looked at Canada on a map to see how big it is before saying "I want to move to Canada"


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## carlb (Feb 11, 2011)

*Not all are Legitimate*



gringotim said:


> A big problem I have seen is that some people on here will answer a question with out saying where they are reffering to. If someone for example asks about the weather in Canada, they will answer there is 5ft of snow and -20celcius, but leave out that they are talking about somewhere in northern Alberta or southern Ontario durring a blizzard, or someone answers an employment or health care question and not say they are in Ontario which is different than BC, or any number of other questions, but people asking questions are just as much at fault by saying they want to move to Canada but not saying what part they want info on. Someone recently asked if their Honda would work in Canada, :shocked:which shows that some people who say they want to move here, know nothing about the country or the differences from one part to the other, so how can they legitimately say they want to come. I get the fealing that some people haven't even looked at Canada on a map to see how big it is before saying "I want to move to Canada"


I may be wrong, but when I see questions like " will my Honda work in Canada" I tend to think these people aren't serious about moving to Canada, they just have too much free time and post those sort of questions just to see if someone actually responds.:fish2:


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

gringotim said:


> It's beyond me how someone can move to a country they have never been to and know little to nothing about, especially considerring most of them say they are coming to Canada for a better life. My wife and I are moving to Manzanillo Mexico when we retire, but before we decided on Manzanillo we also went to other areas of Mexico, but soon realized that Manzanillo was the place for us to retire to. We spent alot of time researching online, but have also been there in person more than just once, and we know what its like for cost of living and housing, safety, healthcare, infrastructure, weather etc etc. But searching online is not the same as being there in person, but yet alot of people, (mostly seem to be from Europe), seem to be coming to live in Canada having never even been here before, and not knowing anything about housing, healthcare, education, taxes, and thinking all of Canada is frozen solid all winter, and not even knowing the differences from one part of the country to the other. I met a couple in there 60's visiting from Ireland in December, they were surprised that there was no snow on the ground and 7 degrees celcius, they asked me where they could see some teepees, and couldn't believe to hear that the local aboriginals lived in houses and not in teepees and that most of them actually had jobs. Do people in Europe not "GOOGLE", or do they just rely on stereotypes. :confused2:


So what? That haphazard approach works for some people. Some people are just more adventurous than others. It depends on personality, age and their personal situation (e.g. finances, single, married, kids, no kids, etc.)

I moved to Canada with my wife when I was 24 (recently married but no kids) and we didn't really know that much about it. During a North American vacation we'd been on a bus trip from Niagara Falls to Frederiction, NB with brief stops in Toronto and Montreal where we barely had time to stretch our legs. Back in England a short time later, my wife was offered a job in Toronto by a recruiter at a nursing job fair in Manchester. We just thought "what the hell - let's do it."

Now in my 40s and with a mortgage, a career and 4 kids (including 3 teenagers), I would certainly be much more conservative in my approach to a big move. However, there's a time and a place for reckless abandon for some people. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't - but the same can be said of people who plan everything to the last detail.


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## gringotim (Jan 5, 2011)

MarylandNed said:


> So what? That haphazard approach works for some people. Some people are just more adventurous than others. It depends on personality, age and their personal situation (e.g. finances, single, married, kids, no kids, etc.)
> 
> I moved to Canada with my wife when I was 24 (recently married but no kids) and we didn't really know that much about it. During a North American vacation we'd been on a bus trip from Niagara Falls to Frederiction, NB with brief stops in Toronto and Montreal where we barely had time to stretch our legs. Back in England a short time later, my wife was offered a job in Toronto by a recruiter at a nursing job fair in Manchester. We just thought "what the hell - let's do it."
> 
> Now in my 40s and with a mortgage, a career and 4 kids (including 3 teenagers), I would certainly be much more conservative in my approach to a big move. However, there's a time and a place for reckless abandon for some people. Sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't - but the same can be said of people who plan everything to the last detail.


I can't help but notice your profile says you are an expat in the U.S.A., if you liked Canada so much, why are you now, or planning on being an expat in the U.S?eace:


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## MarylandNed (May 11, 2010)

gringotim said:


> I can't help but notice your profile says you are an expat in the U.S.A., if you liked Canada so much, why are you now, or planning on being an expat in the U.S?eace:


We loved Canada. We didn't have definite plans and our thought was that we might only stay a year or so. However, we ended up staying 7 years, had 2 kids there, bought a house and became Canadian citizens. Circumstances change in people's lives and we had to return to the UK for a couple of years for personal/family reasons. Once we were done in the UK, we set off again. We planned to return to Canada but then a great job opportunity suddenly presented itself in the US. We moved with our 3 kids to Maryland - somewhere we had never been before until we got off the plane! We've been here 13 years now.

We're just the type of people that if we'd planned every last detail, we would never have made the move. As I said earlier, with 4 kids now (3 teenagers and a 9 year old) I would be more hestitant about another big move. But that's just me. Other people in my situation might not give a flying fart about things that I might consider to be issues. Everyone is different so it's unfair to use your views & values to judge others.


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## madasaspoon (Jan 11, 2010)

gringotim said:


> It's beyond me how someone can move to a country they have never been to and know little to nothing about, especially considerring most of them say they are coming to Canada for a better life. My wife and I are moving to Manzanillo Mexico when we retire, but before we decided on Manzanillo we also went to other areas of Mexico, but soon realized that Manzanillo was the place for us to retire to. We spent alot of time researching online, but have also been there in person more than just once, and we know what its like for cost of living and housing, safety, healthcare, infrastructure, weather etc etc. But searching online is not the same as being there in person, but yet alot of people, (mostly seem to be from Europe), seem to be coming to live in Canada having never even been here before, and not knowing anything about housing, healthcare, education, taxes, and thinking all of Canada is frozen solid all winter, and not even knowing the differences from one part of the country to the other. I met a couple in there 60's visiting from Ireland in December, they were surprised that there was no snow on the ground and 7 degrees celcius, they asked me where they could see some teepees, and couldn't believe to hear that the local aboriginals lived in houses and not in teepees and that most of them actually had jobs. Do people in Europe not "GOOGLE", or do they just rely on stereotypes. :confused2:


I agree with a lot of what you say and yes many people don't research things thoroughly before jumping in with both feet. We moved from Europe to Canada and we were 100% sure it was what we wanted to do and we knew exactly which part of Canada we wanted to live. We visited southwestern Ontario several times, at different times of year, before we moved. 

With regard to your point about people being ignorant/ poorly advised/ uneducated. This is true. A friend of mine back home is a guide at a tourist attraction back in Wales, a 15th century manor house. She was telling a group of American tourists about how they used to send messages via carrier pigeons and one of the group said ''Oh my God! That's amazing. How did the pigeons remember the messages?'' That always makes be laugh. 

Also a nature program on TV here in Canada said ''the only wild cat native to England is the Scottish Wildcat that lives in the highlands of Scotland''. The depths of human ignornace can be staggering.


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## madasaspoon (Jan 11, 2010)

madasaspoon said:


> I agree with a lot of what you say and yes many people don't research things thoroughly before jumping in with both feet. We moved from Europe to Canada and we were 100% sure it was what we wanted to do and we knew exactly which part of Canada we wanted to live. We visited southwestern Ontario several times, at different times of year, before we moved.
> 
> With regard to your point about people being ignorant/ poorly advised/ uneducated. This is true. A friend of mine back home is a guide at a tourist attraction back in Wales, a 15th century manor house. She was telling a group of American tourists about how they used to send messages via carrier pigeons and one of the group said ''Oh my God! That's amazing. How did the pigeons remember the messages?'' That always makes be laugh.
> 
> Also a nature program on TV here in Canada said ''the only wild cat native to England is the Scottish Wildcat that lives in the highlands of Scotland''. The depths of human ignornace can be staggering.


correction - ''ignorance'' (ha ha, see what I mean?)


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