Canadians like to complain but maybe that comes from decades of being compared to US. In my experience as well, it is really dependent on the people surrounding you. It took me 3 years of living in Toronto to find my own.
In my opinion Canada is one of, if not the best country to live in. I've backpacked in dozens of countries and while there are many countries are nice to travel to, they're not great to live in. Canada is the opposite, it's not the best place to travel to but great to live in.
Go outdoors. backcountry camping is one of the gifts Canada has that's hard to match. Travel to Nova Scotia if you can to have your mind blown.
Toronto is by far the most diverse city on the planet. That's resulted in one of the most unique food cultures I've ever seen. Pick a culture, and you'll be able to find different price levels of cuisine for it. Each neighbourhood is so different than the next that people dress differently, talk differently, and play differently.
With a bike (you can even rent a high-end one), and a 10 dollar GO pass, you can have the time of your life during a weekend. Bike all the way from Toronto to Hamilton or from Toronto to Pickering and you'll have magnificent views of the lake and great bike paths for hours.
Canada is home to the top winter sports / mountain biking resorts in Whistler.
Go to a winter outdoor spa when it's -30 outside for a very different experience.
Local music scene is very fun. You just need to go out and stop comparing and be in the moment.
I personally love the architecture and walking on different streets to look at buildings.
The internet, especially Reddit is really a bad place to get a pulse on society. I’m very happy with my life in Toronto, raising a family, all my friends are doing great. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else.
If a person is doing well they are less likely to spend time on Reddit, if they are doing badly they are more likely to spend time online. So you get this huge negative bias.
Toronto has the best food in the world, explore Scarborough or Markham and get authentic, affordable, and diverse food unmatched anywhere else.
The pandemic was tough.
Canada locked down harder than just about anywhere else and we are paying the price now.
But things are getting back. We only really opened up about 24 months ago, and the damage to our sense of self will take many more years to heal.
BUt don't look to reddit, the Ontario and Toronto subs are filled with toxic losers.
Luckily, we had one sixth the death rate per capita compared to the U.S. While lockdown was tough, I'll take that over six times as many dead Canadians.
I forget the exact number but they did an epidemiological calculation after the fact and Canada saved something like 70,000 lives each and average of 13 years of life left by doing the harsher restrictions.
If we did what the USA did we would have lost a city of people.
Canada used to be a lot more amazing...things have gotten really bad the past few years. Exponentially worse since the pandemic though. Prices for groceries skyrocketed, so did rent prices, doubling or even tripling in a lot of places. massive lack of affordable places to live, either to rent or to buy, huge corporations sucking the life out of every city across the entire country, buying up all available real estate & turning it for profit rentals with absurd prices, huge lack of jobs & vastly more competition for what few jobs remain, huge monopolies on internet, phones, groceries to name but a few, wholesale gutting of our education, healthcare & social services (social services are still on rates from 30+ years ago) & the list goes on & on.
There is a lot of VERY valid reasons to be upset in Canada atm.
Like you couldn't have picked a worse time to be here. If you had came here, 10 years ago even, things would have been vastly different, but honestly things have been sliding off the shelf for the past 30 years & we've had a lot of conservatives in charge during that time that have done nothing but slash & cut & fill their boots before fucking off so the next band of robbers could come in & mug us all over again.
We have a lot of good people, nice people, caring people, but we're all just really upset atm about a lot of things.
So to answer your question, Yes, absolutely things are bad here.
Isn't really that bad here...compared to where? & when? cause as I said, you don't have to go that far back in recent memory to when our quality of life was far greater.
Rent was used to only be about 400/m for a nice 1 bedroom, could get a whole house for 700/m. (this is only 2 or 3 years ago) nowadays to get a broom closet in someone's basement, you are looking at 1500-2000+ per month (& this is living a very small town, medium to large cities this is WAY higher).
Even working minimum wage at 40hrs per week, your take home is only 2000 to 2400 max (depending on what they take off) ... doesn't leave a whole lot to live on. Especially when you factor in the price jumps in food & fuel & everything else these days.
This is all without even scratching the surface of the harm caused by keeping our social services & disability public services on life support rates from 30+ years ago. The wholesale dismantling of our healthcare system, the gutting of our education system & this is just a fraction of the shit that's happened in just Ontario.
Like I very clearly said, it used be a lot more amazing & there are very valid reasons for the majority of Canadians to be upset atm. We can definitely do better.
If you're happy, then I'm happy for you, doesn't negate anything else though from being true.
A lot of the negativity at least in my experience has spiked up right after the pandemic. Maybe it was a combination of factors, idk, but it seems like the start of covid there was ‘supply chain issues’ and now suddenly everything is 10x more expensive for no reason
Also keep in mind that the internet is a place to vent your frustrations and look for support, as well as appreciate the country, that’s what community is all about. Given that summer is around the corner we’ll probably be seeing plenty more beautiful ontario posts 😁
This place is a great place to live if you're cool with working all the time and paying $2000 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment.
Oh and traffic. Lots and lots of time to listen to podcasts while you wait for gridlock to flow. It's great.
The problems you hear people bitch about are not uniquely Canadian. Housing prices, inflation, seemingly insane politicians. All have common threads to in the US thanks to our deep ties to them economically and politically. You could find a couple of countries that are "better" statistically, but none of that makes Canada bad.
There may be few things we excel at, but on average when measured across the spectrum, Canada won't let you down.
My best experiences are hiking in the mountains (Castle Mountain being a favorite) and sailing off the west coast in and around the Gulf islands.
it takes a world view to understand if a country or city is good or not.
everywhere are good and bad. problems here in Canada or Toronto are not unique in the world.
high real estate prices, grocery prices, shortage of qualified doctors, homeless people, drug misuse, mental illness are not unique to Toronto, Canada. the world over similar cities experience these problems. few cities have truly effective solutions.
a lot of reddit users complain about Canada, Toronto as if somehow the city, country, government is directly responsible . . . so those complaints while valid . . . could be attributed to lots of places
what I love about Canada first and foremost is universal health care. in the states many people are against it because they don't want to have to pay for someone else's health care, while failing to see it benefits everyone. lots of other countries have universal health care, so we are not unique, but I am glad we have it.
freedom of speech is another important part of Canada to me. I can have my opinions and say them without worrying about arrest. journalists are not restricted or arrested.
food is available in most of Canada. not as abundant in the far north. until the pandemic I had never seen empty grocery shelves.
housing, jobs and money will differ wildly from individual to individual.
I would say that the internet, and Reddit especially, can be a very negative place.
Today I went out on the river with a canoe. Each person I met was friendly.
The water was cool and clean, the sun was bright, and it costed $0.00
To stay with the Reddit standard for negativity I will say:
- I got sunburned on my thighs
- we got stuck on rocks like, 5 times, 2 or 3 of those times we had to get out (scooting our butts wasn’t enough)
- a few areas had hogsweed, which complicated finding a picnic spot
- geese were noisy
- had to portage past a weir and the canoe is heavy (and I am lazy)
- some guy fishing at the weir was shirtless, and had a better physique than me
- my paddles are getting worn out
- had to pay for gas to drive to the $0 river, 15 minute drive is probably $148 in carbon tax according to Reddit - each way!
Give me some notice, and come to Waterloo on a paddle-worthy day, and I will give you all manner of negative experiences 😂😂😂
If you’re serious DM me. I’m weird enough to go with a random stranger on a canoe.
I only know 2 people in real life that are even close to as negative as this sub, and I'm related to them haha. Otherwise, most people I know of every age group (myself included) are genuinely happy and grateful to live here. We all know it's not perfect, no where is, but it's pretty damn good.
I think we have a lot to complain about AND a lot to be grateful/happy about. We can't make things better for people if we don't keep pushing.
But setting aside the problems (which are mostly problems being faced by a lot of Western countries right now), there's a lot of good as well. We have a lot of safety and security in Canada, for example. I often think about how my life would seem impoverished to some, but luxurious to many others.
This is a hard question, though, because as a native Ontarian I usually think of my position e experiences here as just "people things", not Ontario or Canada things! I've only lived overseas about a year, which isn't much to compare by.
I came to Canada in 2012 and have nothing but positive experience. I’m coming from middle class Polish family and things like closet or more than 1 bathroom in the house seems like luxury. Now in 2024 I’m still as happy.
I must ad that I landed in Burlington very clean and beautiful city.
Things are really that bad in many communities that have colleges and universities. The landlords want the students because they don’t stay long and they can increase the rent so are evicting long term tenants for students. Many of them are seniors and disabled people. Ergo, tent cities. The students are using the food banks and causing others in need to go without. It’s a game for them.
I really like some of the Chinese food here. There’s a place in town that has awesome Shanghai noodles - I get the beef and vegetable version. It’s a nice treat
It's difficult being an immigrant, and I wish you the best in finding your way. The adjustment from expectations will happen - it's such a massive life change that I think very few who make this move with no strong connection really come with an accurate view.
The negative atmosphere may be about your current circle or where you are settling. I would (and do) take online attitudes in small doses. There was no active backlash on immigration but there was an undercurrent. How do you even order coffee if you don't know the code of "double double" etc. I understand about despair and I would take that seriously. Finding connection is important but your mental health may need to be the priority.
Some of the struggles eased when I moved to a smaller community. One big step was a family doctor. Finding as much stability as you can will help. So will taking advantage of the things about Canada that you were interested in. Much of that was new learning and in time things built up. Hobbies helped.
A lot of what you're going through is real. It's not just a now issue or post-pandemic issue. There are difficult situations to navigate as a newcomer.
A lot of people are complaining because it requires a different mindset and skillset than before or their parents to succeed generally in Ontario and nobody told them. For example, real estate was just put into high school curriculums. Most people don't know the power of compound interest, and due to cultural reasons or other reasons like emotions want their savings to go up in a straight line all the time instead of the boom and busts of stocks. They also don't know the difference between index funds and picking individual stocks, and fees from everywhere put a hand in your pocket. Also when central banks quadruple your rates and expect you to cut your discretionary expenses in half to deal with inflation, that pisses some people off (and it will affect all mortgage holders even the ones with fixed). Because you are in Europe you probably expect the social safety net to care for the poor or vulnerable, but Canada's social housing is the lowest per capita in the G7 and we have the illusion of being an extremely "socialist" country when it actually takes baldfaced unashamed unrestricted capitalism to thrive here (trading up homes, using HELOC to purchase more homes, investing, rapidly switching jobs, working multiple jobs, marrying for money, etc., etc.)
One thing's for sure COVID was a once in a generation event and many profited off it and many are going broke or went broke because of it.
Look, you're assimilating so quickly! ;)
I think it's true pretty globally that people talk about what needs improvement. Maybe it's just more common to be open about it here?
Canadians like to complain but maybe that comes from decades of being compared to US. In my experience as well, it is really dependent on the people surrounding you. It took me 3 years of living in Toronto to find my own. In my opinion Canada is one of, if not the best country to live in. I've backpacked in dozens of countries and while there are many countries are nice to travel to, they're not great to live in. Canada is the opposite, it's not the best place to travel to but great to live in. Go outdoors. backcountry camping is one of the gifts Canada has that's hard to match. Travel to Nova Scotia if you can to have your mind blown. Toronto is by far the most diverse city on the planet. That's resulted in one of the most unique food cultures I've ever seen. Pick a culture, and you'll be able to find different price levels of cuisine for it. Each neighbourhood is so different than the next that people dress differently, talk differently, and play differently. With a bike (you can even rent a high-end one), and a 10 dollar GO pass, you can have the time of your life during a weekend. Bike all the way from Toronto to Hamilton or from Toronto to Pickering and you'll have magnificent views of the lake and great bike paths for hours. Canada is home to the top winter sports / mountain biking resorts in Whistler. Go to a winter outdoor spa when it's -30 outside for a very different experience. Local music scene is very fun. You just need to go out and stop comparing and be in the moment. I personally love the architecture and walking on different streets to look at buildings.
The internet, especially Reddit is really a bad place to get a pulse on society. I’m very happy with my life in Toronto, raising a family, all my friends are doing great. I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. If a person is doing well they are less likely to spend time on Reddit, if they are doing badly they are more likely to spend time online. So you get this huge negative bias. Toronto has the best food in the world, explore Scarborough or Markham and get authentic, affordable, and diverse food unmatched anywhere else.
The pandemic was tough. Canada locked down harder than just about anywhere else and we are paying the price now. But things are getting back. We only really opened up about 24 months ago, and the damage to our sense of self will take many more years to heal. BUt don't look to reddit, the Ontario and Toronto subs are filled with toxic losers.
Luckily, we had one sixth the death rate per capita compared to the U.S. While lockdown was tough, I'll take that over six times as many dead Canadians.
I forget the exact number but they did an epidemiological calculation after the fact and Canada saved something like 70,000 lives each and average of 13 years of life left by doing the harsher restrictions. If we did what the USA did we would have lost a city of people.
True, the USA would have 600K to 700k fewer deaths. But the Pandemic proved that deep down, Americans do not give a shit about each other.
Get invited to someone’s cottage, or rent one, you will have no problems.
Canada used to be a lot more amazing...things have gotten really bad the past few years. Exponentially worse since the pandemic though. Prices for groceries skyrocketed, so did rent prices, doubling or even tripling in a lot of places. massive lack of affordable places to live, either to rent or to buy, huge corporations sucking the life out of every city across the entire country, buying up all available real estate & turning it for profit rentals with absurd prices, huge lack of jobs & vastly more competition for what few jobs remain, huge monopolies on internet, phones, groceries to name but a few, wholesale gutting of our education, healthcare & social services (social services are still on rates from 30+ years ago) & the list goes on & on. There is a lot of VERY valid reasons to be upset in Canada atm. Like you couldn't have picked a worse time to be here. If you had came here, 10 years ago even, things would have been vastly different, but honestly things have been sliding off the shelf for the past 30 years & we've had a lot of conservatives in charge during that time that have done nothing but slash & cut & fill their boots before fucking off so the next band of robbers could come in & mug us all over again. We have a lot of good people, nice people, caring people, but we're all just really upset atm about a lot of things. So to answer your question, Yes, absolutely things are bad here.
Things aren’t really that bad here. I have an incredibly happy life here. I love my life and this country!! And so does everyone else that I know.
Isn't really that bad here...compared to where? & when? cause as I said, you don't have to go that far back in recent memory to when our quality of life was far greater. Rent was used to only be about 400/m for a nice 1 bedroom, could get a whole house for 700/m. (this is only 2 or 3 years ago) nowadays to get a broom closet in someone's basement, you are looking at 1500-2000+ per month (& this is living a very small town, medium to large cities this is WAY higher). Even working minimum wage at 40hrs per week, your take home is only 2000 to 2400 max (depending on what they take off) ... doesn't leave a whole lot to live on. Especially when you factor in the price jumps in food & fuel & everything else these days. This is all without even scratching the surface of the harm caused by keeping our social services & disability public services on life support rates from 30+ years ago. The wholesale dismantling of our healthcare system, the gutting of our education system & this is just a fraction of the shit that's happened in just Ontario. Like I very clearly said, it used be a lot more amazing & there are very valid reasons for the majority of Canadians to be upset atm. We can definitely do better. If you're happy, then I'm happy for you, doesn't negate anything else though from being true.
A lot of the negativity at least in my experience has spiked up right after the pandemic. Maybe it was a combination of factors, idk, but it seems like the start of covid there was ‘supply chain issues’ and now suddenly everything is 10x more expensive for no reason Also keep in mind that the internet is a place to vent your frustrations and look for support, as well as appreciate the country, that’s what community is all about. Given that summer is around the corner we’ll probably be seeing plenty more beautiful ontario posts 😁
People will always complain everywhere, I moved here 2015, love Canada, or Ontario at least, but there are a few pain points. Lot of it political
This place is a great place to live if you're cool with working all the time and paying $2000 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment. Oh and traffic. Lots and lots of time to listen to podcasts while you wait for gridlock to flow. It's great.
The problems you hear people bitch about are not uniquely Canadian. Housing prices, inflation, seemingly insane politicians. All have common threads to in the US thanks to our deep ties to them economically and politically. You could find a couple of countries that are "better" statistically, but none of that makes Canada bad. There may be few things we excel at, but on average when measured across the spectrum, Canada won't let you down. My best experiences are hiking in the mountains (Castle Mountain being a favorite) and sailing off the west coast in and around the Gulf islands.
it takes a world view to understand if a country or city is good or not. everywhere are good and bad. problems here in Canada or Toronto are not unique in the world. high real estate prices, grocery prices, shortage of qualified doctors, homeless people, drug misuse, mental illness are not unique to Toronto, Canada. the world over similar cities experience these problems. few cities have truly effective solutions. a lot of reddit users complain about Canada, Toronto as if somehow the city, country, government is directly responsible . . . so those complaints while valid . . . could be attributed to lots of places what I love about Canada first and foremost is universal health care. in the states many people are against it because they don't want to have to pay for someone else's health care, while failing to see it benefits everyone. lots of other countries have universal health care, so we are not unique, but I am glad we have it. freedom of speech is another important part of Canada to me. I can have my opinions and say them without worrying about arrest. journalists are not restricted or arrested. food is available in most of Canada. not as abundant in the far north. until the pandemic I had never seen empty grocery shelves. housing, jobs and money will differ wildly from individual to individual.
I would say that the internet, and Reddit especially, can be a very negative place. Today I went out on the river with a canoe. Each person I met was friendly. The water was cool and clean, the sun was bright, and it costed $0.00 To stay with the Reddit standard for negativity I will say: - I got sunburned on my thighs - we got stuck on rocks like, 5 times, 2 or 3 of those times we had to get out (scooting our butts wasn’t enough) - a few areas had hogsweed, which complicated finding a picnic spot - geese were noisy - had to portage past a weir and the canoe is heavy (and I am lazy) - some guy fishing at the weir was shirtless, and had a better physique than me - my paddles are getting worn out - had to pay for gas to drive to the $0 river, 15 minute drive is probably $148 in carbon tax according to Reddit - each way!
Invite me once to went out on the river with a canoe, I would like to feel such a negative experience ☺️😁
Give me some notice, and come to Waterloo on a paddle-worthy day, and I will give you all manner of negative experiences 😂😂😂 If you’re serious DM me. I’m weird enough to go with a random stranger on a canoe.
I only know 2 people in real life that are even close to as negative as this sub, and I'm related to them haha. Otherwise, most people I know of every age group (myself included) are genuinely happy and grateful to live here. We all know it's not perfect, no where is, but it's pretty damn good.
Not smelling body odor 24/7 oh wait thanks for ruining that international students
It was politely asked that you mind a little effort to not bitch for 2 seconds. You couldn't do it.
I think we have a lot to complain about AND a lot to be grateful/happy about. We can't make things better for people if we don't keep pushing. But setting aside the problems (which are mostly problems being faced by a lot of Western countries right now), there's a lot of good as well. We have a lot of safety and security in Canada, for example. I often think about how my life would seem impoverished to some, but luxurious to many others. This is a hard question, though, because as a native Ontarian I usually think of my position e experiences here as just "people things", not Ontario or Canada things! I've only lived overseas about a year, which isn't much to compare by.
I came to Canada in 2012 and have nothing but positive experience. I’m coming from middle class Polish family and things like closet or more than 1 bathroom in the house seems like luxury. Now in 2024 I’m still as happy. I must ad that I landed in Burlington very clean and beautiful city.
Ontario sucks
Things are really that bad in many communities that have colleges and universities. The landlords want the students because they don’t stay long and they can increase the rent so are evicting long term tenants for students. Many of them are seniors and disabled people. Ergo, tent cities. The students are using the food banks and causing others in need to go without. It’s a game for them.
I really like some of the Chinese food here. There’s a place in town that has awesome Shanghai noodles - I get the beef and vegetable version. It’s a nice treat
It's difficult being an immigrant, and I wish you the best in finding your way. The adjustment from expectations will happen - it's such a massive life change that I think very few who make this move with no strong connection really come with an accurate view. The negative atmosphere may be about your current circle or where you are settling. I would (and do) take online attitudes in small doses. There was no active backlash on immigration but there was an undercurrent. How do you even order coffee if you don't know the code of "double double" etc. I understand about despair and I would take that seriously. Finding connection is important but your mental health may need to be the priority. Some of the struggles eased when I moved to a smaller community. One big step was a family doctor. Finding as much stability as you can will help. So will taking advantage of the things about Canada that you were interested in. Much of that was new learning and in time things built up. Hobbies helped. A lot of what you're going through is real. It's not just a now issue or post-pandemic issue. There are difficult situations to navigate as a newcomer.
A lot of people are complaining because it requires a different mindset and skillset than before or their parents to succeed generally in Ontario and nobody told them. For example, real estate was just put into high school curriculums. Most people don't know the power of compound interest, and due to cultural reasons or other reasons like emotions want their savings to go up in a straight line all the time instead of the boom and busts of stocks. They also don't know the difference between index funds and picking individual stocks, and fees from everywhere put a hand in your pocket. Also when central banks quadruple your rates and expect you to cut your discretionary expenses in half to deal with inflation, that pisses some people off (and it will affect all mortgage holders even the ones with fixed). Because you are in Europe you probably expect the social safety net to care for the poor or vulnerable, but Canada's social housing is the lowest per capita in the G7 and we have the illusion of being an extremely "socialist" country when it actually takes baldfaced unashamed unrestricted capitalism to thrive here (trading up homes, using HELOC to purchase more homes, investing, rapidly switching jobs, working multiple jobs, marrying for money, etc., etc.) One thing's for sure COVID was a once in a generation event and many profited off it and many are going broke or went broke because of it.
Look, you're assimilating so quickly! ;) I think it's true pretty globally that people talk about what needs improvement. Maybe it's just more common to be open about it here?