Social life in Canada vs USA

[on-hold]

Fascinating, I didn't know that Coquitlam was two provinces away from B.C. What part of Saskatchewan is it in?

 

[margobear96]

Seriously, many Canadians in BC drive across the border to Washington and Oregon State for shopping and gas.

If so, why there are that much traffic jams on Highway No. 1 in the section between Coquitlam and Vancouver during rush hours? Many Canadians must have commute from home to their workplace often outside their home city.

I hope you're joking.... When I say Canadians don't travel, I mean what on-hold means. People from the west coast, generally stay on the west coast. People from Ontario, stay in Ontario. If they're from small towns, they may move to the larger city in their province or the next one over, but a person from small town BC, born and bred, is probably not going to up and move to Toronto just because it might be cool. If you're from Winnipeg, you go to the University of Manitoba. (You can live at home for free and commute.) I don't see that level of provincialism in the States. Heck, it's honored tradition (dream) to move away for college.

 

[kingkong1]

I hope you're joking.... When I say Canadians don't travel, I mean what on-hold means. People from the west coast, generally stay on the west coast. People from Ontario, stay in Ontario. If they're from small towns, they may move to the larger city in their province or the next one over, but a person from small town BC, born and bred, is probably not going to up and move to Toronto just because it might be cool. If you're from Winnipeg, you go to the University of Manitoba. (You can live at home for free and commute.) I don't see that level of provincialism in the States. Heck, it's honored tradition (dream) to move away for college.

Just ignore him. I think what you and on-hold are saying is absolutely true. The majority of my coworkers have never lived outside of Ontario, and many have lived in the same freaking city they were born all their lives. Amazing!

 

[margobear96]

Margobear is totally correct about Canadians not moving -- and it's most true with respect to jobs. Don't think (like I did) that you can land anywhere but look for jobs all over Canada; land where there are jobs and you want to work, because they will probably not consider you if you are two provinces over.

That is also a difference between Canada and the States.

Absolutely true.

My husband was born in Vancouver and went to UBC. To move back after living in NYC for awhile, he had to go through Toronto. Firms in Toronto recognized the NYC firms on his resume, which got him an initial interview. Employers in BC had no idea and he had no luck there initially, even though he was a UBC grad. At the interview though, there was a lot of grilling about does he really want to live in Toronto, aren't you just a west coast poser etc. They only gave him the job, because he went to high school in Winnipeg (Manitoba is next to Ontario! He already knows how to drive in snow!). Once in Toronto (he was miserable and hated it BTW -- because everybody his age already had their circle of friends/family, not because everyone's a passive-aggressive racist) he managed to get a job in BC -- his BC employer recognized the Toronto firm where he worked and was totally sympathetic to the plight of a west coast boy who was, of course, miserable in Toronto and wanted to move back.

These are hoops that a Canadian citizen, who did all his schooling in Canada, had to jump through. The problem is obviously exacerbated for immigrants. This provincialism isn't as extreme in the US -- other than in maybe parts of the south (Texas?).

 

[steaky]

I hope you're joking.... When I say Canadians don't travel, I mean what on-hold means. People from the west coast, generally stay on the west coast. People from Ontario, stay in Ontario. If they're from small towns, they may move to the larger city in their province or the next one over, but a person from small town BC, born and bred, is probably not going to up and move to Toronto just because it might be cool. If you're from Winnipeg, you go to the University of Manitoba. (You can live at home for free and commute.) I don't see that level of provincialism in the States. Heck, it's honored tradition (dream) to move away for college.

I'm not joking. This was actually in the news where a group of Bellingham, WA residents complained about Canadians pouring in the city from the BC border shopping at the local Costco:

http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/08/14/canadian_shoppers_irk_costco_customers_in_bellingham_wash.html

BTW, City of Coquitlam is in BC (just east of City of Burnaby, BC)

Are you saying that people live in Gatineau in Quebec doesn't commute to Ottawa and vice versa?

 

[kingkong1]

Absolutely true.

My husband was born in Vancouver and went to UBC. To move back after living in NYC for awhile, he had to go through Toronto. Firms in Toronto recognized the NYC firms on his resume, which got him an initial interview. Employers in BC had no idea and he had no luck there initially, even though he was a UBC grad. At the interview though, there was a lot of grilling about does he really want to live in Toronto, aren't you just a west coast poser etc. They only gave him the job, because he went to high school in Winnipeg (Manitoba is next to Ontario! He already knows how to drive in snow!). Once in Toronto (he was miserable and hated it BTW -- because everybody his age already had their circle of friends/family, not because everyone's a passive-aggressive racist) he managed to get a job in BC -- his BC employer recognized the Toronto firm where he worked and was totally sympathetic to the plight of a west coast boy who was, of course, miserable in Toronto and wanted to move back.

These are hoops that a Canadian citizen, who did all his schooling in Canada, had to jump through. The problem is obviously exacerbated for immigrants. This provincialism isn't as extreme in the US -- other than in maybe parts of the south ([size=10pt][size=10pt]Texas[/size][/size]?).

I'd lived in Texas for yrs. Yeah it's a lot like Texas with its Southern Pride, which I thought is very similar to Canadian Pride in a way. Canada is a lot like the Confederate States of America with its backwardness and provincialism.

 

[kingkong1]

Dude, you said (wrote) "crikey". I question your American bona fides ;D. Seriously though +1 on your comment otherwise.

You do probably get more racism against Indians/Pakistanis in Canada than you would the US. However, you can "blame" the Canadian government's more lenient immigration policy for that. The stereotype of Indians in the US is that they are all doctors and engineers (model minorities!). In Canada not so much...especially in BC. (BTW I'm talking about the stereotype, not saying there are no Indian doctors/engineers in Canada.)

NYC is different because it's a destination for immigrants from all of the world...including other parts of the US. Therefore you're more likely to meet Americans who are newcomers themselves and looking to make friends. Most Canadians do not travel (at least within Canada). I was shocked to learn from my husband that they don't even really go away for college/university -- literally, if you're from Vancouver you go to UBC (with most of your high school), if you're from Burnaby (right next to Vancouver) you go to SFU. The likelihood of meeting a Canadian over the age of say, 20, in Canada looking to make friends is very, very low for these reasons. Also, same deal elsewhere in the West. I lived in London for over 2 years -- all my friends were expat Americans, mostly from work.

On-hold often sounds like or pretends to be a WASP, but I kind of feel he's not. Probably he isn't even American as he claims.

 

[steaky]

Fascinating, I didn't know that Coquitlam was two provinces away from B.C. What part of Saskatchewan is it in?

My bad. I was referring to the commuting of people between two cities in BC.

 

[kingkong1]

My bad. I was referring to the commuting of people between two cities in BC.

Steaky, you are a Chinese citizen. Right?

 

[margobear96]

I'm not joking. This was actually in the news where a group of Bellingham, WA residents complained about Canadians pouring in the city from the BC border shopping at the local Costco:

http://www.thestar.com/business/2012/08/14/canadian_shoppers_irk_costco_customers_in_bellingham_wash.html

BTW, City of Coquitlam is in BC (just east of City of Burnaby, BC)

Are you saying that people live in Gatineau in Quebec doesn't commute to Ottawa and vice versa?

No, I'm not saying that a person from Gatineau, Quebec won't commute 30 minutes to Ottawa for work. Or that they don't travel for vacation or do gas (and milk!) runs to the US.

What I'm saying is that an 17 y.o. from Gatineau isn't going to suddenly wake up one day and decide to apply to UBC or UVic (nevermind University of Sask.) for college. Assuming she has the grades, 9 out of 10 (not a real statistic, just a figure of speech) she is going to McGill, Concordia, UOttawa, etc. (if she's an English speaker). This is different from the US where many (most?) high school kids aspire to go away, far away for college. The Vancouver/UBC versus Simon Fraser/SFU is probably extreme, but I heard it from my husband. However, since it's also very, very common for kids to stay at home (for free) and commute to college, those choices make sense for commuters. Another factor is that within Canada the big universities aren't differentiated as much in terms of prestige. If you're staying in BC, most people probably don't care whether you went to UBC or SFU undergrad.

This also applies to moving for work. I'm not talking about commuting. Rather, if you grew up in Ontario and went to UofT (Toronto, not Texas ), then chances of you one day waking up and deciding to move to Vancouver just because (i.e., no incredible dream job offer in hand or significant other from there), is pretty darn low. However, I know tons of people who move to California just because (myself included) or NYC just because (myself included).

BTW, the milk in the US probably comes from cows treated with growth hormone. The growth hormone wasn't approved for use in Canada because, among other things, the manufacturer, Monsanto, offered Canadian government workers bribes. Bellingham can keep their gnarly milk .

 

[margobear96]

I'd lived in Texas for yrs. Yeah it's a lot like Texas with its Southern Pride, which I thought is very similar to Canadian Pride in a way. Canada is a lot like the Confederate States of America with its backwardness and provincialism.

I've never lived in TX, but suspected as much. It seemed odd that most of the (white Texans) at my professional school (in CA) went to undergrad in Texas and was going back after graduation. Even the "liberal" ones -- though they seemed to have a hard on for Austin...not so much Dallas or Houston. On the other hand, Chinese-Texans are pretty cool, and the ones I know try to get out at the first opportunity.

On-hold often sounds like or pretends to be a WASP, but I kind of feel he's not. Probably he isn't even American as he claims.

The one and only time I heard a person in real life say "crikey" -- it was an English public school boy. (Public in the UK sense -- i.e., private.) I hypothesize that on-hold is a Anglo American -- UK citizen (maybe HK?), moved to US as a teen or adult (hence the "crikey"), and naturalized in the US.

 

[on-hold]

Both of you are wrong, you paranoiacs -- I was born in Kansas, raised in Oregon, my family is German-American, I went to the University of Toronto and I can move through Canada like a Punjabi through Surrey. The process of 'becoming' a Canadian is so lacking in fundamental change for me that I've sometimes wondered if it's a lie to tell people that I 'am' Canadian, since doing so basically requires me to start saying 'zed' instead of 'z' when spelling words. If I don't volunteer the information no one knows, it's actually a bit of a problem.

I just use crikey as an affectation, it takes the sting out of my harsh criticisms. It should be obvious that I have no connection to England, since no Englishperson would be caught dead using crikey these days, it's a hundred years out of date. Literate Americans use words like that to let everyone know they've read Oliver Twist.

But I agree with you about what you are saying about inter-provincial boundaries. One reason my wife and I came to Canada is because I figured with my U of T degree, I'd basically pick my career up from where I left it off (though that wasn't so great). I found that in Victoria a U of T degree is worth jack all, and the local universities were so integrated with the government structure that I didn't have an opening anywhere. Parts of America are like that (the backwards parts, like Georgia), but overall not nearly so much.

 

[on-hold]

I think there are two exceptions to what margo is saying, with which I actually agree fully.

- University of Toronto and McGill function somewhat as 'national' universities (maybe UBC a bit too), they draw students from all over. Even at U of T, though, most of the people I knew were from southern Ontario. McGill might be more cosmopolitan, since they don't have such a large English population to draw on.

- I think people move fairly easily between Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba; at least the first two, maybe all three.

It's actually funny, since most Canadian universities don't charge out-of-province fees! If a Canadian wanted to get away from home, it would be far cheaper than in the States, basically just the cost of rent. It really is different, I went to U of T because I couldn't get out of Kansas fast enough, and Canada and Toronto sounded fun; if I'd had my head screwed on right, I'd have chosen McGill.

 

[kingkong1]

I think there are two exceptions to what margo is saying, with which I actually agree fully.

- University of Toronto and McGill function somewhat as 'national' universities (maybe UBC a bit too), they draw students from all over. Even at U of T, though, most of the people I knew were from southern Ontario. McGill might be more cosmopolitan, since they don't have such a large English population to draw on.

- I think people move fairly easily between Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba; at least the first two, maybe all three.

It's actually funny, since most Canadian universities don't charge out-of-province fees! If a Canadian wanted to get away from home, it would be far cheaper than in the States, basically just the cost of rent. It really is different, I went to U of T because I couldn't get out of Kansas fast enough, and Canada and Toronto sounded fun; if I'd had my head screwed on right, I'd have chosen McGill.

If you had your head screwed on right, you probably would have stayed in the US and gone to a US school. College is all about making connections these days, and you missed the boat. Now decades later, see where you stand, without a steady job and with a kid and a Thai wife. By the way I wouldn't raise a bi-racial kid in Edmonton, Alberta, the hotbed of white supremacist activity, where biracial kids might have a traumatic experience.

Speaking of Canada's top universities, I'm not impressed. They are overrated just like Canada as a nation is. It's a well-known fact that they struggle with recruiting bright young American students, because smart American kids know they'll be treated like foreigners even with Canadian education, and most of all because they know there are no jobs in Canada. Canada is all about sales and factory assembly jobs, that is, minimum wage jobs. So education-wise it's been one way traffic and it'll remain that way.

 

[beholder69]

Both of you are wrong, you paranoiacs -- I was born in Kansas, raised in Oregon, my family is German-American, I went to the University of Toronto and I can move through Canada like a Punjabi through Surrey. The process of 'becoming' a Canadian is so lacking in fundamental change for me that I've sometimes wondered if it's a lie to tell people that I 'am' Canadian, since doing so basically requires me to start saying 'zed' instead of 'z' when spelling words. If I don't volunteer the information no one knows, it's actually a bit of a problem.

I just use crikey as an affectation, it takes the sting out of my harsh criticisms. It should be obvious that I have no connection to England, since no Englishperson would be caught dead using crikey these days, it's a hundred years out of date. Literate Americans use words like that to let everyone know they've read Oliver Twist.

But I agree with you about what you are saying about inter-provincial boundaries. One reason my wife and I came to Canada is because I figured with my U of T degree, I'd basically pick my career up from where I left it off (though that wasn't so great). I found that in Victoria a U of T degree is worth jack all, and the local universities were so integrated with the government structure that I didn't have an opening anywhere. Parts of America are like that (the backwards parts, like Georgia), but overall not nearly so much.

Hey, I've always spelled it "zed", I feel Canadian already ;D