Canadian culture:
-Tip 10-20% of restaurant/bar bills to waitresses/bartenders (they have to tip management/other staff so if you don’t tip they paid out of their pocket to serve you and they won’t be happy about it)
-Say “sorry” a lot. If someone bangs into another person, both people say sorry, for example. Haha.
-eye contact and a smile is socially appropriate especially to same gender; if opposite gender, shorter smile and holding of eye contact (as holding eye contact too long could be viewed as flirting or in some cases, sexual harassment)
-touching strangers- only if necessary, touching on shoulder to get their attention is your safest bet but some women will still be disturbed by any form of touching by a stranger
-driving: keep safe distance between cars (for safety and to be polite), give people space to come in your lane, only use horn if someone is doing something unsafe or to help avoid a collision (otherwise honking is considered rude), merging on highway (person merging onto highway must be ahead of car on highway to merge, if behind, must wait for car to pass and vice versa)
-Lines/queues: from trains/buses/cafes/etc. There will always be queues, never budge in front of anyone who was there before you in the line/queue, they will be angry and often will say something: lines/queues are generally 1 person thick unless you are with friends, but even then stand so that you are almost 1 person thick, thicker queues confuse people, stand behind the last person in the queue/line
-always say please and thank you with people in customer service and smile
-Canada is multicultural and diverse, racist, homophobic, sexual, and sexist harassment is not tolerated, if any of these things happen to you, don’t hesitate to call the police.
-Hold doors open for people coming in and out of restaurants/buildings if they are a couple steps behind you, they will expect it
-make Room for people to pass on the sidewalk if you are in a large group
-give people space in general when walking anywhere and if you pass people and accidentally touch them/bump them, apologize.
-those are probably the big ones