Anyone considering moving to Canada should check carefully into what they can expect to find there. Nowhere is perfect. Other countries have problems but evidence suggests they are worse in Canada. Don’t believe on-line posts, do your own research. The comments and links below will give you a start but then extend your search. Good luck, wherever you decide to go!
Canadians pay 42.6% of their incomes in taxes, according to the 2009 Tax Freedom Day (6 June 2009) information from the Fraser Institute. This is the average for all Canadians. Since this average includes those on welfare and those earning low incomes who do not pay much tax this means that many Canadians pay up to 70% of their incomes in taxes each year. Note also that Tax Freedom Day in Canada varies by province.
By comparison Brits pay 36.7% of their income in taxes, according to the Tax Freedom Day (14 May 2009) information from the Adam Smith Institute.
Check here for 2009 Tax Freedom Day in Canada:
Canadians Celebrate Tax Freedom Day on June 6
Canadian schools, colleges and universities are appalling. The standards of both academic education and the manners and work ethic of school and university age Canadians and those who entered the workforce in the past three decades are some of the lowest you will find anywhere. According to the Canadian Council on Learning and the OECD, 48% of Canadians are functionally illiterate. Nearly half of all Canadians are unable to read a bus timetable, safety notices at work or the instructions on a bottle of pills. Here are three typical recent articles on this:
Medicine Hat News - Literacy levels not a good read
and
CBC News - Canada - Canadian literacy levels mapped online and
Almost half of adult Canadians illiterate - The Whig Standard - Ontario, CA This level of functional illiteracy indicates that the Canadian education systems (each province has its own) are a disaster. For comparison, in the UK 22% are functionally illiterate.
Canadians, like Americans from whom they hardly differ, are so ignorant it is almost comical. They have very little knowledge of anything outside of North America or of how backward their country is in so many aspects. This is devastating to immigrants when Canada and Canadians refuse to recognise superior overseas experience and qualifications because it is not "North American" experience. Thus Canada has immigrant medical specialists, in areas of shortage where Canadians are dying due to lack of care and long waits, driving taxis to earn a living because Canada will not let them practice and save the lives of Canadian citizens. A survey done late last year showed that 75% of Canadians do not know who is their head of state:
D'oh Canada! - The Globe and Mail and
Canadian Politics: Canadians Don't Know How Their Government Works - Blogcritics Politics This ignorance extends to other areas, as is to be expected with such useless schools. For example, most are unable to distinguish between Zimbabwe and Zambia because they think that Africa is all one country and that it is inhabited only by black people (negro/bantu) who live in mud huts. This ignorance and attitude towards anything non-North American is particularly frustrating to immigrants as in a letter to Britain’s Foreign Office obtained by the BBC under Freedom of Information laws Lord Moran, high commissioner in Ottawa between 1981 and 1984, pointed out that Canadians themselves have limited talents and those who are truly talented usually go elsewhere (typically the USA) to develop their full potential and obtain just rewards for their efforts.
BBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Ambassadors going out with a bang
Canadians are some of the coldest and most withdrawn people in the world. There are no real public houses. Social life in Canada is well below the level in most of Africa (for expats), the Middle East, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, most of Europe, etc. TV is mainly the usual dumbed-down American programmes. It is difficult to obtain real news on events outside of North America.
There is no Canadian health system. Health care in Canada falls under provincial jurisdiction. Each province (the federal government for the territories) runs its own health care system. Operations and treatments that are covered in one province might not be covered in the neighbouring province. There is no cover for vision, dental or drugs. You need a good private health scheme in Canada to cover the vast gaps. Well known TV personality Jeremy Clarkson had a recent experience of health care in Canada:
What’s the Canadian word for ‘lousy care’? | Jeremy Clarkson - Times Online Although less serious, it sounds similar to the sad episode earlier this year involving actress Natasha Richardson where her relatives gave up on Quebec’s health care and had her medevaced to the USA for better treatment, unfortunately without success.
Here are three books that should be read by anyone considering moving to Canada:
Take your money and run!
Alex Doulis 1994 ISBN 0969843208
Uphill Publishing, Toronto, Ontario
Plunder: the looting of Canada by the welfare state of mind
Donald H. Bunker 1996 ISBN 0921209142
Bramble Ridge, Cambridge, Ontario
Free parking: a 2nd look at financial planning
Alan Dickson 2001 ISBN 0968885500
Preferred Marketing Inc., Duncan, BC
Ponder long and hard on what caused the authors to write such books and what precautions you should take as a result! They indicate that financial planning can be divided into what you should do well before you move to Canada and then how you might arrange your affairs when you reside there.
Anyone considering moving to Canada should take a good look at this website:
NotCanada.com | The Truth About Immigration To Canada In particular read this:
http://www.notcanada.com/top8reasons.htm