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I seen this safe house on some other youtube week ago 😂

It’s most of the world, and sensible Americans who employ common sense and logic vs tRump and his neofascist agenda. In professional wrestling terms, the U.S. has turned “heel,” but the now occupant of the White House, who should’ve never returned, always has been one. I don’t understand his appeal, and why so many Americans have been sucked into his orbit.\nI don’t want this, many tRump voters don’t want this. This’ll adversely affect the world, and will do nothing to reduce the nearly $2 trillion deficit. tRump’s tax cuts for the wealthy, and fElon Musk’s austerity measures will, and already are raising unemployment, and will further increase the divide between the wealthiest and most marginalized among us.\nThe U.S. siding with Russia, the two countries having the biggest nuclear stockpiles, is a threat to the world.\nIf WW3 starts, it won’t be because Zelenskyy won’t act to end a war in which his country was unnecessarily invaded, it’ll be because of Russia’s invasion of it, and the U.S. turning its back on its now former allies.\nThose of us in the states who oppose tRump and his alliance with Putin need to continue to stand up, speak out, and perhaps even do more. We’ve never seen anything like this before. Hate to say it, but this could very well be the beginning of the end of what was once a great nation. I’ll end this with a quote from FDR.\n“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerated the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.”

I am a born and raised Canadian and have seen my country go downhill for at least the last couple of decades.\nHealth Care: doctors and nurses are moving Stateside in droves. No, the US doesn’t have universal health care but there are insurance plans and the care is enormously better. My girlfriend had 4th stage throat cancer. In Calgary the doctors at some point told her there was nothing more they could do for her and to get her affairs in order. Her father sent her to the Anderson Clinic in Houston - yes it was expensive but they treated her, saved her life and that was 24 years ago. \nIt’s common in our emergency rooms to wait up to 12 hours to be seen. \nOur system isn’t progressive and doctors and nurses don’t get paid near as well as in the States. That being said, I am happy that I don’t have to pay to see the doctor or have a stay in the hospital. \nCost of Living: Once upon a time it was good - housing was cheap and many companies had the full range of benefits and salaries were equal to the cost of living. Now these same companies have stripped the benefits by hiring people under contract so they don’t have to give them benefits. \nRents are through the roof and in Calgary there are no rent caps. Buying a decent house in a decent neighbourhood is impossible unless you inherit or make a six figure income. This, in no small part, has created a homelessness crisis that never had been seen in such numbers before. Crime also is getting worse by the day. Canada was once known as a safe country. This is no longer the case.\nEverything is very expensive and the tax very high. Plus, we have to suffer winter! Where I live, the joke is that we have two seasons - July and winter!\nI still like my city (not love) but I am retired and own two houses - one inherited and the other bought when it was affordable (32 years ago). Calgary would not be a place I would live if I was a newcomer. Vancouver is beautiful but you really pay for it. \nTrudeau has helped make a big mess of things with immigration and lax criminal laws. My beef is not with immigrants I must state - it is with the lack of jobs for them when they come, thereby forcing bad living conditions and an over reliance on the social systems. I add that the immigration population is much more willing to work in jobs they have to take (despite a high education) than our natural and bloated citizens.\nSo yes, Canada has increasingly gone downhill. On a positive note, hand guns at least are not legal and our country has beautiful natural land.

1) Toronto is poor value. Getting housing of any kind (buying or renting) is stupidly expensive. And the quality you get for the price is lousy. Especially the newer builds, which are just thrown up as quickly as possible and sold to investors. Policy measures generally all seem to serve to just inflate the price of housing further. The occasional lip service given to affordability is amusing, but ultimately sad. There are lots of people who really do not want the housing bubble to pop. They will fight against it with all they have.\n\n2) It has become kind of boring. There is lots to do if you have money, but it’s harder to find entertainment on a budget. Even the free stuff like parks are filling up. Stuff like sporting events, eating out, going out is very costly across the board. Even the “cheaper” stuff is expensive. It seems like a lot of local culture is disappearing. Even the cool neighbourhoods are filling up with the same chains. I think the high commercial rent and bureaucracy is deflating a lot of would-be entrepreneurs. Most landowners seem to just be banking on cashing out their land for condos.\n\n3) Canada overall has a high cost of living compared to salaries. In the US you can find lower cost of living areas that still give you a real city experience. And in Europe you can be poor but still live a decent, if no frills, life. In Canada the basic necessities are all expensive. Phone bills, grocery bills, rent, insurance are through the roof. Domestic travel is expensive. And the dollar sucks if you want to travel abroad. Health care is free but good luck finding a family doctor or waiting 8 hours in the ER these days. It’s expensive to be poor, or even middle class.\n\n4) Most of the Greater Toronto Area, outside the core, is soulless suburbs with awful transit - very “American” except with worse traffic congestion. You will need a car, which is another huge cost. Row upon row of old cookie cutter suburbs with the same crappy houses. Good luck walking anywhere, and if you do you will need to walk down boring, treeless arterial roads with cars zooming past right beside you, and cross giant eight lane intersections that were never built for humans on foot. In a rainstorm or on a fall evening you have to be really careful not to be run over by aggressive drivers.\n\n5) It is hard to raise a family in an apartment here. You can do it but it’s not very easy, and also you are still kind of judged for it. Lots of young people are feeling stuck and are deferring or avoiding starting a family. Buying any type of house, even a basic townhouse, requires pledging your soul to a bank by taking a massive mortgage with eye watering debt in a volatile market. But few apartment buildings have the kind of sensible gentle density, the family unit sizes and the common amenities, like little courtyards with jungle gyms, that you might find in Europe. No one ever contemplated that anyone would ever desire to raise kids in an apartment. It’s just a cultural thing that has worked its way into how things are planned and designed.\n\n6) The transit system is ok by North American standards but awful by international standards. There are only two real subway lines, one stub line, one line that is permanently out of service after a derailment, and another line that was supposed to open a couple years ago but still has no date for opening. The subways go out of service frequently, sometimes for the dumbest reasons, and then it is a zoo of shuttle buses. The streetcars are nice but so slow. The buses are fine if you find yourself dreaming about riding a daily herky jerky rolling tin of sardines. They are building a lot of transit but it will take decades to get done.\n\n7) There is still a lot of cool multiculturalism and opportunities to experience different foods and cultures - one of the best things about Toronto. Increasingly though it seems to be losing the fun vibe of the 90s, when everyone celebrated each other’s backgrounds and was chill. It seems the immigration is not as broad based anymore and also people are importing a lot of their “old country” grievances here. The immigration system also kind of preys on people abroad by selling them a false fairy tale, so they end up dejected when they arrive and see how things really are.\n\n8) This one might be controversial but it’s kind of an ugly city. There’s nothing particularly of historical meaning or value. Some of the older neighbourhoods are kind of nice, but the last 25 years they have only built giant glass skyboxes, one after another. There aren’t the cool “missing middle” walkups like in NY, Chicago or Montreal (or even LA). There are very few buildings with much architectural character. Some of the buildings they deem “heritage” here are an embarrassment.\n\n9) For safety, honestly on this score I think Toronto is not bad. There are not too many real “ghettos” and it’s night and day compared to much of the US. With that said, there is more vagrancy and social issues these days, with tents and such. It’s very sad but the shelters are full, lots of homeless go into the libraries, parks and transit system. It does make it harder to enjoy these public amenities safely. It is nowhere close to Europe where you might let your kids run free around town. Canadian parents still helicopter their kids and the place again is not designed to really be safe for kids, in the same way as Europe.\n\n10) Finally, a bit of a double edged sword. Toronto had a lot of youthful energy - people coming here from all over. It is definitely not as sleepy as many parts of the world. With that said, it is becoming a bit of a transient place (minus the world class experiences like London or NY). If you are from elsewhere you might find it hard making and keeping friends. I’ve seen lots of people struggle because it’s is hard to build a strong social network. We have a very “shallow” culture here - people are extremely polite but not overly warm and hospitable. We treat one another kind of like neighbours - meaning we’d like to have a cordial, drama-free coexistence and otherwise kind of stick to ourselves.