Close Reading

My mom went to Canada and she didn’t even recognize the country

Alina, this video is a clickbait, haha!\nYou can tell us where you're moving too while you wait for the visa.\nIn many ways I agree with your assesment about Canada, and living here.\nI came here at the age of 14 with my Mom (Dad came here three months earlier), in 1970.\nWas a great place for a long time.\nEssentially, it started to go downhill back in 1998, I think, during the first market and real estate crash.\nI found myself without a job (architect by profession), went tback to school for some additional courses, graduated, then looked for\na job. No hope in hell!\nEnded up in Abu Dhabi, and Cayman Islands.\nMy parents brought me to Canada to give me a better life, as well as for themselves, and now I have to leave it to survive.\nWTF?! Broke my parents heart.\nEventually came back to Canada, as my pareents were still here, getting old, and sickly.\nMom passes away first, then dad a few years later.\nGot married, moved to Montreal from GTA - don't move to Quebec, it sucks!\nCost of living here is impossible, and it's getting worse every year and every month.\nHealth care is awfull. Language discrimination in Quebec is terrible.\nI want to move to Croatia, but wife does not.\nIt's part of EU, and Schengen group of nations too.\nWe lived there for over eight months. Got a family doctor in less than a week over there. Same with various\nmedical specialists. We'd fill a large shopping cart with food over there for about $100.\nWent to Costco a couple of weeks ago, and it cost me over $500 to half-fill one up here!\nWhile there, we had across the EU health care coverage.\nI drive one hour outside of Montreal to Cornwall, Ontario, and I have no health coverage.\nHave to buy travelers insurance to drive to any other province in Canada.\nTotally ridiculous.\nHomeless people in a small town just east of Toronto, where I lived before. was a nice little place.\nNow, it's a dump with unfortunate people sleeping outside on the main street.\nWhat's happened to Canada that I knew once?\nLong reply, but had to vent.\n\nGood luck, Alina.

I can agree canada is relatively safe or at least it used to be. In high school back in 2011 I forgot my wallet at a cineplex movie theatre cashier areas with $600 dollars my mom had given me I went back and my money was still there. Few years later, maybe 2013 accidentally left my wallet at a gas station after paying for gas, came back 5 minutes later and an Indian cashier stole $20 out of my wallet lol so could just depend

Came to Canada from Kuwait looking for a better future. Big mistake, shouldn't have flapped my gums at work, i had a decent banking job with a career and a future. Now im stuck driving a effin truck with a bachelors degree to make slightly above average with 0 appreciation from the public, and a middle finger to say thank you for my 70 hour work weeks. I see my bed once every 3 days. I sleep next to rats and roaches in truck by the ports. Belittled by port workers and customs agents. Barked at by everyone down to a forklift driver. Looked at as lesser of a human because of the colour of my skin. What a horrible life :( My sister has already left and she was a dentist in Toronto. My mom went back ages ago. My dad is the only one wanting to stay to take care of his elderly patients, many rely on him. All i do is pay taxes and hide my money in the business, what a corrupt and horrible financial system.

It takes me 3 months to get a doctor appointment in the US here in Seattle and I was just told several months to see my eye doctor. Depending on medical plan the insurance means you do not go to the specialist without a referral. So Canadians may not have as much to complain about. My parents were immigrants to Canada because it was easier (my father was in Danish Merchant Marine and was in China Sea when his appointment would come up in New York). They did not have it easy because they did not speak the language and worked hard to learn. Working as a housekeeper was the norm for females and my mother's education meant nothing when she expected to work in a bank. Danes stuck together and helped each other to get jobs, with carpentry (most had apprenticeships like brick laying), to socialize, etc. and this is normal for immigrants. Working multiple jobs was normal and having a great home was their American dream instead of a government apartment. It is true for all immigrants that their kids will do better than the parents. The kids will have no accent if they learn English by age 12. There are age cutoffs on learning a language in child development. During the hiring process the jobs are given to people the interviewer perceives as being like themselves. This is proven by psychologists (I am one). This puts immigrants at a disadvantage unless they have a rare skill without competition. Dad got his house and Mom took my sister and went back to Denmark because of health issues and the US has garbage medical care and social services for the elderly (poor sister didn't speak Danish because it wasn't allowed in case it impacted our English skill). As a daughter of immigrants I worked 20 hours days and weekends almost all my life. I put myself through school and have been successful despite being female and making much less than men. Immigrants need to realize that it will be their kids who make the big bucks and succeed while the parents who immigrated will struggle. As a cultural mix (US, Canadian and Danish citizen because of wacky sexist rules) I have had a lot of confusion over the years trying to fit in and figure out what my values are. I have had to ask my US husband is that behavior normal? Of course different states in the US or going 200 miles north to Canada means a different language to speak (Canadian or Spanish in the South) and different values, ways of dress, etc. so being an immigrant can mean just traveling 200 miles north or to an insane state like Texas or New York. Culture shock is everywhere but most of us move for the money. I am thinking of going back to Canada but my home was Vancouver and that now looks like a hell hole. My husband had over a million dollars in medical care and I really do not wish to lose all my assets to medical costs in the US. So now I am trying to choose between death by earthquake in BC somewhere or death by tornado or perhaps fire storm in Calgary due to climate change.

growing up in canada, i felt left out in the blk community b/c i am a 5th generation blk cdn on mom's side and 3rd on my dad's - when other black ppl not canadian born met me - i tell them i'm cdn, but i always used to get the question - where are you really from - they were looking for me to say the islands - when i told them my paternal grandma was born in 1901 in canada - that's when the questions stopped. i've been told that b/c i wasn't from the islands, i had no culture in college, but a mbr of the black student society put him in his place i heard he got into a lot of trouble. i was asked what do we eat as in food as canadians what kind of music do we listen to - at our blk canadian weddings, the only carribean song played was hot hot hot by arrow - we played straight up r and b and motown. i hv been rejected by other blk men b/c i'm not west indian enough...it was hurtful. even with 'friends' they made of my cdn heritage but i used to think, why are you making fun of me knowing that my family and ancestors were in canada first - they were 1st generation - i live in the usa now and i'm with an african american man - he has never treated me as if i were different and he loves going w/me to canada. my parents told me it was jealousy on those ppl's parts - one guy i used to be friends with in college, when i went to his house, his mom was from the islands, when she met me - she said, 'you cdn ppl are loud' and that did it for me - i didn't date her son but when he met my parents, they never said any of that crap to him. in the usa, the african americans don't treat differently at all - my ex mom in law thought we were american but decided to live in canada - b/c she was surprised that blacks do live in canada. her other daughter in law's family were from the islands - but she gravitated more to my family and felt comfortable around them more than her family and this ex sis in law would brag about the islands this and that and she would make comments about my looks being skinny and such but it was jealousy - i didn't care much for her b/c she was very insecure. i felt once again, i was a young girl in college again - being around island ppl....i would love to meet drake and ask him did he feel left out and isolated because he wasn't from the islands - he makes me very proud being a blk canadian - his dad is african american and his mom is jewish. i still hv dealt w/racism not much with wht ppl, but with my own ppl - which is quite sad and on top of it-colorism, that also played a part from my family - being called pygmy, chocolate dip, nappy hair - it hurt but these so called relatives, they aren't all that anymore, they had hard lives as children...when ppl see something in you that is special and they don't have, that's when their ugliness shows -