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Take it down it’s nice or should be allowed here. This is a Catholic country.

Nice video. I watched it as I like to learn from other perspectives.\n\nI was born in Toronto, and I must say, this “no time for life and fun” is a new thing. This lack of access to health care is a new thing. I agree with your assessment. It now seems lonelier in Toronto. \n\nCanada used to be different because anyone with a good job could afford at least a condo, but life became unaffordable not just for immigrants, but for everyone unless you are in your 50s-60s and own a home. \n\nI have friends working double jobs supporting family back home in other countries, but for some of them the family back home sound like they are doing better than them and own a home. It’s like they are sacrificing their life to be in poverty or full of hardships and their families get to go out for dinners and drinks with friends. Not them. Not true for everyone, but for some yes and I worry about their own retirement because retirement in Canada without lots of savings means you might be homeless or forced to live with family even if it’s not your preference. \n\n without investments and savings, it will be hard to beat inflation. Getting into debt and getting bad credit can mean not getting an apartment. \n\nThe birth rate is going down because it is expensive to have kids and income isn’t enough to match with living costs. Getting help from government is really not something everyone gets access too. One person might get housing support, 10 others may get nothing. Different governments offer different things. Programs end and change often. \n\nIn Canada definitely bargain and shop around for good phone plans. one idea is to get a pay as you go until “Black Friday” then every year or two when your good offer expires there will be many others. It’s the time with the best deals saving almost half. For instance, I have 50 gigs for $25 for two years from a large provider. Telephone companies are the one place where people must bargain and even ask for better deals as a must.\n\nThe people you see living in big houses, will have kids that can’t afford the same. This is because prices keep rising. The system protects the very rich, but will also drain the middle class often within 1-2 generations. Do not link your business to your personal finance, or creditors can take your home. Some not knowing this lose everything and rich people know better. \n\nPeople live until they are very old, so inheritance is pretty much meaningless to rely on, so no matter what your parents have you must hustle in life. \n\nI do think Canada can become what we want over time. Citizens need to fight the trend of great community spaces, restaurants and bars going out of business and dumb corporations move in with bad boring restaurants. Like a McDonald’s where maybe a popular cultural hang out was. \n\nPart of the problem is a lack of mixed income housing areas, so it’s hard to stay living where you grew up. Artists and musicians help make a city great, but many cannot afford to live here.\n\nFamilies and communities staying together means more support for those with young kids and older relatives when they need help. Yet how is this possible in a city that is always pushing out lower income people when wealthier people desire the area. \n\nIn Toronto, every time you move you have to take what is available and that might mean moving an hour away from everyone you know. This weakens communities. Plus, if you live too far from your work you will have no time to socialize for most the week due to travel time. \n\nI think those who grew up in Toronto do have a certain culture of acceptance with others from many cultures, because your friends at school were from all over. But with new migrants sometimes it isn’t until the second generation that their social circles get diverse. This can be isolating and it’s even isolating as those from Toronto eventually leave dreaming of staying in one spot and not forced to move constantly when a landlord investor sells every house you move into. \n\n\nToronto really needs to protect affordability of housing for at least some housing in every section so that people can save money if they live in the city, and not have to leave their communities and be far from their friends and family. \n\notherwise eventually people get sick of the hustle and it’s too tiring to travel 1+ hrs each way to visit someone during Monday to Friday. \n\n20 years ago any professional could at least buy a condo. Not today. There is too much competition now and investors are allowed to buy up all the most affordable housing that once was a pathway to owning a home. \n\nRich policy makers got greedy and destroyed canada and hopefully diversity in leadership will help make Canada better. But they perhaps people knew to Canada can reject this lonely structure and help us rebuild Toronto into an amazing place. \n\nWe need to make sure everyone can afford housing with 30% of their income. I think that will help

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.

It’s been 5 years for me here and I honestly can say I have achieved nothing in my life yet. It scares me when I think I can’t return whatever my parents had invested in me. The fact is you’ll never have a good paying job in Canada being an immigrant. When I say this trust me I mean it. Most you’ll get is a minimum wage job which can make you survive the life here. Taxes are high definitely and what I feel is you’re working to make someone else’s life easier. \n(P.S: people who’ve stayed in Canada will understand who I’m implying to)\nNo one wants to be your freind, scope of socializing is zero coz mostly it’s cold round the year so everyone hardly come out, especially in Northern provinces like Yukon, Saskatchewan, Manitoba.\nHealthcare is a joke. If you feel sick and not well and you wanna see a doctor be prepared to wait for hours and hours. I once had stomach infection and I had to wait 5 hours till someone could see me. I asked for painkiller at-least so I could bear the pain but they refused that as well. You might well see someone you love dearly and with whole heart die in-front of you and you could do nothing. (I’ve experienced it myself hence saying)\nYou’re a lone survivor who’ll always keep fighting. \nThe only person who can make money here is businesses and high paid jobs which are reserved to Canadians. That’s how Canada’s job market is. Canadians’ first and if there’s something left they’ll look at you. By the amount of money people invest here they can establish a nice business back in their country itself and earn accordingly on own terms. \nMost importantly you’ll cut yourself from all emotional supports like family, freinds etc.\nI was social person back in India who liked making new freinds and memories but it’s nothing like that here. \nAnd it’s the same life, no different.\nYou wake up, dress, eat, go to work, come back, eat, sleep. No different.\nNo fun and nothing. You actually don’t live in present, you live in an expectation of a better tommorow.\nYou’ll always have a smile when you greet someone but I guarantee you no one’s gonna check on you to if you don’t start a conversation even with a simple “Hi”. Mostly Canadians are nice but again some will systematically judge you and say nothing but you’ll see in their actions, the way they’ll talk in a twisted way etc.\nYes I’m not saying that Canada’s bad or it’s no good but trust me it will take forever to build a life here especially with the number of people moving here from round the world. \nIf you’re well off financially from back home Canada’s a paradise for you. Indeed it’s a beautiful country with lots of beauty and lots to explore but remember everything comes with a cost here. Everything comes with a cost. People need to stop believing in this fake illusion and come only if they got a purpose here. The only reason why they’ll let you in the country is for money and once you’re in you’ll have to keep spending, doesn’t matter if you’re broke or whatever you have to.\nOnce I earn I’ll happily give up my PR status and go back to India as i very well know what the situation is how it’s gonna be in future.\nSo just one piece of advise to every middle class person like me, guys please invest and spend your money wisely coz we know how hard it is to earn and it’s high time Canadians start appreciating what immigrants like us do for them by burning ourselves day and night and start realizing that their past generation once came from some other part of the world as well and settled here. Being white doesn’t make you a nice Canadian, you’re actions defines you more than your words. \n90% of this country is built by immigrants and that’s how it’s gonna develop in future, so if they keep treating us the same way good luck to them ?.\nAlso a plus note to anyone thinking that Asians are stealing your jobs, go get outside and have the balls to face them and take it away from them. Staying home and ranting and abusing us that we’re taking your opportunities and blah blah isn’t gonna work. We are so successful round the world because we are hardworking, honest and respectful to everyone. Even if we’re earning minimum and barely surviving here we always make sure we’re not burden on the government or anyone else and won’t keep crying.\n\nA big shoutout to all you guys who came here in the hope of a better future but are still struggling.\nKeep hustling and you’ll reach there, if not step down and go back and start your life again on your home soil. There’s no shame in experimenting continuously rather than sitting ideally and crying about future. \n\nAll the very best my people and lots of love to you ❣️