Canada

As an American, I'd make some sort of minor-league baseball joke, but it would just be too depressing on both of our parts.

We come for the donuts, we stay for the hard-headed socialism.

We're number three!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/dailybrew/canada-among-top-three-best-places-live-quality-195522175.html

(And I don't even think Easy Availability of Crack was one of the metrics.)

We've been plummeting on the UN's Human Development Index: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index#2013_report

We had a lock on the #1 spot at one time (10 years I believe?).

And afaict that "#3 overall ranking" is something journalists came up with by giving an equal weighting to every indicator and adding them up. The OECD does not give an overall ranking; I would really question whether 'life satisfaction' or 'trust in government' or even 'self-reported health' should be given the same weighting as e.g. life expectancy, employment, income, or safety from crime.

I heard some interview on some Canadian interview show about some web series called "The Plateaus,"about rival Canadian indie bands and maybe notable for reuniting the cast of some other Canadian show, called "Popular Mechanics for Kids." So I watched a couple of episodes, and ... man, it was terrible. But I bet if I were Canadian it would be funnier, just because I would recognize the cast of "Popular Mechanics for Kids" not as their current famous Hollywood selves (Jay Baruchel, Elisha Cuthbert) and more as the cast of "Popular Mechanics for Kids," which, if I were Canadian and of a certain age, I probably would have grown up watching.

just discovered this

http://i.imgur.com/uvcmZPm.jpg

how would donald say eh

I hold s epcial place in my heart for donalds irascible chacrter - he is the spiritual essence of truth from Disney's micky mouselie based germ

Ilx Via Trans-Continental Bollocks Trip '21

the only educational moment I ever had from waxcting donald duck was that chip and dale are assholes

can i get a ruling on this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DIFHalQUMAAhSa3.jpg:small

I'm from Ontario and we called it soccer baseball.

the fact that western canadians call a decal a "deckle" had me shook (i've never heard anyone say it irl, probably because people don't have any reason to say decal very often)

Stay calm and back slowly away from Saskatchewan

http://www.the10and3.com/wp-content/uploads/Canada-Map-Q13.jpg

anglophone elementary school in Montreal called it soccer baseball

I've never heard a sofa called a chesterfield except in some "what Canadians say" context.

re: decals
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cockamamie#Etymology

Soccer baseball, 100%--we play it all the time in school.

Grandparents always call it a chesterfield, so I use that when talking to them. Never in my life heard "soccer baseball" in Ontario, vaguely aware kickball exists, but not a particularly athletic child..

Yep, it was always "soccer baseball" ime (in Ottawa, so ON). I had thought that maybe "kickball" was an Americanism for pick-up soccer or something.

I learned recently that American 'kickball' does not actually involve a soccer ball, which might explain the confusion.

I've never heard a sofa called a chesterfield except in some "what Canadians say" context.

the fact that western canadians call a decal a "deckle" had me shook (i've never heard anyone say it irl, probably because people don't have any reason to say decal very often)

Both OTM

Always "deckle" for me growing up making plastic model kits in Ontario. Hearing "dee-kal" from other people had me questioning my existence.

I think I tend to hesitate whenever I have to pronounce it and end up landing on 'deck-kal'.

So, we have a friend that moved to Canada about ... five years ago? Six? It was for work, but they also want to get their citizenship before moving back to the US, just in case. Anyway, my wife just got lunch with them to catch up, and it was kind of amazing the number of complaints they had about Canada that I'd never heard. Some examples:

-There is apparently a cabal of just maybe four grocery stores that set the prices, which are really high. Like, $9 a peanut butter, $20+ dollars for chicken breasts, that sort of thing.

-Lending practices are bad and so tied in to the housing market that the flipping industry dominates and drives up prices (sounds familiar).

-Fabled one-year maternity leave is super stingy, so much so that in this person's case it's just not worth it.

-There are only two government-approved cell phone companies, and neither of them offer unlimited internet, so people tend to just get American plans with Canadian coverage.

I have no dog in this fight, I was just surprised to hear the complaints. Canadians of ILX, does any of this sound familiar?

Signing up for a Rogers cell phone plan was one of the first things I had to do when I moved here. I hate them. I felt like they wanted a blood sample in addition to utility bills and proof of residency.

-There is apparently a cabal of just maybe four grocery stores that set the prices, which are really high. Like, $9 a peanut butter, $20+ dollars for chicken breasts, that sort of thing.

True. Although those prices are slightly overstated, the primary grocery store company (Loblaws, CEO Galen “I’m A Fuckin Piece Of Shit” Weston) publicly tried to justify a generalized 15% hike on all food goods, and now his days are decisively numbered up here

-Lending practices are bad and so tied in to the housing market that the flipping industry dominates and drives up prices (sounds familiar).

True; the housing market was less-hit by the 2008 crash and it is the Wild West of flipping and Air BnB’ing and all major and minor city centres are essentially rent-uninhabitable, purchase-impossible. Toronto and Vancouver recently overtook HK in terms of rent-to-income quotient.

-Fabled one-year maternity leave is super stingy, so much so that in this person's case it's just not worth it.

Depends on your employer. My apologies to your friend :(

-There are only two government-approved cell phone companies, and neither of them offer unlimited internet, so people tend to just get American plans with Canadian coverage.

True, Rogers and Bell. Both companies are garbage grifter get-the-guillotine bullshit. I myself had an American plan for years, a 646 NYC number that went undetected as being illegitimate by AT&T for years (because I was regularly travelling to USA), but once I relocated from LA back to TO they wised up and cancelled it on me.

I think I’ve screamed “I literally don’t give a fuck about collection agencies, you can sodomize my credit rating all you want, I am a permatenant and I secure my dodgy residencies with wads of cash up front” in the face of over a dozen overcharges from Rogers, you literally have to scan your bill every month because they’ll slip in the most fucked up shit. “Oh, did you take the train down the St Laurence and drift too close to the American border? Yeah we auto charged you for a day’s roaming fee for the 30 seconds you were accidentally on a foreign network.”

There are no unlimited data fees here. It is literally cheaper to carry a cell phone in Norway

Yeah my sister when she lived thee thought eating out was cheaper than groceries. She’d go across the border and load up on Trader Joe’s.

you literally have to scan your bill every month because they’ll slip in the most fucked up shit. “Oh, did you take the train down the St Laurence and drift too close to the American border? Yeah we auto charged you for a day’s roaming fee for the 30 seconds you were accidentally on a foreign network.”

preach

it's possible to shop at cheap and quite wonderful grocery stores if you live in a central neighborhood of montreal, toronto or vancouver. but some suburbs you're stuck with the big chains and they're pretty expensive. driving across the border to trader joe's doesn't really make sense due to the exchange rate (unless you're getting paid in usd, but then canadian groceries are cheap in purchasing power parity terms...)

Josh, what city & province did this person live in?

per usual Quebec is an exception to some of this, afaict. e.g., I have QC-based Videotron phone + internet service; the internet plan is unlimited, though the phone isn't (which I wouldn't remotely need anyway). It is expensive, but I've never met a single person here with an American plan.

I've never heard a complaint about parental leave (also day care is v cheap aiui), but I mostly know academics so it could vary by employer here too, not sure.

Generally speaking though—again afaict, flopson could clarify here I'm sure—Canada does have a pretty bad monopoly problem in various industries (news media being the one I'm familiar with) and apparently little regulatory appetite for doing anything about it.

I've heard about people going to the US for groceries, but unless they're lying to the border guards, you'd have to pay customs on everything you bought (assuming <24 hours trip), so I don't really get it

Tbf, I do know several (five?) people with American phone plans who predominantly reside in Canada, but they also work regularly in USA and/or are partnered with an American, and divide their time between the two countries

Quebec is the exception when it comes to grocery monopolies, but god protect you if you ever need an emergency room

yeah funnily enough we went with Videotron when we moved here because they had a now-discontinued plan where your phone worked the same in the US as it did QC (but using it in ROC meant roaming lmao)

the QC health care system is indeed a disaster

Josh, what city & province did this person live in?

Toronto, I believe.

The specifics of the paid maternity leave scheme, iirc, was something like $35k for the year, which the person we know said wouldn't cover their rent.

Yeah as a single income that would be below the poverty line in Montreal, hence unimaginable in TO

yeah in Quebec, the provincial govt gives you paid maternity leave also, which combined with the federal contribution comes to (iirc) 70% of your yearly salary or 80k, whichever is lower. Which I think is pretty good as far as North America goes.