Skip to content
Canadian Immigration Dashboard [ CID ]
Research Tool

Close Reading

Click a comment to load its sentiment categories, AI rationale, and reply thread.

Clear

Comments

Page 1 of 1 · filtered
Published Reply likes Comment
2025-03-04 0
Full sports to Canada from sikhs ❤
2023-11-13 0
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.
2022-12-16 0
First let me say that every country and I do mean every single one has their pluses and minuses Canada's major plus is the fact that crime is almost nonexistent as opposed to the United States where there is a mass murder every single day and a mass murder defined as four or more people killed in One Time by one person this does not even count where there is just two or three people killed at one time they're not included in the statistics the United States is out of control with violence guns you name it and I've lived here for 40 years I spent the first 20 years in Canada in my life was so perfect that I can't even dream of a better life the problem with most people is they move to the larger cities Vancouver Toronto I grew up 40 miles outside of Montreal on the great Majestic St Lawrence River one of the truly great rivers in this world my parents had a summer home on the river and every summer it was water skiing fishing boating golfing swimming you name it growing up 40 miles outside of Montreal if you wanted The Nightlife of Montreal one of the great International cities in this world then you could just drive there in less than an hour and enjoy the great nightlife that is Montreal as someone who is French and Italian I loved the winters because ice hockey was my favorite sport and I played all the sports nothing even comes close to the speed skill and excitement of ice hockey it is like soccer on steroids they're only two cold months during the winter January and February and even then it's really enjoyable as long as the temperature stayed below 32° I was happy because that meant that they could make outdoor ice rinks and I could enjoy my favorite sport of ice hockey all winter long Outdoors as someone who's lived all over the United States over the last 40 years I wouldn't trade Canada for any place else the United States is full of scammers I've been in all kinds of businesses working for different companies and there's rarely a company that I didn't get cheated by and had to take to the labor board for justice and compensation I trust nobody the main thing here is stay away from the major cities of Vancouver and Toronto and you will be able to have a great life with affordable housing and if you're into the outdoors Sports Canada is the greatest and best secondly Canada has the third largest oil reserves in the world and so there are a lot of Natural Resources that Canada has that is wealth for the country that will filter down to the average person what people don't realize is it when you live I've lived in Southern United States and most places the summers are unbelievably excruciatingly suffocatingly miserably hot hot hot at least in the Colder Weather you just put on some great looking ski wear and you can be outdoors and not be bothered by the cold because you eventually a climatize yourself to it Canada is the second largest country in the world by land area and has only a 35 million population there is a lot of room for growth and opportunity and in a safe safe environment to raise a family and at the end of the day that's what it's all about I wish I could say the same for the United States being safe but no it is not and Mexico is they have six out of the top 10 most dangerous cities in the world and Tijuana is the most dangerous city in the world with almost 2000 murders and the year is not over don't believe me just Google it the reality is that the drug cartels control everything in Mexico and the police and politicians are afraid because the cartels are so ruthless there is way too much money to be made in selling drugs and the cartels will stop at nothing to make sure they get their money by the way most of my family still lives in Canada and are doing extremely well for themselves and I am the only fool that moved to the US
2022-05-14 0
Alberta #2.... LOL! Kidding right? \nThat would equate to Wyoming being the 2nd best place to live in the U.S. while having seasonal climate like Alaska without the mountains.\nAlberta's all good if you love 2 months of 'summer' known as 'Rodeo Season' followed by 10 months of sub arctic WINTER known as 'Hockey Season', wear only plaid shirts and jean jackets, accessorize your all denim wardrobe with a leather belt sporting a chrome buckle the size of a hubcap, your choice of footwear consists of hard and uncomfortable high heel boots with ridiculous pointed toes, wouldn't dare leave your home unless fully costumed like a casting extra in a B movie Spaghetti Western complete with a hat the size of bucket, while having dietary needs that are easily satisfied from both of the 2 known food groups of Beef or Wheat, and your 2 favourite 'cultural interests' are 'Country' & 'Western'. (Good luck trying to find a radio station that plays anything but)\n\nThe views are spectacular if you're keen on flat vast expanses of endless nothingness uninterupted by anything of interest other than petroleum industry related facilities, if that's your thing.\n\nBonus..... with the second largest indoor mall in North America... complete with waves and a beach so you never have to leave the province to go on vacation. Your kids can feign battle on a full size mock pirate ship or midget submarine, while Mom sip's pina colodas under a plastic palm tree beachside and watching shirtless cowboys wade ankle deep in the 'surf' while still wearing their 'Wrangler' branded jeans. Family content, Dad can strut down the mall concourse to find 'Whiskey Row' and select his favourite 'Saloon' to wile away the hours guzzlin' suds and swillin' whiskey to his hearts content, or until Mom's run off to get cowpoked and the kids are floatin' face down in an olympic sized wave pool with an artificial tropical south seas backdrop.\n\nNo worries about the future when Alberta's only industry of petroleum implodes. Alberta's plan B is to regain it's lost position of wheat exports now that the world has lost it's appetite for Russian toast. Your kids can look forward to lifetime employment of waiting for harvest while hanging out on a split rail fence sucking a wheat straw perpetualy held between their teeth until it's time to fire up the old John Deere tractor and drive straight lines for 40 days and 40 nights.\nSounds like Alberta's just short of heaven in the #2 ranked postion of best Provinces to live in Canada.
Showing 1–4 of 4
Prev Next