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Canada Moves to Keep Skilled Workers
ashitaka writes "Just in time for all those who have vowed to leave the United States in response to government policies and mainstream cultural malaise, the Canadian government is announcing a C$700 million initiative to help skilled workers stay in Canada and become citizens. If you had the choice, would you really uproot to a new country especially one where the lifestyle isn't that much different than your own?"
The US is a large country. The "lifestyle of the US" does differ from region to region. To travel to "most places in the US" and get a good appreciation of each would take years. I'm sure Canada is similar.
I moved from 1 state to another and life is very different for me. Turns out I like where I live now, I don't ever want to move back. And if I travel to different parts of my state, life is quite different.
As a Canadian living and working in the States, I wish the Canadian government would have done more to keep skilled citizens rather than attracting skilled immigrants. Unfortunately it is really just too easy to max out in the Canadian market place and the only option is to move south.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
Just as I am researching what it takes to immigrate to Canada, job opportunities, quality of life, housing prices, etc.
I come from Europe and, no offense to our American friends, find Canada a much more appealing choice than the USA - exactly because I perceive Canada and Canadian mentality to be much closer to a European mindset.
I admit this may just be a whim, but coming from a country where everybody under 40 years of age is suffering from financial rape from the older generation, Canada sure does look appealing.
For those who are curious, the above is not an exaggeration, as shown by this film.
As partially summarized by a Canadian blogger, "When you have finished watching this film several images will remain with you for some time to come. A woman who spent two years waiting for knee surgery and innocently asks the American filmmakers whether the waiting lists are as long there as they are here. The moment when she begins to grasp that a health care waiting list is a concept alien to most sick Americans, though sadly not health care compelled bankruptcy, is something that cannot be explained. More stories follow of addiction to pain killers brought on by wait times, of the suffering families go through, of men and women calmly contemplating death for ailments which medical science long ago conquered, but which government control has placed out of reach."
An explanation of my choices for friends
Some parts of Ontario are on the same latitude as northern California ... in fact they have several wineries in that area.
The Ezine Directory
It takes time to see specialists here in America too. Three months would be rare, but it happens. A lot of it just has to do with the supply and demand for people with specialized medical knowledge. Canada is a little bit worse off because lower wages for doctors->lower # of people willing to be doctors.
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Crudely Drawn Games
America is just as socialist as Canada or any European country.
...). In Canada and most European countries, the socialism is more towards things like a health care system, welfare state, etc ...
...
Only difference is that most of the American style "socialism" is more towards the military and defense sector (ie. Halliburton, Bechtel, etc
America has all kinds of socialistic institutions like:
The Federal Reserve Bank,
Fannie Mae,
Freddie Mac,
Social Security,
The US Postal Service,
Pension Benefit Guarnaty Corporation,
Medicare,
Medicaid,
Amtrak,
etc
It's more about not staying where you are not wanted. Bush sr said that atheists are not real americans and should be allowed to vote for example. The exact quote was " I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God."
This is the president of the USA telling atheist citizens that they don't belong in the country. Other members of this administration have made similar remarks about atheists, collage professors, environmentalists, femminists, homosexuals and other people they hate.
Why stay in a country that you are not wanted in? Why not move to a place where people don't hate you?
evil is as evil does
You know, I keep hearing about this, but none of my Canadian friends have ever mentioned it; I mean, I'm not saying it doesn't ever happen, but I don't think it's the big problem that a bunch of Americans make it out to be. Hell, last time my friend Sarah got sick with a nasty cold (!), the local hospital offered to send out an AMBULANCE to pick her up.
On the flip side, if you're a student in the US, you can shell out $100 a month for CRAP healthcare -- as in, if the Student Heath Center is open and you don't go there first, you can pay your own bills, and unless it's an emergency (life-threatening), you had better not even think of going to see a doctor, because the student insurance won't cover it. Oh, and it won't cover anything out-of-network, so I owe my dentist $150 because the student insurance I forked out about won't cover cleanings with my regular dentist.
At least I have healthcare; half of the people I go to school with don't, because $100 a month is more than they can afford.
Now that I'm working 'full time' again, things are better (back to real healthcare), but having experienced 'cheap healthcare' for a year, I'd rather see us Americans with a better system.
I hate to say it, but I think the Japanese have something going with the way they run things -- even without being on the 'National Insurance', I was able to go to a Japanese clinic and have my cough diagnosed as a really nasty case of pneumonia -- and was out the door after a total of an hour, with a small bag filled with about five different kinds of medication, and all for about $200 (IIRC). I shudder to think of what two sets of chest X-rays and about two weeks of meds would have cost in the U.S. without insurance.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
Except this is unlikely to be the case in the situation the parent described.
Nope. 80% of Americans get their health insurance paid for by their employers. It is in fact very likely.
Most people employed in the only area of job expansion in the US - the burger flipping.
Nope. Here are the fastest growing ocupations in the US over the past 10 years:
Health aides 138%
Human service workers 136%
Personal and home care aids 130%
Computer engineers and scientists 112%
Systems analysts 110%
Physical and corrective therapy assistants and aides 93%
Physical therapists 88%
Paralegals 86%
Teachers, special education 74%
Medical assistants 71%
In general the top categories are in health care. It seems to me that a nation with the terrible health care problems you claim would not be adding health care workers at that rate.
Wal-Mart and other "service" industries do not have any such benefits
Wal-Mart does in fact offer health covereage to it's workers. The problem here is that their pay rate is so low that about half of them decline coverage.
Such benefits are today restricted mostly to the CEO class.
Utter nonsense. My insurance coverage, which I pay $25 a month for includes 100% hospital coverage, free prescriptions and $5 a visit copay to the doctor. Two years ago I needed an MRI for an ankle injury and was able to get an appointment in 3 days. Out of pocket cost was $0. I am definitely NOT a CEO class person.
An economist my ass.
A Nobel Prize winning economicist, actually.
It seems to me that you are living in some sort of weird fantasy world not connected in any way to what the reality is.