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I'm an American in Western Canada and I'd agree with this. Absolutely nothing I couldn't get in the US, save for Nanaimo Bars and Letterkenny, and you can get

I'm an American in Western Canada and I'd agree with this. Absolutely nothing I couldn't get in the US, save for Nanaimo Bars and Letterkenny, and you can get both if you're in a border state like WA or ND. There are Tim Horton's in the US (and they suck these days anyway). The culture is basically the generic pseudo-leftist stuff you get via pop culture. They love their virtue signaling here, but most of the talking points aren't anything you couldn't get in any big, US city; hang out in Boston, Seattle, or NYC and you'll get the same thing. For all of the progressive talk Alberta is Snow Texas, the Prairie Provinces line up pretty well with Indiana or Kansas, and Ontario has it's own mini-Trump in the surviving Ford brother making it to the Provincial-leadership level. In exchange for healthcare you've got a housing and business climate that's basically owned by either 1) Big Oil / Big Gas / Big Mining, or 2) Foreign firms. Housing costs are insane -- Vancouver is the most unaffordable city in N. America since, unlike SF, salaries didn't keep up with housing, and it's basically a place for Chinese / Russian / Indian / Saudi citizens to park money to get it out of their respective countries.

lhorie 6y ago
> nothing I couldn't get in the US, save for Nanaimo Bars and Letterkenny And kinder eggs :) As someone who spent several years in Toronto, several in San Francisco and grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I agree that there's a lot of similarities between US and Canada. The "uncomfortable truths" you listed sound accurate to me. But aside from the 10,000 mile view, there's also a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that is hard to put into words, which is what I was referring to when I mentioned torontonians. Let me preface that it's not my intention to criticize anyone, but merely to try to explain a feeling. When we got to the US, we got a distinct impression that my wife described as americans being generally more "nosy" where a canadian might be more "laissez-faire". To use the GP comment as an example, they seemed to be characterizing international families at costco as "insular and unwilling to mingle with locals". But for me as a torontonian, I'm well aware that, e.g. it's common for indians to have large tight-knit families. I don't feel the need to "judge" that grandparents living with you for extended periods of time does not conform to some predetermined idea of how one ought to "melt into the north american pot". Surely many americans also feel the way I do, but there are enough of those that are vocal enough about their distastes that it becomes a noticeable pattern even if it's a very subtle thing. (On a side note, I dislike the distinction between the "melting pot" term and the "quilt" term, despite "quilt" being a more accurate description of the canadian flavor of globalization, because "quilt" adds a pejorative connotation to the american flavor that I don't feel is necessarily warranted)

lhorie 6y ago

> nothing I couldn't get in the US, save for Nanaimo Bars and Letterkenny And kinder eggs :) As someone who spent several years in Toronto, several in San Francisco and grew up in Sao Paulo, Brazil, I agree that there's a lot of similarities between US and Canada. The "uncomfortable truths" you listed sound accurate to me. But aside from the 10,000 mile view, there's also a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that is hard to put into words, which is what I was referring to when I mentioned torontonians. Let me preface that it's not my intention to criticize anyone, but merely to try to explain a feeling. When we got to the US, we got a distinct impression that my wife described as americans being generally more "nosy" where a canadian might be more "laissez-faire". To use the GP comment as an example, they seemed to be characterizing international families at costco as "insular and unwilling to mingle with locals". But for me as a torontonian, I'm well aware that, e.g. it's common for indians to have large tight-knit families. I don't feel the need to "judge" that grandparents living with you for extended periods of time does not conform to some predetermined idea of how one ought to "melt into the north american pot". Surely many americans also feel the way I do, but there are enough of those that are vocal enough about their distastes that it becomes a noticeable pattern even if it's a very subtle thing. (On a side note, I dislike the distinction between the "melting pot" term and the "quilt" term, despite "quilt" being a more accurate description of the canadian flavor of globalization, because "quilt" adds a pejorative connotation to the american flavor that I don't feel is necessarily warranted)