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You know how dumb I find this situation? I fucking left and haven't had a cell phone plan in Canada for like a decade. My bill on TWO FOREIGN PHONES even roami

You know how dumb I find this situation? I fucking left and haven't had a cell phone plan in Canada for like a decade. My bill on TWO FOREIGN PHONES even roaming WITHIN CANADA is cheaper than maintaining a stupid Bell Rogers or Telus plan internationally. The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it.

jagger27 4y ago
Financial illiteracy is a little fucking harsh, no? We know we’re getting absolutely shafted.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Then why aren't you doing anything about it? Why is the contrast between Canada and the rest of the world palpably stark? Why do banks get away with disgusting loopholes like getting around laws by calling themselves "financial advisers" rather than advisOrs? A little harsh? Do something about it enough that I might consider returning
  - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
    Oh please lost child return to us. We're begging you to come back. Gimme a break. We are a country with 1/10th the population of the US -- the largest economy in the world and an aggressive military power -- and we're sitting right next to it, for most of our history barely holding onto an independent existence. Most of our "successful" industries consist of "ripping and shipping" raw commodities to service that market. It should not surprise you why things are the way they are. It's gross how these domestic industries end up this way, captured by a cabal of self-serving corporate dickheads, but TBH on the whole the alternative would be raw subservience to US corporations who would steamroll our entire economy. There is no easy answer, or it would have been done already.
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      I mean the easy answer for me was taking off, and now the country seems to be facing a brain drain. [1] Good luck with that I guess. [1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article-canadas-tech-sector-has-a-brain-drain-problem/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article...
      - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        This has always been the case. You're not special or particularly interesting. It was, however, amusing watching so many Canadians return during the Trump years and COVID. Our Google office in Waterloo almost doubled in size from returning Canadians. But we frankly should have clawed the subsidized portion of your tuition from you before you left the country.
        jamal-kumar 4y ago
        I dunno I've been gone for a long time now. You want my tax return, too? I'll send you scans of my ID so you can steal my identity and score that I love letting condescending Google employees steal my identity ever since deleting my Gmail account
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        Don't worry, I'm not at Google anymore. My condescension is inherent and essential, not a property of my employment. But I probably wouldn't have let it loose if you didn't come across as a precious ass, yourself.
        jamal-kumar 4y ago
        That's candy ass to you bucko This is the closest I've come to a flamewar on this site, thanks for the cheap entertainment
        jagger27 4y ago
  - jagger27 4y ago
    What exactly can be done? Vote harder?
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      Well considering if you voted in a party whose promise of voting reform has been heavily rescinded, I think pressing them to fulfill that promise would be a start.
      - jagger27 4y ago
        Not sure what gave you the impression I voted red or the authority to assert that I did. When a Liberal federal candidate came to my door last election cycle the electoral reform about face was the first thing I grilled them on. I didn’t get a satisfying answer. First past the post is not going away any time soon.
cpsns 4y ago
> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. In reality there is nothing meaningful Canadians can do to fix this, that isn't how things work in Canada. MPs and MLAs don't listen and no party that could actually win will take the required steps to solve this problem. It's extremely difficult not to be apathetic when you know the fight isn't winnable. People know they're getting ripped off, that's why anyone who can goes to America to buy essential goods.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  I mean you can do what I did and leave. A lot of intelligent people have already. Hello, doctor shortage? It's a nice passport.
  - ckdarby 4y ago
    You left over internet and mobile bills? Damn.
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      I ran a VoIP company before leaving because of spook interference. Long story I won't tell here.
  - ejb999 4y ago
    didn't realize there was a doctor shortage in Canada - all I ever hear about countries with socialized medicine is how they are better than the US at delivering health care more cheaply - possibly true in some respects, but if there is no doctor to see you, than it really doesn't matter. US system is far from perfect, but at least I can always find a doctor when I need one.
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      It's awful if you have a chronic health condition or need specialists but when you get hit by a car and don't have to pay a huge hospital bill it is pretty cool. Still it's hemorrhaging talent because of dumb pay schemes that could probably be fixed overnight if it wasn't for the aforementioned financial illiteracy
cmrdporcupine 4y ago
The problem in the end comes down to the fine line Canada always straddles due to the proverbial "sleeping with the elephant" (see quote from Trudeau Sr.) The fear being that if Canada deregulates fully and opens critical sectors like telecomms etc. to full competition we will completely lose these industries to US (or Chinese, etc.) interests. And yet at the same time domestic regulation is continually captured by predatorial internal interests. Canada has always been this way, and it's frustrating as hell. Almost every industry has a caste of "goold old boys" who seek to prevent competition by capturing regulatory agencies. Many times many participants all went to private school together @ Upper Canada College, etc. Or sit/sat on boards together. You could say "ok, disband the regulation and let them compete" but many times that just leads to the total collapse of certain domestic industries because they simply can't compete with US capital.
- voisin 4y ago
  > You could say "ok, disband the regulation and let them compete" but many times that just leads to the total collapse of certain domestic industries because they simply can't compete with US capital. What’s wrong with this if it leads to lower costs for consumers and better service?
  - xav0989 4y ago
    Canada wants to maintain a domestic industry, in part to not be held to the whims of another country's governing body. When the people that control your information flow, your food production, etc. are not within your jurisdiction, you're effectively at the mercy of both them and the government of their country.
    - voisin 4y ago
      > in part to not be held to the whims of another country's governing body. Just because the industry is foreign doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to local regulation and oversight.
      - 4y ago
11101010001100 4y ago
My hack was to create a company with 0 revenue and its only expense being telco bills. So far so good.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  That's pretty damn clever, actually! I have a friend who didn't graduate high school cause he was too busy playing world of warcraft all the time who is the only millionaire I know from those days and he pulls stuff like this off all the time too.
- lucasyvas 4y ago
  Elaborate?
heresie-dabord 4y ago
> an enormous [...] financial illiteracy I suspect you're right that people don't care enough to make this a major political matter. But isn't financial illiteracy a common problem among workers and consumers throughout the world? In some countries, a worker has only a small amount of vacation, no sick leave, no worker organisation, a wretched minimum wage, high rental cost, and no hope of owning a home to escape the threat of eviction. There are places where health care is available only through an employer and the cost of health treatment can bankrupt workers and their families. There are places where people pay taxes but infrastructure is not maintained and has become unsafe. The water may not be safe to drink and the electricity grid may be fragile but tax payers bear the exorbitant cost of for-profit utilities. There are inexpensive talk-and-text plans in Canada. A generous cellular plan may still be a luxury for most people.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  So no internet on that plan? Bruh I live in a so-called third world country and no such restricted thing exists. Can also drink the water juuuuuust fine. Electricity grid is more an affect of extreme tropical weather. The Americans come here and point at messes of coils of wire on every pole - like yeah that's how we make it repaired fast when a tropical storm hits. Health care is immediately available for less than a benjamin. If a Canadian doctor puts me on a waiting list on a visit back, I tell him sorry gonna do it somewhere else don't bother making another appointment.
  - mthoms 4y ago
    Hey "Bruh". The points you're making may be perfectly valid but your tone is condescending and childish. Maybe dial it back a bit? We're all very glad you've found your utopia.
voisin 4y ago
> an enormous sense of financial illiteracy With all due respect, I don’t pick up on this at all. I get the distinct impression that everyone realizes how much we’re getting screwed but has a learned helplessness that we are no match for the corruption of our corporate political overlords. Protest over $150/mo cellphone plans? We don’t even do that over 35% growth in housing prices year over year over year.
fxleach 4y ago
> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Completely false. Ask any Canadian how they feel about their internet or mobile phone bill and they will tell you they're being ripped off. We have been battling Rogers and Bell for decades, they have too much money and influence at this point.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  You know what I will have to contend the critical comments on this one are spot on. CBC marketplace is a good indicator. You can still literally just go to the USA and get a sim chip that costs less to use in Canada than it does to do the opposite. Hmm.
  - fxleach 4y ago
    I see a lot of your replies are to basically leave the country. Got a chip on your shoulder bud?
    - jamal-kumar 4y ago
      I mean my phone bill isn't 200$ and massively data capped with bad coverage anymore so if it's to get a better deal on your phone bill then that's my advice yes
      - hhw 4y ago
        I think financially literate people in Canada don't pay anywhere near $200. I've always paid around $50/mo for the last 20 years, without ever going out of my way to shop for promotions, and have been able to have all the data usage I could reasonably use (previously excluded watching videos when not on Wi-Fi, but the most recent plan of a few years has enough data that I no longer need to), plus extra bells and whistles like free roaming in the US. This is with both a corporate plan with Bell the last 6-7 years, and a regular single individual plan with Rogers all the years before that, so wasn't even with a lower cost provider. There are huge promotions multiple times a year because the competition is fierce between the top providers. When long-term contracts that subsidized phones were still around up to a few years ago, the buyouts to switch providers were so aggressive that you could end up with an extra few hundred dollars in your pocket on top of a new phone every 2 years when switching providers, or staying with the same provider and getting the loyalty/retention department to match offers. Yes, there may be better deals to be found down south sometimes, but not by enough of a margin to deal with cross-border banking, currency conversion, and much worse consumer protection laws for most people. Yes, additional competition might potentially help drive prices down, but the low ROI on the huge amount of infrastructure required for such a small population might also result in worse economies of scale for all players resulting in the need to cut corners on coverage or service quality to remain competitive. Also, I'm not convinced coverage is better down south. Anecdotally, I seem to hit way more deadspots driving down I5 through Washington and Oregon than I do on Highway 1 across BC to Alberta despite having much larger swathes of populated areas. I'm also shocked everytime I go to New York and get zero cell signal in every subway station including near Wall Street, when every underground transit station in Vancouver has coverage (admittedly Toronto does not have this though).
ospzfmbbzr 4y ago
> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. It's ration dis-engagement -- even if they don't know they are doing it. Deep down even the most dedicated sheep know they have no ability to impact anything. Canada is a democracy but that doesn't mean what people think it means. There's zero public accountability for anything and it's only getting worse. The 'solution' offered for this created problem is always more bureaucracy and government and taxes, but no accountability on results. Canada is the country of the future..! If the future is the movie Brazil.
r00fus 4y ago
Doesn't T-Mobile USA have a free international roaming deal or something for North America + Mexico? Also back in the day Verizon had a "US+Canada" sub that was quite reasonable (not unlimited but nothing was back then).
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  It's a really sweet deal.
kenned3 4y ago
I'm not sure you intended to come across as condescending but it does read this way. "The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it." First, that isn't what financial illiteracy means. Next, It is very easy to write things like this but what are your proposals? you seem to feel they are being "ripped off", speak down upon them for not doing anything, but fail to offer any solutions.. very helpful? Are they really being ripped off? I lived in the US for ~8 years and used T-Mobile. i dont find the T-Moble price to be too far off my freedom monthly rates. we LOVE to complain about the prices differences, but never actually show what they really are. it is hard to provide coverage in a massive country with low population. California has more people vs Canada.
- _aavaa_ 4y ago
  > it is hard to provide coverage in a massive country with low population. I keep hearing and I personally think it's a distraction. Yes covering all of Canada would be very expensive because of the low population. But, coverage is spotty after driving only 30 minutes outside of a major city centre. And there aren't too many of those.
- jamal-kumar 4y ago
  Key for me is that since I don't spend most of my time in Canada, I need plans without insane roaming fees. Nothing like that there. I would get into detail about what plans I'm on but it feels too much like dropping my own dox. Again this is two separate phone lines from two separate countries which work fine in Canada, costing less than one Canadian phone line would. I have only one specific proposal - ban banks from giving horrible financial advise by changing one letter. If you want to understand where I'm coming from it's this [1] [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-adviser-advisor-1.4049326 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-advise...
- TMWNN 4y ago
  >I lived in the US for ~8 years and used T-Mobile. i dont find the T-Moble price to be too far off my freedom monthly rates. I pay Sprint (now T-Mobile) $20 total for two unlimited lines. Yes, that includes all taxes and fees. Admittedly, I got a fantastic deal (only available for two weeks) for one of the two lines, got the other line as a free promotion also only briefly available, and then got the taxes/fees incorporated into the total when the account moved over to T-Mobile. But if I didn't have those deals, I'd pay $25 (after a group discount that's trivial to get) to Visible for an unlimited line on the Verizon network, or Mint Mobile's[1] $30/month for unlimited plan, or $20/month for 10GB plan (which might as well be unlimited for me, and probably 95% of others). My understanding is that nothing in Canada comes close to these rates. [1] Canadian Ryan Reynolds as spokesman and part owner
TMWNN 4y ago
>The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. Why Canadians pay much more and have access to less despite living in a country that is 95% culturally, economically, and politically identical to the US, I do not know. I didn't fully understand the disparity until I read the amazing stories in a /r/canada discussion. victorn72's account <http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_prices_so_much_higher_than_the_us/cehewa1?context=3 http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_pr...> caused my jaw to drop open. That said, isn't the sheer popularity of crossborder shopping an indicator that Canadians aren't financially illterate? That they do know what's going on, and act accordingly?
908B64B197 4y ago
> I fucking left and haven't had a cell phone plan in Canada for like a decade. My bill on TWO FOREIGN PHONES even roaming WITHIN CANADA is cheaper than maintaining a stupid Bell Rogers or Telus plan internationally. A colleague of mine had an acquaintance in the Canadian CBP who apparently managed to get a cell phone plan in America that included free roaming in Canada via a postal box. So he ended up paying half of what Canadians paid (and also had international roaming at much cheaper rates). Kinda ironic considering that, as my colleague put it, his job consists mostly of taxing people trying to get a bargain by shopping across the border.

jagger27 4y ago

Financial illiteracy is a little fucking harsh, no? We know we’re getting absolutely shafted.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
Then why aren't you doing anything about it? Why is the contrast between Canada and the rest of the world palpably stark? Why do banks get away with disgusting loopholes like getting around laws by calling themselves "financial advisers" rather than advisOrs? A little harsh? Do something about it enough that I might consider returning
- cmrdporcupine 4y ago
  Oh please lost child return to us. We're begging you to come back. Gimme a break. We are a country with 1/10th the population of the US -- the largest economy in the world and an aggressive military power -- and we're sitting right next to it, for most of our history barely holding onto an independent existence. Most of our "successful" industries consist of "ripping and shipping" raw commodities to service that market. It should not surprise you why things are the way they are. It's gross how these domestic industries end up this way, captured by a cabal of self-serving corporate dickheads, but TBH on the whole the alternative would be raw subservience to US corporations who would steamroll our entire economy. There is no easy answer, or it would have been done already.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    I mean the easy answer for me was taking off, and now the country seems to be facing a brain drain. [1] Good luck with that I guess. [1] https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article-canadas-tech-sector-has-a-brain-drain-problem/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/podcasts/the-decibel/article...
    - cmrdporcupine 4y ago
      This has always been the case. You're not special or particularly interesting. It was, however, amusing watching so many Canadians return during the Trump years and COVID. Our Google office in Waterloo almost doubled in size from returning Canadians. But we frankly should have clawed the subsidized portion of your tuition from you before you left the country.
      - jamal-kumar 4y ago
        I dunno I've been gone for a long time now. You want my tax return, too? I'll send you scans of my ID so you can steal my identity and score that I love letting condescending Google employees steal my identity ever since deleting my Gmail account
        cmrdporcupine 4y ago
        Don't worry, I'm not at Google anymore. My condescension is inherent and essential, not a property of my employment. But I probably wouldn't have let it loose if you didn't come across as a precious ass, yourself.
        jamal-kumar 4y ago
        That's candy ass to you bucko This is the closest I've come to a flamewar on this site, thanks for the cheap entertainment
        jagger27 4y ago
- jagger27 4y ago
  What exactly can be done? Vote harder?
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    Well considering if you voted in a party whose promise of voting reform has been heavily rescinded, I think pressing them to fulfill that promise would be a start.
    - jagger27 4y ago
      Not sure what gave you the impression I voted red or the authority to assert that I did. When a Liberal federal candidate came to my door last election cycle the electoral reform about face was the first thing I grilled them on. I didn’t get a satisfying answer. First past the post is not going away any time soon.

cpsns 4y ago

> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. In reality there is nothing meaningful Canadians can do to fix this, that isn't how things work in Canada. MPs and MLAs don't listen and no party that could actually win will take the required steps to solve this problem. It's extremely difficult not to be apathetic when you know the fight isn't winnable. People know they're getting ripped off, that's why anyone who can goes to America to buy essential goods.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
I mean you can do what I did and leave. A lot of intelligent people have already. Hello, doctor shortage? It's a nice passport.
- ckdarby 4y ago
  You left over internet and mobile bills? Damn.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    I ran a VoIP company before leaving because of spook interference. Long story I won't tell here.
- ejb999 4y ago
  didn't realize there was a doctor shortage in Canada - all I ever hear about countries with socialized medicine is how they are better than the US at delivering health care more cheaply - possibly true in some respects, but if there is no doctor to see you, than it really doesn't matter. US system is far from perfect, but at least I can always find a doctor when I need one.
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    It's awful if you have a chronic health condition or need specialists but when you get hit by a car and don't have to pay a huge hospital bill it is pretty cool. Still it's hemorrhaging talent because of dumb pay schemes that could probably be fixed overnight if it wasn't for the aforementioned financial illiteracy

cmrdporcupine 4y ago

The problem in the end comes down to the fine line Canada always straddles due to the proverbial "sleeping with the elephant" (see quote from Trudeau Sr.) The fear being that if Canada deregulates fully and opens critical sectors like telecomms etc. to full competition we will completely lose these industries to US (or Chinese, etc.) interests. And yet at the same time domestic regulation is continually captured by predatorial internal interests. Canada has always been this way, and it's frustrating as hell. Almost every industry has a caste of "goold old boys" who seek to prevent competition by capturing regulatory agencies. Many times many participants all went to private school together @ Upper Canada College, etc. Or sit/sat on boards together. You could say "ok, disband the regulation and let them compete" but many times that just leads to the total collapse of certain domestic industries because they simply can't compete with US capital.

voisin 4y ago
> You could say "ok, disband the regulation and let them compete" but many times that just leads to the total collapse of certain domestic industries because they simply can't compete with US capital. What’s wrong with this if it leads to lower costs for consumers and better service?
- xav0989 4y ago
  Canada wants to maintain a domestic industry, in part to not be held to the whims of another country's governing body. When the people that control your information flow, your food production, etc. are not within your jurisdiction, you're effectively at the mercy of both them and the government of their country.
  - voisin 4y ago
    > in part to not be held to the whims of another country's governing body. Just because the industry is foreign doesn’t mean it isn’t subject to local regulation and oversight.
    - 4y ago

11101010001100 4y ago

My hack was to create a company with 0 revenue and its only expense being telco bills. So far so good.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
That's pretty damn clever, actually! I have a friend who didn't graduate high school cause he was too busy playing world of warcraft all the time who is the only millionaire I know from those days and he pulls stuff like this off all the time too.
lucasyvas 4y ago
Elaborate?

heresie-dabord 4y ago

> an enormous [...] financial illiteracy I suspect you're right that people don't care enough to make this a major political matter. But isn't financial illiteracy a common problem among workers and consumers throughout the world? In some countries, a worker has only a small amount of vacation, no sick leave, no worker organisation, a wretched minimum wage, high rental cost, and no hope of owning a home to escape the threat of eviction. There are places where health care is available only through an employer and the cost of health treatment can bankrupt workers and their families. There are places where people pay taxes but infrastructure is not maintained and has become unsafe. The water may not be safe to drink and the electricity grid may be fragile but tax payers bear the exorbitant cost of for-profit utilities. There are inexpensive talk-and-text plans in Canada. A generous cellular plan may still be a luxury for most people.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
So no internet on that plan? Bruh I live in a so-called third world country and no such restricted thing exists. Can also drink the water juuuuuust fine. Electricity grid is more an affect of extreme tropical weather. The Americans come here and point at messes of coils of wire on every pole - like yeah that's how we make it repaired fast when a tropical storm hits. Health care is immediately available for less than a benjamin. If a Canadian doctor puts me on a waiting list on a visit back, I tell him sorry gonna do it somewhere else don't bother making another appointment.
- mthoms 4y ago
  Hey "Bruh". The points you're making may be perfectly valid but your tone is condescending and childish. Maybe dial it back a bit? We're all very glad you've found your utopia.

voisin 4y ago

> an enormous sense of financial illiteracy With all due respect, I don’t pick up on this at all. I get the distinct impression that everyone realizes how much we’re getting screwed but has a learned helplessness that we are no match for the corruption of our corporate political overlords. Protest over $150/mo cellphone plans? We don’t even do that over 35% growth in housing prices year over year over year.

fxleach 4y ago

> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Completely false. Ask any Canadian how they feel about their internet or mobile phone bill and they will tell you they're being ripped off. We have been battling Rogers and Bell for decades, they have too much money and influence at this point.

jamal-kumar 4y ago
You know what I will have to contend the critical comments on this one are spot on. CBC marketplace is a good indicator. You can still literally just go to the USA and get a sim chip that costs less to use in Canada than it does to do the opposite. Hmm.
- fxleach 4y ago
  I see a lot of your replies are to basically leave the country. Got a chip on your shoulder bud?
  - jamal-kumar 4y ago
    I mean my phone bill isn't 200$ and massively data capped with bad coverage anymore so if it's to get a better deal on your phone bill then that's my advice yes
    - hhw 4y ago
      I think financially literate people in Canada don't pay anywhere near $200. I've always paid around $50/mo for the last 20 years, without ever going out of my way to shop for promotions, and have been able to have all the data usage I could reasonably use (previously excluded watching videos when not on Wi-Fi, but the most recent plan of a few years has enough data that I no longer need to), plus extra bells and whistles like free roaming in the US. This is with both a corporate plan with Bell the last 6-7 years, and a regular single individual plan with Rogers all the years before that, so wasn't even with a lower cost provider. There are huge promotions multiple times a year because the competition is fierce between the top providers. When long-term contracts that subsidized phones were still around up to a few years ago, the buyouts to switch providers were so aggressive that you could end up with an extra few hundred dollars in your pocket on top of a new phone every 2 years when switching providers, or staying with the same provider and getting the loyalty/retention department to match offers. Yes, there may be better deals to be found down south sometimes, but not by enough of a margin to deal with cross-border banking, currency conversion, and much worse consumer protection laws for most people. Yes, additional competition might potentially help drive prices down, but the low ROI on the huge amount of infrastructure required for such a small population might also result in worse economies of scale for all players resulting in the need to cut corners on coverage or service quality to remain competitive. Also, I'm not convinced coverage is better down south. Anecdotally, I seem to hit way more deadspots driving down I5 through Washington and Oregon than I do on Highway 1 across BC to Alberta despite having much larger swathes of populated areas. I'm also shocked everytime I go to New York and get zero cell signal in every subway station including near Wall Street, when every underground transit station in Vancouver has coverage (admittedly Toronto does not have this though).

ospzfmbbzr 4y ago

> The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. It's ration dis-engagement -- even if they don't know they are doing it. Deep down even the most dedicated sheep know they have no ability to impact anything. Canada is a democracy but that doesn't mean what people think it means. There's zero public accountability for anything and it's only getting worse. The 'solution' offered for this created problem is always more bureaucracy and government and taxes, but no accountability on results. Canada is the country of the future..! If the future is the movie Brazil.

r00fus 4y ago

Doesn't T-Mobile USA have a free international roaming deal or something for North America + Mexico? Also back in the day Verizon had a "US+Canada" sub that was quite reasonable (not unlimited but nothing was back then).

jamal-kumar 4y ago
It's a really sweet deal.

kenned3 4y ago

I'm not sure you intended to come across as condescending but it does read this way. "The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it." First, that isn't what financial illiteracy means. Next, It is very easy to write things like this but what are your proposals? you seem to feel they are being "ripped off", speak down upon them for not doing anything, but fail to offer any solutions.. very helpful? Are they really being ripped off? I lived in the US for ~8 years and used T-Mobile. i dont find the T-Moble price to be too far off my freedom monthly rates. we LOVE to complain about the prices differences, but never actually show what they really are. it is hard to provide coverage in a massive country with low population. California has more people vs Canada.

_aavaa_ 4y ago
> it is hard to provide coverage in a massive country with low population. I keep hearing and I personally think it's a distraction. Yes covering all of Canada would be very expensive because of the low population. But, coverage is spotty after driving only 30 minutes outside of a major city centre. And there aren't too many of those.
jamal-kumar 4y ago
Key for me is that since I don't spend most of my time in Canada, I need plans without insane roaming fees. Nothing like that there. I would get into detail about what plans I'm on but it feels too much like dropping my own dox. Again this is two separate phone lines from two separate countries which work fine in Canada, costing less than one Canadian phone line would. I have only one specific proposal - ban banks from giving horrible financial advise by changing one letter. If you want to understand where I'm coming from it's this [1] [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-adviser-advisor-1.4049326 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-advise...
TMWNN 4y ago
>I lived in the US for ~8 years and used T-Mobile. i dont find the T-Moble price to be too far off my freedom monthly rates. I pay Sprint (now T-Mobile) $20 total for two unlimited lines. Yes, that includes all taxes and fees. Admittedly, I got a fantastic deal (only available for two weeks) for one of the two lines, got the other line as a free promotion also only briefly available, and then got the taxes/fees incorporated into the total when the account moved over to T-Mobile. But if I didn't have those deals, I'd pay $25 (after a group discount that's trivial to get) to Visible for an unlimited line on the Verizon network, or Mint Mobile's[1] $30/month for unlimited plan, or $20/month for 10GB plan (which might as well be unlimited for me, and probably 95% of others). My understanding is that nothing in Canada comes close to these rates. [1] Canadian Ryan Reynolds as spokesman and part owner

TMWNN 4y ago

>The major sense I get from Canadians whenever I arrive back is an enormous sense of financial illiteracy. Like they just don't know or care about how badly they get ripped off all the time on so many things and will never care enough to do anything meaningful about it. Why Canadians pay much more and have access to less despite living in a country that is 95% culturally, economically, and politically identical to the US, I do not know. I didn't fully understand the disparity until I read the amazing stories in a /r/canada discussion. victorn72's account <http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_prices_so_much_higher_than_the_us/cehewa1?context=3 http://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/1ueai3/why_are_our_pr...> caused my jaw to drop open. That said, isn't the sheer popularity of crossborder shopping an indicator that Canadians aren't financially illterate? That they do know what's going on, and act accordingly?

908B64B197 4y ago

> I fucking left and haven't had a cell phone plan in Canada for like a decade. My bill on TWO FOREIGN PHONES even roaming WITHIN CANADA is cheaper than maintaining a stupid Bell Rogers or Telus plan internationally. A colleague of mine had an acquaintance in the Canadian CBP who apparently managed to get a cell phone plan in America that included free roaming in Canada via a postal box. So he ended up paying half of what Canadians paid (and also had international roaming at much cheaper rates). Kinda ironic considering that, as my colleague put it, his job consists mostly of taxing people trying to get a bargain by shopping across the border.