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I have a lot of experience in both places. Americans may think think they do, but I don’t think so. As bad as Comcast and others are in the USA, I have found th
by amscanne 4y ago
I have a lot of experience in both places. Americans may think think they do, but I don’t think so. As bad as Comcast and others are in the USA, I have found them to be far more efficient and competitive than Rogers or Bell in Canada.
Same for banks in Canada. It’s unbelievable what they do and get away with.
And airlines. Rather, Airline.
I believe there’s a cultural element here: Canadians are more risk adverse and place a higher value on “established” companies and brands. This influences consumer behavior and legislation (Canadians don’t seem to care about laws that make it hard or impossible for market entrants).
- jonahrd 4y agoI'm a US citizen, Canadian permanent resident. I think it has to do with the fact that historically much of Canada's lands/provinces were literally just land owned by very massive British crown corporations. Massive corporations are baked into the history of Canada as a political entity.
- hackbinary 4y agoNo. "Crown Land" in Canada is owned by the provinces. There is no such thing as a "British Crown Corporation." Crown Corporations are a Canadian thing. I lived in Canada for 30 years and now live in the Scotland. CalMac and Scottish Water are not "Crown Corporations," but are nevertheless owned and controlled by the Scottish Ministers. This is contrast to BC Ferries, ICBC, and BC Hydro which are Crown Corporations. In the UK there is something called the Crown Estate, which is somethint again different.
- kelseydh 4y agoYou're at a National Park. In Canada, it's crown land. In America, it's your park. The Canadian mentality is different.
- hackbinary 4y agoNational Parks are not Crown Land. National Parks are reserves of land owned and managed by the Federal Parks Department and development is not allowed on that land whatsoever. Crown Land is land owned and administered by the provinces. Crown Land can be licenced for many uses and sometimes it can be purchased. Also, Provincial Parks are not Crown Land.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoWe also have national and provincial parks, Crown land is different. A national park is maintained for visitors and for nature, crown land is closer to unused or unclaimed land, generally nothing is done with it unless it's sold off. You are free to camp on crown land, but it's nothing like going to a park, it's full on wilderness camping with no amenities, sites, or anything else.
- kelseydh 4y agoMy point is, Canadians think of government land philosophically as something that is not theirs, but rather, owned by the crown -- the Queen. While Americans see public land as their shared land. This mentality penetrates into many of the differences between the two countries in how they govern.
- tempestn 4y agoI somewhat agree with your main point, but I don't think most Canadians associate the "Crown" as in Crown Land or Crown Corporations with the literal monarchy. Rather it's just a synonym for the (Canadian Federal) government. Most Canadians don't tend to think about the monarchy much at all. (Certainly the Canadian Governor General, theoretically the Queen's representative as head of state, would never be expected to actually take instruction from the Queen.)
- hackbinary 4y agoNo, Canadians do not see Crown Land as owned by the Canadian Monarchy, they see Crown Land and owned and controlled by the government as a public asset. Canadians see the Canadian Royal Family as nothing more than a figurehead of the state. I am a Canadian and I have studied British and North American History extensively.
- ShroudedNight 4y agoI expect gp was referring to The Hudson's Bay Company / Rupert's land
- II2II 4y agoI suspect that was a reference to the Hudson's Bay Company. I would have to brush up on my history, but they effectively controlled a huge tract of land pre-Confederation and continued to serve many smaller towns until well into the 20th century. I don't think the Hudson's Bay Company was considered a crown corporation, but they were granted a royal charter.
- hackbinary 4y agoYes, HBC has a Royal Charter from King Charles II which granted HBC exclusive economic activity in the lands that drained into Hudson Bay. HBC lands were surrendered to the British government in 1868 ahead of confederation.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoHBC (which is now a department store) was still required to give the crown 2 elks and 2 beavers whenever they visited Canada up until 1970.
- skeeter2020 4y ago>> No. "Crown Land" in Canada is owned by the provinces. Crown land is owned by the Canadian Crown; the monarchy owns all crown land officially. It's administered by a split across federal and provincial jurisdictions.
- bawolff 4y agoYeah but there is a difference between crown land owned by the crown in right of a province vs in right of the federal gov. (From what i understand. IANAL)
- hackbinary 4y ago>> Crown land is owned by the Canadian Crown; the monarchy owns all crown land officially. It's administered by a split across federal and provincial jurisdictions. No, Crown Land is controlled by the provinces. No, the Canadian monarchy does not own crown land. The Crown owns crown land. Essentially The Crown in Canada is its own legal entity and instrument for the purposes of administration of public lands. The Crown Estates of England and Scotland are something different again, and the Crown Estate owns things like tidal lands and actual real property. There is Federal Crown Land, but that is almost completely in the northern territories. This is down to Canada's constitutional makeup because provinces control resources. The Federal government can expropriate land from the provinces when it has a reason to do so like for military bases. Here is a link that shows Canada Lands. The white area are Provincial Lands. https://clss.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/data-donnees/sgb-maps-dag-carte/terre-canada-land/terre-canada-land_letter.jpg https://clss.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/data-donnees/sgb-maps-dag-car...
- ipaddr 4y agoIn Canadila about half of the crown land is federal and the other half provincial. In 2013 11% was private, 41% federal crown and 46 provincial crown
- hackbinary 4y agoFederal Crown Land is almost exclusively in the northern territories. Resource administration is a constitutional power that provinces administrator. The area in white in the below map are not Canada Lands which makes them Provincial Lands, ie Provincial Crown Lands. https://clss.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/data-donnees/sgb-maps-dag-carte/terre-canada-land/terre-canada-land_letter.jpg https://clss.nrcan-rncan.gc.ca/data-donnees/sgb-maps-dag-car...
- Mikeb85 4y agoI think they're referring to the fact that the Hudson's Bay Company used to be the legal owner of vast swaths of what is now Canada before selling/surrendering the land to the Canadian government.
- Scoundreller 4y agoAt least the Canadian banks and airlines have international operations. TD has more US than Canadian branches. But Rogers, Bell, Telus? Nobody has heard of them ex-Canada unless they’re an ex-resident with bad memories.
- amscanne 4y agoTD Bank (and Scotiabank in Latin America) operate as independent entities outside of Canada -- those American TD Bank branches are branches for a different bank (TD Bank USA). In fact, I believe that TD Bank (Canada) simply acquired a US bank rebranded it. I believe they have basically nothing in common operationally.
- lstamour 4y agoHalf right. Yes, TD has a lot of divisions, each separate: https://www.td.com/about-tdbfg/corporate-information/corporate-profile/profile.jsp https://www.td.com/about-tdbfg/corporate-information/corpora... But it’s also true that over the years, TD has had to merge systems and make changes. They’ve been operating in the US for about two decades now. So they’ve had time to merge and continue growing by merging companies in the US. It’s true though. They aren’t entirely integrated across borders the way other companies might be. The plans and cards they offer in the US are a much better value than those in Canada, too.
- stormbrew 4y agoThey are becoming more integrated than they used to be. I just opened a TD Bank account linked to my TD Canada Trust account that I can (theoretically, still getting it set up) manage through my Canadian login. At least a few years ago that wasn't possible.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoOddly enough, Telus is a medium-sized but well regarded player in the fiercely competitive market for outsourced call centres in the Philippines.
- 4y ago
- walrus01 4y ago> Same for banks in Canada. It’s unbelievable what they do and get away with. Canadian banks are so bad that they actually make the service and fees with a USD checking account with all the normal features at Wells Fargo look good.
- themitigating 4y agoIn Jersey City I can get xfinity (cable) Verizon 5g, or Fios 1gbit unmetered for $65 a month It's probably the density and income levels that make it worth putting out the infrastructure
- djmips 4y agoNot really. Most Canadians live near the US border and concentrated in high density. There's no correlation to what you are proposing. Income levels are good. Looking at developing countries, they have cheaper and better plans than Canada.
- willhslade 4y agoFurther to that : https://brilliantmaps.com/half-canada/ https://brilliantmaps.com/half-canada/
- rapind 4y agoIf you asked 100 Canadians if they’d prefer more competition to the telcos, 97 would say yes (1 works for Bell, 1 works for Rogers, 1 now works for the CRTC). We’re not risk adverse. It’s just that our government / regulator is captured.
- ryanbrunner 4y agoI wonder how many of them would actually buy them though. There's been attempts at mobile providers, sometimes offering prices that the big telcos won't try to match even to flood them out, and they tend to wither away.
- christinamltn 4y agoVery few of them have offered decent service at good prices. Usually outside of ~5 major metros you have effectively no coverage and speeds are often subpar compared to the incumbents.
- wvenable 4y agoMobile providers have to make huge investments in infrastructure to provide reasonable coverage in Canada. It happens on a small scale but it's like an entirely different market from the main players. Now I have little doubt that if foreign providers were allowed in Canada that Verizon or AT&T would be able to setup reasonable competition in short order.
- amscanne 4y agoThis happened: Wind Mobile. They couldn't immediately build infrastructure across the entire country, so IIRC you were "roaming" outside a few major urban centers. However, I believe they also had unlimited US roaming (much better than the big three). I expected more uptake since it would have been a better deal for most Canadians in those urban centers, but I think there's a subtle bias against taking these kinds of risks.
- willhslade 4y ago
- SECProto 4y ago> And airlines. Rather, Airline. I would dispute this one, only because in addition to Air Canada (fleet size 312), Westjet does exist (fleet size 162). And the other regional airlines offer (-ed, prepandemic) some price/service competition. Comparisons to the US aren't as useful with airlines as with some other industries due to population differences.
- amscanne 4y agoYeah, I thought about Westjet and decided that I wouldn’t quite call them a national competitor. I hope they continue to grow, both because I like Westjet and competition helps everyone. There’s a reason Air Canada’s unofficial slogan “we’re not happy until you’re not happy” is widely known.
- SECProto 4y agoI mean WestJet hits destinations in every province and two of the three territories (though Whitehorse is apparently going to be cut come September). I think that's a pretty solid national competitor. What reason is there to exclude them?
- sdenton4 4y agoPorter is really the best way to get in and out of Toronto...
- SECProto 4y agoWhile I used to love Porter both for location and better service at comparable price, it's not much good if you're flying to Vancouver or Toronto, and the one time I took it to St John's was miserable Edit: and the union Pearson Express made the main airport a lot more accessible
- dredmorbius 4y agoNew Zealand often seems like a toy country with one of everything. There's the One Bank, the One Telecom, the One Airline. Not ... exactly. But effectively, yes. A combination of a tiny population (5.1 millions) and a long way from nowhere (roughly 3,200 km / 2,000 mi from Sydney). Australia and Canada already have issues from their own small scale (and vast land areas). NZ takes it up a notch.
- ripdog 4y agoInteresting you'd say that in a thread about ISPs, considering we have regulation-enforced separation between the owners of our government-funded nation-wide FTTH network and the actual service providers. This means I have over a dozen ISPs to choose from, and they all over gigabit fibre and compete on price, customer service, and things like IPv6 or CG-NAT.
- neftaly 4y agoMobile data in NZ is pretty good nowadays, for NZD $60/mo we had unlimited/unthrottled 4G broadband good enough to play FPS games on. In Canada the best we can get is CAD $169/mo for average to middling speeds with pings over 180.
- dredmorbius 4y agoAt least of late NZ seem to have pretty good governance. That may help ameliorate the more agregious harms.
- tempestn 4y agoOn the other hand it made it quite an enviable place for much of a global pandemic.