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When I was younger (decades ago...) Canada felt more 'exotic' than it does today. That may just be me getting older and less awed by new things, but I'm struck

When I was younger (decades ago...) Canada felt more 'exotic' than it does today. That may just be me getting older and less awed by new things, but I'm struck every time I visit by how much like America Canada is. Maybe that's why I like it so much. America but with universal health care :). Disclaimer: I only ever go to BC (and I have lived in the PNW most of my life), so this might be a very biased hot take. I bet Quebec is a little bit different, as well as the other provinces & territories.

hermitcrab 2y ago
I went to Vancouver last year. It my first time in Canada and I was surprised how similar to an American big city it felt.
- astrodust 2y ago
  It's probably because all kinds of movies set in American cities are filmed in Vancouver.
b112 2y ago
What radio and then TV did, the Internet has continued. The world is shrinking, its cultures are merging, one day there will be one language, and one culture, or... maybe two yelling at each other. I once heard, in the early 2000s, that more than 1/2 the languages spoken 150 years ago are gone.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  eh, the internet also provides plenty of ways to split off into subcultures. maybe the subcultures cut across traditional nationalities but they're still there.
switchbak 2y ago
Canada is being "Americanized", and the media and entertainment landscape is at the forefront of that. I will say though, weighing in on a neighbouring nation while only having visited one of its provinces strikes me as a little bit conceited. A visit to BC is not going to give you much of a perspective of the diversity of this country. Also: our health care is amongst the worst of the western nations at this stage. Subsequent governments have carved it away to be a shell of its former self.
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  > conceited That's a little harsh, I admitted as much in my post. I figured that my disclaimer would clarify that what I really think is "The PNW is very similar no matter which side of the 49th parallel you find yourself on." I withhold any opinion on your health care; I've heard negatives, sure, but I've got no skin in the game. Philosophically I like it better than what we're doing in the US, even if the results have been lackluster so far.
  - joshlemer 2y ago
    Canadian here, and I think that especially on philosophical grounds, the Canadian system is terrible. The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of healthcare services, it is illegal in most provinces to buy any healthcare for your family. The official marketing is that services are given out in priority order. In practice, it's rationed according to a lottery, your connections, whether you can afford to live near medical center, your ability to advocate for yourself, ability to show up an hour before a facility opens and wait in line for 5 hours, push through constant gaslighting by doctors whose goal is to dissuade you from receiving care (they'd rather you just give up and go home, here take this antibiotic and get out of my face), willingness to embellish symptoms to get higher priority placement, etc. When the system utterly fails you, you have zero recourse. You just accept that you won't get to see a specialist for 6 months (if you're lucky, often a year). There is no escape hatch. Only if you're lucky enough to afford paying out of pocket and be able to get out of the country to get medical attention. Millions of Canadians have no access to a family doctor (25-60% of British Columbians, for example). With increasing frequency, Emergency Rooms themselves are closing their doors (can't operate a whole 24/7 rotation). On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that, even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone else's treatment, and then after the government refuses to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already paying for services not received, they then make it illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide basic healthcare to myself and my family.
peab 2y ago
I feel the same. Just look at accents of people back in the 90s compared to now
- 486sx33 2y ago
  What you talkin aboot eh?
ThrowawayTestr 2y ago
Whenever I visit the states it feels like Canada just bigger
- rootusrootus 2y ago
  I'm going to interpret that as a compliment.
- willhslade 2y ago
  That is accurate. 10x population.
qball 2y ago
There are between 4-7 major subcountries in Canada (for reference, the US has 11 of them) depending on how you count them. Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada), Upper Canada (triangle formed by Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal), Lower Canada (Quebec), and the Maritimes. If you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces (they have their own dialect of English), the North (sparsely populated but the kind of Canadian that lives there is different), and to a point Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Of those, the West is functionally the Midwest (Vancouver and Island are not meaningfully distinct from Seattle/Portland/Bay cities in terms of politics) where each province is flavored towards the State to its immediate south, Upper Canada is culturally NYC-DC North (and for that reason is as hostile to the rest of the country as NYC/DC are to the US in general), Lower Canada is French (obviously), and the Maritimes are the Rust Belt. The reason for Upper Canada's insularity (and to a point, Lower Canada's) is its age and geography: as the US found out in 1812 it's very difficult to reinforce across the Great Lakes. As for the West, there might as well be no border at all, so commerce and culture move freely (it also helps that, because plentiful natural resources and space causes a freedom-focused outlook on human rights, most people who live in the West will naturally have that in common with their southern counterparts).
- nightowl_games 2y ago
  > Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada), Definetly need to split this further: Prairies - Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta Mountains - Everything inside the Rockies BC - Its it's own thing
- mb7733 2y ago
  > you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces (they have their own dialect of English) Just a heads up, Newfoundland isn't a part of the Maritimes at all, and those from Newfoundland will certainly remind you of that if you lump them in :)
- nullhole 2y ago
  The north-south cultural group is correct, but I'd disagree with some of the specifics you mentioned. The cultural division between BC and the 'west' (AB, SK, MB) is pretty strong. Southern Ontario is a lot closer to upstate ny / the midwest than NYC, I'd say. The Maritimes is much more like New England than the rust belt. Newfoundland isn't even part of the Maritime provinces - it's part of the Atlantic provinces.
bparsons 2y ago
A linguist friend once told me that language patterns in North America run north/south. For whatever reason, culture and migration seem to work the same way. If you are from BC, you are more likely to travel to or move to California than you are Nova Scotia or Florida. Likewise, if you are from Montana, you probably feel more comfortable in Alberta or Saskatchewan than you would in New York or Alabama. While our governments function very differently, NAFTA has removed most of the institutional barriers preventing the natural movement of money, people and culture between the two places.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  time zone and climate vary much more east west than immediately north south considering the populated zones of Canada are almost entirely 100km from the US border.
gosub100 2y ago
> America but with universal health care :). And much lower wages and opportunities, but the same (or higher) housing prices. There's a reason you don't live there.
- 486sx33 2y ago
  All democrats should move to Canada to experience socialism lite, which is what people voted the Democratic Party in for.

hermitcrab 2y ago

I went to Vancouver last year. It my first time in Canada and I was surprised how similar to an American big city it felt.

astrodust 2y ago
It's probably because all kinds of movies set in American cities are filmed in Vancouver.

b112 2y ago

What radio and then TV did, the Internet has continued. The world is shrinking, its cultures are merging, one day there will be one language, and one culture, or... maybe two yelling at each other. I once heard, in the early 2000s, that more than 1/2 the languages spoken 150 years ago are gone.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bobthepanda 2y ago
eh, the internet also provides plenty of ways to split off into subcultures. maybe the subcultures cut across traditional nationalities but they're still there.

switchbak 2y ago

Canada is being "Americanized", and the media and entertainment landscape is at the forefront of that. I will say though, weighing in on a neighbouring nation while only having visited one of its provinces strikes me as a little bit conceited. A visit to BC is not going to give you much of a perspective of the diversity of this country. Also: our health care is amongst the worst of the western nations at this stage. Subsequent governments have carved it away to be a shell of its former self.

rootusrootus 2y ago
> conceited That's a little harsh, I admitted as much in my post. I figured that my disclaimer would clarify that what I really think is "The PNW is very similar no matter which side of the 49th parallel you find yourself on." I withhold any opinion on your health care; I've heard negatives, sure, but I've got no skin in the game. Philosophically I like it better than what we're doing in the US, even if the results have been lackluster so far.
- joshlemer 2y ago
  Canadian here, and I think that especially on philosophical grounds, the Canadian system is terrible. The state has a monopoly on the purchasing of healthcare services, it is illegal in most provinces to buy any healthcare for your family. The official marketing is that services are given out in priority order. In practice, it's rationed according to a lottery, your connections, whether you can afford to live near medical center, your ability to advocate for yourself, ability to show up an hour before a facility opens and wait in line for 5 hours, push through constant gaslighting by doctors whose goal is to dissuade you from receiving care (they'd rather you just give up and go home, here take this antibiotic and get out of my face), willingness to embellish symptoms to get higher priority placement, etc. When the system utterly fails you, you have zero recourse. You just accept that you won't get to see a specialist for 6 months (if you're lucky, often a year). There is no escape hatch. Only if you're lucky enough to afford paying out of pocket and be able to get out of the country to get medical attention. Millions of Canadians have no access to a family doctor (25-60% of British Columbians, for example). With increasing frequency, Emergency Rooms themselves are closing their doors (can't operate a whole 24/7 rotation). On a philosophical level, I think it plainly evil that, even after I've paid such high taxes to fund everyone else's treatment, and then after the government refuses to provide me with adequate healthcare, after already paying for services not received, they then make it illegal to use whatever money I have left to provide basic healthcare to myself and my family.

peab 2y ago

I feel the same. Just look at accents of people back in the 90s compared to now

486sx33 2y ago
What you talkin aboot eh?

ThrowawayTestr 2y ago

Whenever I visit the states it feels like Canada just bigger

rootusrootus 2y ago
I'm going to interpret that as a compliment.
willhslade 2y ago
That is accurate. 10x population.

qball 2y ago

There are between 4-7 major subcountries in Canada (for reference, the US has 11 of them) depending on how you count them. Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada), Upper Canada (triangle formed by Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal), Lower Canada (Quebec), and the Maritimes. If you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces (they have their own dialect of English), the North (sparsely populated but the kind of Canadian that lives there is different), and to a point Vancouver and Vancouver Island. Of those, the West is functionally the Midwest (Vancouver and Island are not meaningfully distinct from Seattle/Portland/Bay cities in terms of politics) where each province is flavored towards the State to its immediate south, Upper Canada is culturally NYC-DC North (and for that reason is as hostile to the rest of the country as NYC/DC are to the US in general), Lower Canada is French (obviously), and the Maritimes are the Rust Belt. The reason for Upper Canada's insularity (and to a point, Lower Canada's) is its age and geography: as the US found out in 1812 it's very difficult to reinforce across the Great Lakes. As for the West, there might as well be no border at all, so commerce and culture move freely (it also helps that, because plentiful natural resources and space causes a freedom-focused outlook on human rights, most people who live in the West will naturally have that in common with their southern counterparts).

nightowl_games 2y ago
> Those are the West (everything west of Upper Canada), Definetly need to split this further: Prairies - Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta Mountains - Everything inside the Rockies BC - Its it's own thing
mb7733 2y ago
> you're going more granular, you have Newfoundland, which is very different from the rest of the Maritime provinces (they have their own dialect of English) Just a heads up, Newfoundland isn't a part of the Maritimes at all, and those from Newfoundland will certainly remind you of that if you lump them in :)
nullhole 2y ago
The north-south cultural group is correct, but I'd disagree with some of the specifics you mentioned. The cultural division between BC and the 'west' (AB, SK, MB) is pretty strong. Southern Ontario is a lot closer to upstate ny / the midwest than NYC, I'd say. The Maritimes is much more like New England than the rust belt. Newfoundland isn't even part of the Maritime provinces - it's part of the Atlantic provinces.

bparsons 2y ago

A linguist friend once told me that language patterns in North America run north/south. For whatever reason, culture and migration seem to work the same way. If you are from BC, you are more likely to travel to or move to California than you are Nova Scotia or Florida. Likewise, if you are from Montana, you probably feel more comfortable in Alberta or Saskatchewan than you would in New York or Alabama. While our governments function very differently, NAFTA has removed most of the institutional barriers preventing the natural movement of money, people and culture between the two places.

bobthepanda 2y ago
time zone and climate vary much more east west than immediately north south considering the populated zones of Canada are almost entirely 100km from the US border.

gosub100 2y ago

> America but with universal health care :). And much lower wages and opportunities, but the same (or higher) housing prices. There's a reason you don't live there.

486sx33 2y ago
All democrats should move to Canada to experience socialism lite, which is what people voted the Democratic Party in for.