Biiiiink

Increases in value on said crumbling tenements are now enough to fund a 2yr dental course in Canada, a new car, a new house, moving costs and still leave enough change to live off for two years...!!!

But 5h1t still floods. As we found out recently when our neighbours' 120yr old lead pipe let them down. Well. Let it down on our heads more like.

Glaswegian

Hmm - as an NHS dentist I suspect you are living in a much nicer Victorian terrace/area than Mr G grew up in!

Could we try hard to not let this thread sink to the "I was poorer than you" type. We are all looking for the same things in the end.

Mrs G

Glaswegian

Slightly to the right of Attilla the Hun ...
Well, at least we achieved something this week

Glaswegian

The crumbling tenements I'm talking about were kocked down before they spontaneously fell down ... German bombing raids on the docks hadn't done them a lot of good ....

Is your crumbling tenement in Kelvinside by some chance

Judy in Calgary

Well, following up on what Glaswegian said, it just goes to show that every cloud has a silver lining. If Alberta's jerkiness shows Toronto up in a better light in your eyes, I'm glad about that.

I don't like Alberta's right wing inclinations.

Glaswegian's comparison with Attila the Hun is not too far off the mark, in my opinion. Recently I went to a town hall meeting that Stephen Harper held in his riding of Calgary Southwest. (For anyone who reads this message from outside of Canada and doesn't know who Harper is, he is the Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada and also the Leader of the Opposition. As you may have gathered, "riding" is the word that Canadians use for constituency.)

The audience gave Harper standing ovation after standing ovation for the most inane comments. The way they carried on, I expected they might stick out their right arms and chant, "Sig heil!" any minute, but thank goodness they stopped short of that.

Although it was billed as a "town hall" meeting, Harper did not accept open questions from the floor. Instead, you had to submit your question on a card ahead of the meeting. The organisers collected the cards and sifted through them before handing them to Harper. Wouldn't you know it, but the meeting ran out of time before he reached my question on equal marriage. Surprise, surprise.

There are things I like about Calgary -- the sunshine, the nearby mountains, the manageable size of the city. But, as I said before, I don't like the right wing socio-political climate. Living here is a compromise for me.

My husband loves his work in the oil services industry. He has found a niche that is less influenced by the United States (or more specifically Texas) than much of the rest of the industry is. Astonishingly, when the Canadian president of his company recently retired, the company appointed as president an immigrant whose mother tongue was not English. In my experience, that is unusual around here. My husband's work brings him into contact with people from Latin America, from the Middle East, from Russia, and from other places. One of our greatest pleasures was having some visiting Russian engineers to our home for Thanksgiving dinner last year. It was a novel experience for them. A year prior to that, my own work had provided me with prolonged contact with a group of 21 Iranian engineers, which I also found very interesting and personally rewarding.

If you look for them, there are progressive groups in Calgary. In fact, once you plug into the network, there are so many progressive organisations and activities that they sponsor that it's impossible to keep up with them all. I've actually got quite burned out by my attempts to stay up to date with the goings on and to participate in even a small fraction of them. But staying in touch with them feels better than living in a socio-political desert.

By the way, I wouldn't necessarily recommend that a new immigrant get involved in Canadian politics. I think when you first arrive, finding a job, setting up a home, getting your kids settled in school, etc., are more than enough to keep you occupied. If you have children and ferry them to sports activities and music lessons, that will be more than enough to keep you out of mischief. (As I understand it, seacreature, you don't have children, but I'm addressing this part of my post to immigrants in general.) Also, I think it's a good idea to acquire some familiarity with Canada and with the issues before weighing into politics. But I've been here since the latter part of the 1970s, I've had enough time to become familiar with political issues, and my kids now are young adults, so I have some spare capacity.

seacreature

I'm not getting involved in Canadian politics.
I just dislike the people hating 'right-wing', it's one of the things
I hated most about the UK. Idiotic Daily Mail readers ranting and
raving about immigrants, single mothers, gays and asylum seekers.
These people should get a life.
That's what I find particularly refreshing about Toronto, there's little
of the mindless bigotry you find in Britain. People here 'get along'.

owen

Absolutely, the worst paper in the history of British press, some things they say are pure nazi-ism

jaynie35uk

Not the words i would have used but my mother in law is canadian and bringing up her grandson on benefits and isnt as well off as she would be in the uk on benefits, ive known her not have enough money for food, that is terrible, we get enough money here to run cars, have computers etc,,, as well as the basics, so in respect, the uk does have a better benefit system than canada... sorry

baileyalison

cant agree more uk is a total sh**hole youre spot on theres nothing left for this place its full of the dregs of everyones society in the next 15 years it will be a third world country its totally bollocksed and as for the kids theres nothing here for them get out while you can and make a new life we do have a good welfare system thats why every low life from everywhere else is on it and were sinking

buzz365

The uk has always been a 'sh**hole' as you put it, but i would love you to exspand on 'full of the dregs of everyones society'.

baileyalison

people entering illegally sponging off the dole getting benefits that we pay for non workers just sponging we dont have enough work for our own folk so why do we continue to overload the country with spongers enough is enough we are sinking fast why do you think everyone whos skilled is getting out

buzz365

Those that arrive illegally tend to stay well under the radar as they obviously dont want to be caught. I would guess the ones you are talking about are the people who come here legally and are hosted by the uk. Those people come to the uk because the government allow them too. Often there are restrictions on them being allowed to work so they have no choice but to live off the state. If its a problem then it is the government which is to blame not the people.

As the E.U expands and allows more nations to join many will end up in the uk as there are more opportunities here with far better wages.

The problem with the uk is it has sat on its hands for far to long and actually believe the hype about it being great as in 'Great Britain', rather than invest in education and so on. I look around and see people born here studying with the intention of plying there trade abroad. Mostly in the states.

baileyalison

yes you are right it is the government for not having the back bone to stand up for themselves and say enough is enough i hope youre not one of the do gooders that has let this country go to the dogs

dbd33

I do hope baileyalison that you're not thinking of coming to Toronto. Here more than 50% of the population were born outside Canada, in 2007 it is projected that more than 50% of the population will be non-white. In short, we are the people you fear at home.

baileyalison

hello i didnt say non white you did i dont care what colour anyone is or where there from as long as they bring skills and want to work not sponge and drain the uk dry which is what is happening i wish we did what canada does and had a points system then at least it would be regulated