Re: Canada is a scam
 

No, I don't say that, only that a place with a diversity of people is more likely to be receptive to minorities. I do say that northern Ontario is a racist place, anywhere in Canada with a significant native population is going to have well established racism that is easily retargeted to other ethnic minorities.

Incidentally, I am dealing right now with someone who, as a new immigrant, ill advisedly bought a condo in a building where he and his wife are the only people from India, They've been hounded out and have to move. That's a bother as real estate commissions are crushing. Much distress, billable hours lost, it's ugly, and that's in North York (yeah, wtf, anyone would move to North York baffles me too). I'm not suggesting that racism is only an issue in small town or northern Canada.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Many years ago, while living in Mexico, I had an American friend (an oilman) who was of the opinion that the majority of folk in any given country were 'psychologically unsuited' for migration - in that they had unrealistic expectations of how they would find, and be treated by, their new country.

Methinks the OP is such a person.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Great story!

Re: Canada is a scam
 

It is not a great story at all. They have sold and have less than two months to find somewhere to live "We are looking literally everywhere now, going as far as Oakville". It is, at least, amusing to hear someone else refer to Oakville as being slightly beyond the end of civilization.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

This is true. White supremacy is a serious problem, but particularly in more rural/suburban areas. Unfortunately this is an issue you will find in any country, but Canada is actually one of the "least worst" in terms of acceptance. Not many countries in the world where you will find someone of a different race in each house on a street.
We still have a way to go, but big picture wise, Canada is very good. When you look at the turnout for the PPC party you realize the racist bunch are a small minority, but loud mouthed.

Again, hospital waiting times are going up everywhere. I agree that there is a shortage of specialists and this is often by the doctor's own doing, protecting their jobs. Urgent issues do get prioritized though.

Food is around the same for the most part, asides from subsidized items in the UK such as dairy. Clothing can be a little bit more I agree, though Costco and Outlet malls are kind of the secret to saving money there. Furniture I would say is around the same, we have IKEA and the prices are pretty much just converted by exchange rate. The only one that really stands out is cell phones, but yeah that's one thing that definitely is more.

Again I don't think this is unique to Canada and also something you run into until you work in Canada for a few years. Because Canada has so many newcomers, some of them will have a good resume but you interview them and they are not well qualified at all, so many employers want to see Canadian experience. A bit of brushing up the resume can help overcome this though, to make yourself stand out.

I think you're projecting a bit here, you're creating a meaning out of things that have happened to you but I don't think thats the case.
Yes I'm sure the entire country is rude. Varies massively.
Maybe take a stroll onto a construction site, the Canadians there work incredibly hard with lots of heavy laborious work.

Well that is a shame it didn't work out for you. Good luck on your return.

There is some truth to this, J.J. McCullough is a Canadian journalist/youtuber and has made a couple of videos on this topic.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Are you free to speak of how and why they were hounded out?

I recall from my teenage years that our apartment building was accepting tenants who the local hospital who were here as interns from India and nurses from the Philipphines with work visas. They were not well liked at all and one of the main reasons was the horrid cooking odors that came from there apartments. Americans back then in the 60's, and probably still today, do not care for curry and cooking with very hot oil. The smells were obnoxious and there were many complaints until the management stopped renting to the hospital's immigrant personnel.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Irony?

I always try to teach my kids to avoid words like that if they don’t like something. Just because you don’t like something it doesn’t make it horrid or obnoxious.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Pervasive? Mississippi can be eloquent; no South, no Faulkner.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

I have yet to smell any cooking as horrid as tobacco smoke is, I am so glad smoking has been banned in apartments because it was awful having neighbors who smoked indoors, the smell was far more horrid than any cooking smell was and frankly I haven't ever smelled any food that I would even classify as horrid or obnoxious, sure I don't find curry the most pleasent smelling, but its also not what I would say is horrid or obnoxious.

No worse smell than tobacco smoke indoors which can also cause health issues for others where cooking smells at worst might be a little annoying but wont cause the health issues 2nd hand tobacco smoke can.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Luckily any true Brit enjoys the smell of curry.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

I only hear one side of the story. I work with the man involved, I don't know his wife nor his dog. As best I can fathom it: a dispute arose over their dog, there's no point in asking the details as people are so defensive about their pets. However, no one was bitten, the dispute is related to the allowable size of dog.

On the face of it that's not a racial dispute but as the dog argument ground on before the condo board the other party said something to the effect that having an offensive dog is an attribute of people who like sex and come from Pakistan. As the dispute has gone on the f****** p*** aspect has overshadowed whatever the dog's original transgression was. The wife can't deal with hearing that in the elevator over and over so they've sold up at a severe loss and are looking for something else to buy.

Now, of course, my colleague and his wife suspect the original dispute over the dog was racially motivated. I don't think we can know. Maybe their neighbours cruise the streets at night picking fights with brown people, Probably not, but maybe, in a dispute, they reach for the easy insult, if the people involved had different bodies they might have been insulted as fat bastards. It doesn't matter, the people involved feel they've been repeatedly insulted on the basis of their ethnicity, not that they're even from Pakistan, and that they have to leave. My problem is that good help is hard to come by and I don't want them to get H1Bs and piss off; the housing market may push them to that.

All that said, I work with people from the four corners. I've been involved in umpteen hirings and firings, I haven't heard of race being mentioned as a factor in either since the era of the Rae government. Religion sometimes, but not race. It would be ridiculous to claim there's no racism in the workplace, for example, managers who are poor in English often mitigate that by hiring people who speak their native tongue, but I think it far-fetched to think there's somewhere less racist at work than southern Ontario.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Take your mind out of the gutter Dave!

Re: Canada is a scam
 

I live there too, well Peterborough County but I know it well. It is racist, maybe not by Canadian standards but certainly in comparison to the UK. They did try and burn the mosque down there and only 15 or so years ago Campbellford Legion Halloween Fancy dress party made the news for a KKK man and his blackface captive in a noose.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

only one of them is any good and it's expensive. The Chinese restaurants are all Canadian Chinese as previously mentioned.
.There may be an assortment of restaurants but that doesn't make the place diverse. If It weren't for the university and college students you rarely see a non white face here.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Fun fact: Prince Andrew spent 6 months of his secondary education years at an elite private college near Peterborough.

More fun facts: Prince Andrew at Lakefield

Yeah, I realise it's just more "guilt by association" for Andrew. But he really has form, if the article is accurate, in terms of befriending pedophiles.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

This graffiti amused but slightly saddened me:

https://chopsybaby.com/magazine/bori...-sweaty-nonce/

I believe it to be accurate and it made me laugh but it's displaced "Nicholas Parsons is the Neo-opiate of the People" as my favourite after very many years.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Perhaps read the information on the link(s) I provided, rather than pick out the part about restaurants.. which if you noticed had a tongue smiley - it was a light hearted comment. Do you think I don't know the difference between 'an assortment of restaurants and a diverse population? Rather insulting for you to presume that.

Stats Canada: https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...B1=All&TABID=1

Diversity means having a range of people with various racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and cultural backgrounds and various lifestyles, experience, and interests.. which covers people from different areas of Europe, Asia, Africa or anywhere else on earth!
https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-r...TABID=1&type=0

Re: Canada is a scam
 

But the conversation wasn’t around diversity meaning a white English couple moved to Peterborough, and now the population is diverse… the conversation was around racism. If Peterborough is anything like Bracebridge, Muskoka then the place is as white as it can get, and very waspy. I frequently hear or see comments that I don’t think people even realize are racist because it’s so deeply ingrained.

Most of the reason Muskoka wasn’t hit hard by COVID is nothing to do with the virus, and everything to do with the type of community we live in e.g white, well off. We have neither multi generational housing or low paid factory workers with no sick leave. Systemic racism is very much the factor in why COVID hit many areas in and around Toronto so hard.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Condo buildings have rules about number of pets and the size of them. They are generally not flexible about this rule being broken, wherever you are from. The limit is based on the weight of the dog so, if you have a dog close to the weight limit then you need to keep that pooch on a strict diet. In this case it doesn't sound like they were hounded out because of their race but because of their hound.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

I let this point go but it's a common position here and in conservative media that diversity does not imply the inclusion of people who look different; so long as you have a francophone and someone of undecided sexuality that's enough. An OPP officer once told me "Dufferin County does have a diverse population, it's just that they all look the same". Dufferin County is, in fact, so inbred that there's something called the Dufferin County Ear and that ear only comes in pink.

My perception of a diverse crowd differs somewhat from this standard.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

As noted above, I'm not going to go far into such an irrationally emotive subject as pets. Arguably this is not the largest dog in the building but I haven't measured them. Why anyone would keep a dog in a condo is as much a mystery to me as why anyone would willingly move to North York.

As also noted above, the alleged racism kicked in after the initial dispute. In the ears of the people leaving it's not acceptable to use race as a term of abuse regardless of what argument it is incidental to.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Given that LBTQ is among the most victimized minority groups in Canada, I’d say they qualify for contributing to “diversity” and should not be dismissed off hand, be it via ignorance or malice.

http://www.torontopolice.on.ca/publi...rimereport.pdf

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Yes. Point deliberately missed, I note.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

No, also racist abuse in a public forum would have been grounds for a formal complaint and newspapers would have got involved.

Like this. https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/...cial-slur.html

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Your point that only certain minorities count stems from ignorance.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

I’ve read quite a bit this year around these subjects. I’ve always found it very interesting. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson is a great book, and her previous book The Warmth of Other Suns was also good. Jews Don’t Count by David Baddiel was also very good, and talks about the hierarchy of discrimination and racism.

I won’t speak for Dbd, but the conversation was around discrimination based on race, and you’re attempting to make it about something else. I would never disagree that being any minority group has life made so much harder for them. But I guess the point would be that a white gay couple would still have life easier than a black gay couple.

It seems ridiculous that we should even still be having these conversations, but Caste really talks about how the US is systemically racist at it’s core. Comparables with the US are easy to find within Canada and the UK.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

They are legitimate descriptive words and they fit the sentence from mine, my family's and the other tenants POV. The smells were horrible and to this day I cannot stomach the smell of curry or hot grease. If you wish to teach your child not to use certain descriptive words that is, of course, your choice.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

This is very true. Luckily for me, I'm not a Brit.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Well, I happen to think it’s quite rude to sit there and describe something they personally don’t like as horrid, so yes, I definitely will.

You also seemed to have missed the irony of your question and then your answer, almost like you were hoping that Dbd’s answer would fit with your own thinking and experience of why they should leave. It’s actually a great example of the whole discussion.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Wow. Way to double-down on the racism.

"They were not well liked" because of "horrid" and "obnoxious" cooking odours. To the extent that immigrants were hounded out of the apartment building. And you think those are "legitimate descriptive words."

I'm pretty disgusted, actually.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

If that was my point, it might stem from ignorance, or it might be a considered position. Since that's the reverse of my point of view, I can't say which it might be.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

There are rules about keeping animals in condo's - it will be in the written bylaws/rights and responsibilities agreement...
Regardless.. perhaps you could inform them that being called racist names goes against the Human Rights code... Racial harassment: know your rights (brochure) | Ontario Human Rights Commission / Policy and guidelines on racism and racial discrimination | Ontario Human Rights Commission
:)

Re: Canada is a scam
 

1. Conversation was about diversity. That’s why the term used was... “diversity”. You just chose to interpret it in a very particular way. I was responding to a specific comment saying that certain minorities don’t really count towards diversity: “so long as you have a francophone and someone of undecided sexuality that's enough.”

2. Very much appreciate that you read up all about racism and shared your knowledge with the uninitiated. Very kind of you. Some WASPs excel at it.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Sarcasm and mocking noted. So the alternative is I shouldn’t read? Maybe I should reach for Facebook instead to inform me? Maybe I shouldn’t talk about racism with my children at all or maybe my own understanding since I’m not meant to read about it, maybe they should go blindly about their life not understanding how they will always have it easier than others?

What a waste of your time writing that, and mine reading and responding to it.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

That's a slippery slope when you're suggesting that the actions of a few idiots make an entire city or region racist.

I'm sure we've had similar incidents in the GTA. Does this mean Toronto is "racist"?

Maybe it's the company I keep, but I have experienced next to nothing in the way of racist or bigoted comments in the 9 years or so that I've lived in the area. And I've played sports with quite a diverse range of people from all 4 corners of the globe. And I've even eaten at "ethnic" restaurants that were not the obligatory "Chinese-Canadian".

But, like I say, those are my own experiences. Others may differ.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Sarcasm aside, one moves to dodgy ground at the point he starts explaining diversity to minorities who generally get to experience racism first hand.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

"Hounded out" ;)

I see you've met Mordko then. :lol:

Re: Canada is a scam
 

Sadly racism and racists will always exist, in some areas more than others, but not always the ones you think. I lived in the GTA for three years, I met some people there that were bordering on racist... and at the other end of the scale, I used to chat with my Sri Lankan landlord there quite a lot, he couldn't understand why the media continues to label Canada racist. Both him and his wife said they have never found Canada racist.

On a whole despite what the mainstream media keeps saying, who really like to stir the pot, race relations have moved on leaps and bound compared to what it used to be, a lot of people can't see this, but the media don't report the positive stories or the positive things that some immigrants say like my landlord and his wife, and they should know.

I have mentioned on here before the media and selective reporting is a bigger problem than ever now in my opinion. I have learned to base my opinions on life, I get out quite a bit, and meet lots of people, so I don't pay a lot of attention to what the pot stirring media says.




I very much agree with this having lived in the area for 9 years and having just moved back after being away for 3 years, they are my experiences too. As you say, and also what I said above, you can't generalise a whole area based on a few idiots.

Re: Canada is a scam
 

He is right. Its all relative. Compared to Britain and most other countries he is spot on.

And its not all about small town problems and supposed lack of “diversity”. Its also about racism in the media, politics, workplace, literature, sports…

Re: Canada is a scam
 

why should I extract figures to support your argument?
You can be as insulted as you like, I took the tongue smiley to mean " ner, ner, ner, I'm right you're wrong" which in my opinion is often your MO.

Peterborough is not diverse and calling it a melting pot is laughable.