montreal mike

would be interesting to compare any responses to those on this thread

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=565638

Danny B

1) Crap TV
2) Snow ploughs waking me up at 4am
3) Crap TV
4) Extortionate internal air fare cost, $750 to get to Toronto from Vancouver.
5) Crap TV

That's about it.

Snave

I've bored you all with this before - sorry - but my pet gripe is driving standards. That, with poorly maintained roads, idiots driving winter "beaters" like they are invincible...

Oh, that and Crap TV.

G77

* Having to mow a piece of grass that would have been done by the council in the UK i.e. is part of the pavement, just happens to be next to my house...

* Price of beer/alcohol/cheese/dairy products

For the record, I don't think the TV here is that bad, but it needs targeted viewing i.e. work out what you're going to watch and when, channel surfing is futile.... A PVR works best for advert skipping...

BristolUK

I agree...though weekends could do with some improvement. And what's with all this 'worthy' stuff on CBC? On the other hand the decent stuff is mainly American - Life, The Mentalist, various CSIs.

The Border and Da Vinci's Inquest/City Hall are great Canadian productions.

High prescription costs in NB. No controls on property tax levels following re-assessments...again, that's also an NB thing.

Having to pay for school supplies at the beginning of each year and paying for 'agendas' too. Is it balanced by free school buses?

No accountability when government depts show incompetence.

No mail on weekends.

Fussy mail rules - especially buying stamps from a government agency and having to pay tax on them separately, even though the taxes go to the government and people obviously have to be employed to do all the needless accounting involved.

Lack of political alternatives.

Judy in Calgary

That's the beauty of coming from Swaziland.

Just about everything in Canada is wonderful.

Canada's Queen is wonderful. She sure beats that spoiled brat King of Swaziland.

Canadian roads are wonderful.

Canadian TV is wonderful.

Canadian drivers have been sent from heaven.

Canadian schools are wonderful. (There is no free education in Swaziland. Children have to pay tuition, buy their books, and walk to school -- many miles in some cases. Even if they attend government-run schools.)

Life expectancy in Canada is wonderful (80.4 years versus Swaziland's 33.2 years).

Really about the only thing I could do without is that four season nonsense. And I've partially escaped that by moving to Vancouver Island.
x

BristolUK

Just for a minute I thought you were going to say Canada's Queen was better than the UK Queen.

Canada2006

Not much I don't like really, but here's a few:

1. junk recorded message phone calls
2. lack of organic food in supermarkets
3. lack of fresh fruit smoothies in cafés
4. Rogers wireless
5. The bad driving (not that it's worse than Belgium...)
6. School board rigidity and not being able to choose your school
7. Only subsidising SOME daycare places and not others (who dreamt this system up)?


But here I'm being picky - there's an awful lot I do like.

BristolUK

You're kidding.
There's plenty in the supermarkets here. And you're in Montreal

montreal mike

My local Loblaws just down the street has lots of the stuff which i don't care for at inflated prices; 'regular' food is expensive enough as it is.

Canada2006

Seriously - it's like Europe 15 years ago - I honestly didn't expect that. If you go to IGA (Sobeys) or Metro, which are upscale supermarkets, you'll get maybe a metre of organic stuff, the rest is conventional.

When we left Europe 2 months ago you couldn't buy organic on Fridays, it had all sold out - really popular. So I'm confused too about why there is so little in the supermarkets here. I think that people here are very ecological - concerned with the environment and growing organic because it's good for the environment, but not eating organic because it's good for their health.... I've still a lot of things to figure out

Canada2006

We tried Loblaws and didn't really like it much, to be honest, we found IGA and metro to be better. As we like organic we tend to shop at Tau in Brossard - it's pretty reasonable and I've noticed a few things there that are cheaper than conventional products at IGA.

Rachelle-Berry isn't bad but I found it really quite expensive compared to Tau. There's also a Tau in St Leonard and Rue Saint-Denis.

printer

It's a foreign country, no one understands you, there aren't any English supermarkets, chicken and cheese are only affordable to the millionaire set and the TV really is CRAP! Oh and it snows for months on end.


Seriously though i have to say the standard of driving here in Kelowna is absolutely awful. Intersections on highways that do not have left turn filter lights are regular scenes of accidents as drivers here seem unable to judge the speed of oncoming cars. Pulling out in front of you is another extremely common bad habit and constant lane changing to try and get in front of everybody and anybody.
On the plus side no one seems to care so there is very little actual road rage, in fact i don't think i've ever heard a car horn honked in anger and the only guy i ever saw give the finger to someone was about 100.

Lychee

I think it's safe to say that organic grocery shopping greatly varies across the country. What you are experiencing in Montreal is not what I've been experiencing in Vancouver. Vancouver has a lot of organic produce in the stores and many deluxe grocery stores that seem to only focus on organic food (like Choices Market, Capers, etc). It also helps that there's a longer growing season and more of an organic foods awareness in this part of the country than what I've seen elsewhere. However, this appears to be catching on elsewhere in the country.

jericho

TV is pretty poor here- however if you like CSI, you'll probably think TV is great as you can pretty much watch it 24/7.
The amount of commercials is a pain- you get commercials as soon as the opening theme song has finished.
(ignore the smiley- my 2yr old daughter wanted me to use it)