MONOPOLIES

I don't believe they have a commission here like back home, which has resulted in the bigger firms groeing to an extent that there is no real competition.

Rogers and Loblaws are prime examples.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT

The buses within Kitchener/Waterloo are not too bad, but try getting to other places

When I was looking at cars, I found adverts for some cars in Guelph, I worked out I could catch a train at about 9am to get there, but then found that unless I bought a car that I could take straight away I could not get back until 6pm!! or get a taxi.

Guelph is just 20'ish Km away..

The 401 is packed with cars.. its crying out here for decent, regular train services to link the major centres, there's not even a train service from the airport to the city centre in Toronto!!

Why not use an email transfer? That only requires that the recipient has an account at a bank in Canada.

Depend where you are in South Wales, the coast where I am from (Port Talbot), from Newport down to Swansea was heavily industrialised and attracted alot of English, Irish and Scottish workers over more than 100 years, hence the English spoken there.

But just go up into the valleys and you will find a lot of Welsh spoken.

How is Loblaws any sort of monopoly? There are thousands of other places selling food.

Thanks, I'll look into that... some of my remarks are pointed in the hope of advice about things I don't know about ..

Won't help with my sons though as both are in the UK

CELL PHONES

I think paying for incoming calls on a cellphone is a fantastic idea. If I call someone's cellphone, why should I pay extra for the convenience of someone else. If you don't use a cellphone enough to use $15 a month, you don't really need a cellphone. Use a CELL PHONES

In the UK you KNOW when you are phoning a mobile phone by the code, here they give you a normal local number, the caller has no idea.

I agree though, its wrong to pay for received calls, any spam YOU pay for!!

The cellphone deals mean you overpay and if you get a pay as you go.. UNLESS you charge up your card each month (MIN $10) then you LOSE all the money stored on the card !!!

BANKS

I've set up a number of personal payee's with my online banking. It's easy enough to do for anything you want to pay.

ROGERS

Yes, Rogers can be frustrating but perhaps you should set up an e-mail filter like we've done to send your rogers bill to a different folder in your e-mail account. Canada Post do something called e-post which shows your bills.

CREDIT

Because it would be easy to steal the identity of someone in another country to get credit here.


Canada is what it is. Learn to deal with it, it'll be less stressful. The other alternatives can be booked through Travelocity or Expedia.

I guess it's feasible that in smaller places you might have two different supermarkets that both belong to Loblaw's as a parent and nothing else. Isn't a country wide monopoly though....

Yes there is. I managed just fine because I can speak enough to get by.

I know of Sobey's as the only supermarket competition in our area (the only one without President's Choice), I have no idea what's in Vancouver (where we are moving to, although I know there's a Safeway there).

Not counting Zellars and Walmart in this of course and with Walmart changing to fresh produce, they may become a competitor in that respect. Also not counting little corner shops.

Before we moved over here, one of the larger supermarket chains bought a smaller supermarket chain and were then forced to sell a few of the new stores because they already had stores in the area. I know because in Ealing Centre, where we lived, was one that was sold. When does such things happen in Canada?

Did that on the weekend... sent it to my wife's mail

Well, she does pay the bills

Nah, consider Shelburne (pop 5,000ish, typical small town), No Frills, IGA, independent store, surrounded by farms selling directly to the public. Loblaws has influence but nowhere near a monopoly and that's not considering the possibility of going to the next town.

What about IGA, A&P/Dominion/Metro/whatever_its_called_this_week, Costco, M&M and that great big farmer's market in Waterloo?

Don't forget CO-OP.

Co-op is primarily a local Calgary operation not a national chain.

Oh really? I didn't know that haha ! I've seen them around on travels but meh