Personally, I like the Canadian attitude to alcohol, whilst it can occasionally be a bit excessive (and I realise that for a British person to say that about a Canadian is really the pot calling the kettle black) it's a lot more mature and relaxed than attitudes in some other countries. Not crazy about their acceptance of weed but weed isn't my thing and as long as I'm not forced to join in then I have no complaints.

I just wish that the licensing laws were different in Ontario.

Why France? Everybody drives back to work in the afternoons with at least a bottle of red in the tank.

The criticism in this thread - well, MY criticism anyway - comes not from judging the act itself, but rather the rose-tinted views of some emigrants that Canada is a crime-free utopia.

However, since you attempted to defend it, I think impaired driving is wrong, but if you want to do it, be proud of it and tell the truth and say it's because you don't give a f*** about anyone apart from yourself. Don't try to justify it with wishy-washy feeble excuses about 'way of life'.

Cultural imperialism? The concept only exists because it allows certain types of people to feel no guilt about not objecting to barbaric practices in other countries that they would object to at home. Not that driving pissed is that anyway - it's not the same as stoning, or female circumcision. We aren't talking about a pint or two here; getting pissed up and killing somebody on your way home isn't a Canadian cultural prerogative - it's murder.

In the UK, drink-driving was a "way of life" in the 50's/60's/70's and even in the early 80"s I suspect. Then we grew up - mostly.

People probably got away with it more in the earlier decades too, because there was less on the road anyway.

It is simply just not socially or morally acceptable these days. There will always be the hardcore that don't give a shit, but most of us really like to get to the end of our own journey alive, and not mowing someone down en route is a bonus.

Where I grew up there was no such thing as public transport and rarely a chance of getting caught. But it just wasn't something I would ever have considered doing - ever.

Drink driving is a big bug-bear of mine, and generally, attitudes towards it here are pretty lax. Still.

Well, it's manslaughter - unless someone is actually that sadistic to use a car whilst pissed to intentionally kill people - but I totally get your point here Alan2005. The distances are a pathetic excuse. Drink driving in N America seems to be as common/accepated as 17 year olds making pavement pizza in Witney on a Friday night. It happens all the time and I think the authorities are pretty lax about it (on the whole).

In truth, I'm indifferent to the matter, I don't report people I pass who are obviously out of it but then I don't rush to get in their cars either.

So, like the pace of life and the attitudes toward women, it's part of what people emigrate for; the feeling of going back thirty years.

Yes

But as you very well know, some elements drive us mad, and some elements are the driving.

Ironic that the thread is about crime levels, which many on here perceive as lower (even if it not borne out by mere facts) - but I think that's because we British immigrants can usually afford to move to better areas, what with our wads of cash from home equity.

Banks from the 70's, with personal service and no glass partitions I can live with. Drink driving - not so much.

It is with peverse pride that I report that I've been robbed, in Canada, late yesterday or early this morning. This never happened in Camden Town.

Like I said- happens to me everytime I park my car on the street in Toronto. I have no problem running after a yob and punching him but when he is an official uniform and is able to write the law as he goes I have to put up with the crime. I have no connections at city hall..........

This afternoon someone crashed into our car and drove off, despite there being a person and a dog in the car. Property damage was minimal, the car's a four year old VW and so has very little value, but this casual disregard for responsibility is, I feel, a harbinger of the dogs to which society is going.

The level of noise pollution on the streets of this town is becoming unacceptable, tricked up cars blast the rowdy music suddenly popular here. "My Sharona" and something I'm ashamed to know to be Garth Brooks performing "The Dance". For those of us raised on "Police and Thieves" and "Buffalo Stance" the lack of musicality, the banality of the lyrics and the inexplicable volume of these pieces makes the sound intolerable. I want to grab the cradles by their goatees and smash their tattooed faces into their radios. Peasants.

Just wait till the front yard deep fried turkey starts up next door, then you'll be in seventh heaven and you know it.

Bring on the hill billy-ness

Seventh heaven will be when we're invited to bring round a box of cinquante and share in the turkey!