Don't forget the corrupt politicians who will never face any real consequences.

And what's really fun is that despite the housing crisis, many home builders outside the big-3 city areas are running slow right now because regular people can't qualify for housing. I've only been working 5-12 days a month for the last year, between a shortage of framers (many moved to Ontario in 2021 due to work slowing), shortage of materials, and now interest rates killing purchases.

We're so fucked, and anyone in a position to fix things just refuses to. If you build public housing, prices drop and you get voted out by angry house owners. Don't build houses, and both homelessness and living standards get so much worse, and you get voted out by angry poor folks.

This just tells me that you don't know what fucked is.
Interest rates topped 21% , while mortgage rates topped 18% in 1981. Inflation was over 11% at the time. We'd just gone through two massive oil shocks, where the price of gasoline was almost double what we have now when adjusted for inflation, while cars struggled to get under 20L/100km and were rotted through by their third year.

Strikes were rampant, but so was high unemployment, at times topping 10%. A lot of industries just closed up shop, only accelerated as the Canada-US FTA came into effect.

By 1990, a lot of that had settled down due to the high interest rate treatment, but the accumulated debt of the Trudeau and Mulroney years had us facing a debt crisis just as we fell into a deep recession in 1991-92.

Look at the source: its a law firm who brings immigrants over to Canada. Of course they're going to pump our tires. It helps them with business.

It is scary. Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree that Canada is a great place to live. However, we can't take that for granted.

I've been to Europe many times, and my experience has been the total opposite of what your girlfriend describes.

Europe is huge. Don't judge a whole continent for what your girlfriend experience is maybe one or two places.

That's like saying that North America sucks because your girlfriend got mugged in Juarez, México.

Out of interest, which places in Europe?

Well she wasn't in the nordic countries at least, public transport can be subpar but is almost always servicable and gets you anywhere (we have on-demand minibuses for rural areas), the only part that could apply is being seen as rude because we don't greet every person within our field of view..

That is sort of an assumption when talking about a list of the best countries.

Typically you’d be right but as a DN I actually spent most of my time in North America and western Europe—mostly in countries people would compare Canada with (UK, France, Spain, Norway, Germany, USA, Australia, etc.). I never went to Asia or South America as a DN. Actually the only time I stepped foot in LatAm was in Panama for a month this past winter.

It really changed my perspective on Canada. I don’t think it’s a bad country at all but I don’t hold it in as high regard as I once did. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses. What those are is different for everyone. Canada is squandering immense potential in my opinion. If it wasn’t for family, there are several places in the USA I would consider living long term instead.

What U.S. News believes doesn’t change reality either. These rankings are and always have been subjective BS

The cities are completely unaffordable.
All of the parties are in favour of using TFW programs to suppress workers rights and not doing anything about blatantly illegal anti-worker activities.

The Trudeau government is welcoming immigrants at a rate of at least 3% of the population per year(not the problem), but not spending a penny on infrastructure to support that kind of increase(a big problem)

Carbon offset credits are a complete joke.

The ISPs are in charge of the body that is supposed to regulate and rein them in.

BC is being devastated by climate change and Ottawa isn't lifting a damn finger on it.