I was going to write a long emo piece about Canada and being Canadian and my relationship to being Canadian, but we’ve already had such dynamite identity stuff today, I just want to talk a little bit about how it’s easier to be a young creative person in Canada than it is here, for two distinct reasons:
1. Health Care: I know! So obvious, so pointless. Yes, health care makes things easier. But, NO, really, I have a cousin who is a singer-songwriter and a comedian and who puts up a musical about Sir John A. MacDonald every year, scraping together goodthinkful government funds and waitressing gigs and money from teaching guitar lessons, and is just this force of nature, and she can do this, she can actually do this thing because she doesn’t have to have a “real job” from which to get health insurance. She can still get pap smears and have that weird mole looked at (I’m sure she doesn’t have weird moles) and have the freedom to fall off things and break her arm, even if she’s paying her rent via nine different income sources. She may be struggling to keep the lights on like everyone else, but she has not had to decide she needs to “get serious” because of the spectre of medical bankruptcy. And her friends in the artsy community are the same way. They’re funny and talented and good and civic-minded and able to hustle, because this one thing is off their plate. And Canada spends a lot less per head on health care than the United States does. IT’S COMPLICATED, I’m not an idiot. I get it.
2. Paid Maternity Leave: You know what? I’ve lived here for twelve years now, and I like it, and I like the United States, and Canada is not perfect, and can be ridiculous, but like ALL THE OTHER PLACES, if you have a baby, you get paid maternity leave. A lot of it. Instead of six or twelve weeks unpaid leave, you and your partner can cobble together about a YEAR, and your company will usually top up what the goverment gives you. Now, obviously, that’s gonna be better. But that’s not even why I’m mentioning it, I’m mentioning it because it results in a ton of long-ish term temp jobs for people who want to step in for women (or men) who are taking the aforementioned parental leave. When I go home, I say “what’s Susie up to?” and will frequently hear: “oh, she’s on a seven month contract for someone’s mat leave.” That’s a good deal for Susie.
That’s all. That’s all I really want to say about that today. That Canada makes it easier to be a young person trying to figure things out.
I miss it a lot.
Tags: canada, commonwealth day, health
Nicole, did you move to US because of your husband? Is he American? If not, what was it that made you move here? I was young and silly and didn’t think through the consequences of moving to a country without free healthcare because I’ve never had to think about it. I was totally uninsured for I think the first year, like an idiot, and thank the gods nothing ever happened to me in that time.
Came for college, stayed for dick. So, yes, samesies.
This is 100% true and accurate, and when I broke in my face riding a bicycle in Toronto ’cause it’s easier than the TTC, they sewed me up and it grew back, same when I broke my finger into about seven pieces while trying to launch a hackerspace. Which is launched and is massively successful and which worked out ’cause I was never ever even slightly worried about Doctors.
They also saved my hearing with a hojillion sets of ear tubes when I was a kid, so, you know, our healthcare system, it works and I’m alive and largely unmaimed and can work in the arts because, beyond dental, I don’t worry even slightly about Benefits (lol benefits what is this, $0.50 towards glasses).
yeah, why the hell aren’t dental and eye covered? (If you make over a certain amount a year, if you’re poor they’re covered I thiiiink though this varies from province to province.) I need to see and eat too, you know, woman cannot subsist on smoothies alone.
In Ontario, because Dalton McGuinty decided no-one needs their teeth anyway, which annoys me ’cause I was super hoping to blame Mike Harris as is traditional for all bad things.
Basically just because of how health care was cobbled together from different acts; the original universal health care act was started in Saskatchewan in the 40s and it was only for hospital care. Later other provinces adopted it and made the federal government pitch in, and that act extended to physician services whether they were delivered in a hospital or a doctor’s office. This is why mental health care is so spotty: if you are hospitalized, it’s covered; if you are seeing a psychologist outside a hospital setting, it’s not. LAME.
Eye care, dental care and pharmacare are all issues that different health policy folks are lobbying for. Pharmacare is probably the biggest priority because our population is aging and old people who live a long time with chronic health issues have major pharmacy bills.
Another point is that physicians have their fees determined by the universal health care system; in order to standardize optometry and dental services, those practitioners would have to agree to a fee structure, which they probably would resist because they make way more money than your average GP. So that is a big barrier to folding those in.
(I have a graduate degree in public health- ask me all your Canadian health care questions!)
Thank you! There are definitely some… interesting discrepancies in what is and is not covered by healthcare and I always found that strange. I was quite surprised when I found out most mental health stuff was not covered. Also most physiotherapy is not covered (at least in Alberta), which i find super infuriating. That one drives me bananas, because physio can make a big difference in how recover some surgeries and sometimes can help prevent the need for surgery, and just, ugh. I mean, I am happy that we have covered is there, but I want moooooooooooooore! (I’m a healthcare greedy Canadian)
Yeah that’s another super frustrating gap– physiotherapists don’t need medical licenses though so that’s probably why it’d be hard to include them in an actual medical act. Mental health services too are such a huge failure because people with severe mental health issues often face multiple barriers in accessing care, so requiring them to coordinate it and pay for it is like an impossible burden. There should be catastrophic coverage for mental health crises like what exists for pharmaceuticals in most provinces.
Yeah, this. This is one of the reasons I love Berlin so much, even more than home (Toronto) in a lot of ways. Canada and Germany both have socialized healthcare, but the cost of living (rent) in Berlin is so much more reasonable than Toronto. It means people can afford to try crazy new things without the terrifying ramifications of failure in an expensive city, or worse, an expensive city where they also have no health coverage.
I know places like London and New York are crazy great incubators for good work too, but I think we all lose out when the barrier to entry is so high.
Ironic for an overpaid engineer to be saying this, I guess. It likely won’t ever apply to me. But I like my laid back cities, and I don’t ever EVER want to live anywhere where my friend might get sick and we have to worry about fundraising on TOP of making sure they have the practical support they need.
I agree, I do not understand the argument that no healthcare = more innovation because People Be Hustling. No, people do not hustle. People cling to dead-end employment just because they do not want to die or go bankrupt. Or both.
Where are you getting this fabulous socialized healthcare in Germany??? I pay buttloads for my Techniker Krankenkasse, it’s one of the things I miss the most about Canada. That and access to free toilets.
Aight, fair cop: I probably used socialization wrong. Though there is the tax funded system at the base, Germany has a system of Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung – highly regulated health insurance, that has payments based on income (about 15%, but with lower costs for lower income workers), not health condition, and can’t refuse anyone coverage. Which makes it look to my eyes a lot more like the Canadian system than the American system at least. Wikipedia translates Gesetzliche Krankenversicherung as Public Health Insurance, but maybe “socialized” is the wrong word for this?
I too am with TK, which is one of the private companies offering regulated insurance. As a good Canadian, I really dislike the idea of private companies having any hand in the system, but it seems to work okay here.
If you are just that selfish, and earn >50k euros/year, you can opt out and get fully private healthcare. In which case, well, if you lose your job and can’t pay anymore I’m going to have trouble being sympathetic. But if you’re with TK, you haven’t done that.
So personally, I look at it like having my income tax split into health care and everything else. I haven’t looked at how the costs compare to in Canada, because I am lazy and privileged enough that it doesn’t feel like a big deal.
I so hear you on the free toilets issue. Also tap water – or even big glasses of anything but beer to drink at restaurants.
Also Jewish delis. Man, I miss Jewish delis so much.
Coming from the US I suppose the German system would seem amazing, but for me it was the total opposite! I wouldn’t call it socialized, no, but it’s definitely a step up from the US insurance system. Also everything is subsidized, so if you don’t have insurance for some reason, health care is relatively cheap.
I’m a freelancer, so my experience is a bit different. TK insured me at first, but when I quit my job and became freelance, they were going to drop me because I hadn’t been with them for a year. That’s the law. I managed to keep my insurance by getting freelance work asap and also calling them and begging.
Anyway, I am in the process of switching to private because it’s just so much cheaper for me. I’m not terribly worried about getting stuck for life in the private system because I don’t plan to stay much longer in Germany. The gesetzliche is just so expensive for freelancers! I thought Germany was a happy socialist paradise, so I was totally shocked when I learned about the health insurance. I earn between €900-1200 per month, and last year TK decided to move me up from the lowest possible monthly rate of €150 to over €300. It’s just not possible to pay that and like, eat.
Well, obviously I didn’t understand the system properly, jeez. I’d best do some more reading.
Berlin now added to the list of places to live/visit.
Berlin has both Peaches and Bruce LaBruce, so it’s safe to say Canadian artists mostly agree with you.
Move here already!
I AM TRYING, JESUS, CHECK THE OTHER THREAD ON SCOTLAND. I have to annex Dundee first! Paperwork paperwork paperwork.
If you sit still and move to Germany I’ll give you some digestives and almonds, okay?
Of course the rampant racism and sexism of Germany are giant issues as well! Canada kicks Germany’s ass in those ways. In conclusion: nowhere is perfect.
I haven’t been to Germany but many, many Canadians are horribly racist.
Yeah. It’s always hard for me to tease apart how much of my feeling comes from the comparison of my insular urban leftie friends in Canada to the wider group of smaller town Germans I’m meeting but, well, that’s unfortunately not all it is.
My experience, and more importantly that of the folks of colour who I’ve heard from, is that at least the microaggressions, the low level feel of the place, is significantly more racist than Canada or the US for that matter.
But yeah, we do have our share of racists and embarrasing policy in Canada. Thanks to Quebec for providing the most recent examples.
*cough* ask a good chunk of Canadians about aboriginal people and see what lovely racist things they have to say. Love you Canada, but we are super racist about that stuff. I mean there are certainly other race issues as well, but it’s pretty much socially acceptable to say crappy things about aboriginals in Canada.
EH-men
I kind of want to drive to Kingston to see that musical. Is she trying to bring it to Toronto? She should do that! I know it’s expensive to do anything here, but reasons!
Oh hey it’s me, Anna. That musical has been performed at a couple schools in Toronto and some incarnation may appear there next summer. For now we are preparing a variety show about confederation which will tour the Maritimes in January. In the meantime, check out our videos and stuff on the sirjohna2015 YouTube page
Hi Anna! Happy Thanksgiving!
Here is a link to said YouTube page! http://www.youtube.com/user/SirJohnA2015
i think the best thing about canada’s mat leave is that you can split it, so both parents can take 6 months, or one can take 9 and the other 3 and you can get each other through the sleepless nights, and no one has to function at work the next day and you can both stay home with the baby for what ever works for both of you, as long as the months add up to 12. (correct me if i am wrong, it is possible not all provinces offer this)
And people can subsist on those fill-in contract gigs if they want to, because they aren’t dependent on employer-provided health care. EVERYONE WINS.
I don’t get what is so threatening about how countries like Canada handle their health care to some politicians and industries here in the U.S. It’s not like people in the Great White Northern Health Care Industry don’t make money, right? Surely there is a middle ground where select individuals and politicians can still get their grift on while the rest of us aren’t terrified of spraining our ankles or getting strep throat.
From what I can tell based on Property Brothers and Love It or List It, people in Canada do in fact make money.
I think mostly they are threatened by the Republican propaganda machine, financed by the Koch brothers and the like. When they sit there and say “no government in my health care!!” I really have to wonder why they trust the combination of Big Insurance and/or your BOSS to decide instead. Ridiculous. Like, I know that an insurance company really has my best interests at heart, as opposed to the government. Clearly.
This is exactly what my husband says – all these idiots are like “keep the gubment outta mah healthcare!” as if the healthcare industry isn’t out to rob you blind.
It honestly really frightens me. I got in an argument about this over the weekend and predictably it ended with this person telling me they felt sorry I was poisoned by the mainstream media and would keep me in their prayers. Sigh. Any Canadians wanna get married and take me to the great white north? I hate cold but love poutine, degrassi, the weakerthans, and liberal attitudes about marijuana!
oh LAWD.
Our five year plan is to move home to Canada. We’re both Canadian, but we met down here. We’ve been down here since 2000 and I don’t think we ever thought seriously about returning home until our son, now a year old, was born. I moved away from home in 1992 and have lived much further away (Edmonton) and in much crappier cities (we’re in Chicago now, which we love, but I’ve lived in Kansas and smalltown Indiana), but I’ve never been this homesick. We spent a decade and $10,000+ navigating the immigration system to get our green cards.
We are relatively healthy people, but the healthcare system is still sucking the life out of us. We have had ‘good’ health insurance throughout, but premia keep going up and coverage goes down. It can take a year or more for them to deal with and settle bills. They have these flexible spending accounts where you set aside your own money and they make it extremely hard for you to use it. They fought covering almost every single charge related to pregnancy and childbirth and even with a relatively trouble-free pregnancy, that adds up to quite a few hours of collecting paperwork, faxing and phone calls. Mat leave is a joke here. We were shocked to find that FMLA still allows for key personnel to be fired for having a kid/taking mat leave. I’m not really expecting for people to feel bad for us, because we are totally fine financially, and my wife is very employable, but JFC, that is some bogus sh!t right there, yo.
I love this country dearly and I’ll always think well of it, but the pull of home has simply become too strong.
I just want to say, I’m having a super great Commonwealth Day. It’s a good day to be a Canadian lady on the internet. THANKS GUYS.
Ugghh don’t tell me about places with civilized maternity leave, it’s too depressing. What kills me about the 3-month, unpaid FMLA is that, at my company at least, they make you take all of your paid time off as part of the 12 weeks. So yeah, you get two of those weeks paid, but you’d already earned that and you get no extra time on top of it.
I ended up taking my vacation and then starting leave, which worked fine at getting me my maximum time with the baby, but now if childcare falls through or I get sick, I have zero vacation days until I can accrue some more. It just felt like the most grudging process ever.
And maternity leave saves lives! I mean I know America traditionally gets over caring about babies the instant they’re born but REALLY.
I have VERY CAREFULLY timed my pregnancy so that, as a teacher, I can use the summer as part of my maternity leave, since the school provides 5 weeks of paid leave and up to 12 weeks total. How is 5 weeks long enough? I am so jealous of the one year thing, I cannot even say.
Also, they do not give us 5 weeks on top of our already accrued paid time off – they subtract that from the total – so I’ve been saving up sick/personal days for years for nothing. I intend to spend them all before the baby arrives, and if there are any left before I go into actual labor, I will just take a week or so off before my due date because FUCK YOU.
Re: Healthcare.
Seriously, the most tiresome thing in the history of the world is listening to Americans tell me how awful healthcare is in Canada and the rest of the world. I have lived on both sides of the border and know many many people who have done the same, including some extremely wealthy people who could pay out of pocket for the best of the best of the best. I HAVE NEVER MET A SINGLE PERSON WHO HAS LIVED IN BOTH SYSTEMS AND PREFERS THE AMERICAN ONE. I’m sure they exist, but I’ve never met a single one. Nada. None. Zilch. You can find Canadians unhappy with their system, you can find Americans unhappy with theirs, but I feel like the fairest test is of people who have experienced both.
WHAT ABOUT DEATH PANELS THO
haha just kidding murder me immediately
My friend’s aunt lives in Ottawa and she had to wait SIX MONTHS to even get seen by a death panel. It’s terrible, I tell you.
We have dear family friends whose younger daughter was diagnosed with leukemia at age 8. She underwent full treatment, went into remission, had it come back, went into remission again, had it come back again, and finally (and tragically) died of graft-vs-host at age 24.
During that entire time, she and her family paid NOTHING for her excellent care outside their regular taxes. And no, death panel fear mongerers, she didn’t have to wait months for any care either. Her parents (and all of us) were devastated when she passed away, but they weren’t financially ruined in the bargain.
But in your cousin’s situation, without a ‘regular’ job, she wouldn’t automatically get maternity leave. Freelancers/the self-employed have to (choose to) pay into the government’s EI program for a year (up to almost $900 in total depending on your income), before they can collect parental leave benefits (and this is a relatively new development). In total, you’d only be able to collect a max of about $24,000 for a year of mat leave, no top ups, even if your pre-mat leave income was much higher than that. For part of that year, anything you continue to earn during that year would be docked from your pay-out, for another part you’re allowed to earn a small percentage more without it being deducted (which is bonkers to me, because if a company can top up an employee’s benefits, why can’t I as self-employed person top up my own?). This doesn’t account for any leave your spouse might take as well. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to leave Canada, but it ain’t a perfect system.
Also, in some provinces, you still pay for that ‘free’ healthcare. In BC, I paid $64/month for free healthcare (on top of what came out of my paycheques for ‘extended’ health care, which covers what gov’t healthcare doesn’t). In Ontario, I don’t pay anything for the gov’t plan (though I assume the extra comes out in the wash in the provincial income tax I pay at the end of the year — I haven’t compared what I paid in the two provinces).
All said, I love this place. It blows the mind and breaks the heart to see the US struggle to achieve something similar.
Just to offer a comparison, COBRA (insurance that is designed to cover you in the event of leaving your job, but which will I believe only cover you for six months) for our family of three earlier in the year was $1,800 per month*, and we’d still have to pay co-pays for every routine visit and 20% of costs for non-routine stuff. It cost us a couple thousand out of pocket to have a baby (eta: this includes the various visits and tests during the pregnancy). When you arrive at the hospital, there is a security door where you must show proof of insurance or put down ~$3,000 on your credit card or you will be refused entry to labor and delivery, even if you are in labor.
$64 a month is a rounding error down here.
*Note: we were lucky and did not have to use it.
Also, in many provinces have some sort of system to waive fees or at least reimburse healthcare premiums for low income people.
Ontario charges premiums too (unless you make like zero dollars) but they generally pull it out of paycheques where as in BC you can pay directly (or through your employer if they are set up for it). Alberta and Quebec also have premiums. It’s lame, but our health care system was developed when everyone in Canada was like a rugged healthy 20-year-old farmer, and now we are a country of old, expensive geezers who need a lot of medical care.
Alberta no longer has health care premiums. I can’t recall exactly when they stopped charging premiums, but it was sometime in the last 10 years.
Damn wealthy Alberta, throwing its premium-free health care around!
Yes, we finally figured that out. There was a time when we were having bajillion dollar government surpluses and also paying health care premiums, which as a slightly frustrating reality from my perspective at the time.
I’m an American living in the U.S.. Through the weirdness of my academic job and other intervening factors, I was able to stay home with my daughter for just shy of seven months. My husband, also an academic, got three months (yay summer babies!). While we both did a little working from home and dealt with a move during month six, it was still amazing and, yeah, pretty much medically necessary. I have no idea how people go back to work after a paltry three months for mom and two-ish weeks for dad. It sounds impossible.
Commonwealth Day is going to make me start researching how to emigrate, isn’t it? My family lived in [territory name redacted for privacy] for generations – do I have Right of Return?
I think the benefits of short term mat gigs for young workers always gets left out of conversations about maternity leave. You seldom get senior people jumping to get the short term gigs, so it’s really helpful as a stepping stone to young people trying to get their foot in the door. It’s like an internship, only paid and doing useful work.
I miss Canada too. Family and friends aside, I even just miss the landscape and the place-ness of it. Like, this is the first environment I became aware of and therefore I just never want to be too far from it.
But what about their crippling national debt it takes to pay for all that socialism? Oh it’s lower as a percent of GDP than the United States? Well what about all the unemployment caused by the socialism? Oh that’s lower too? Well I bet everyone is super poor, because of socialism. Oh the median household income is $74,000 USD? HMM.
To be fair, our cost of living is higher than the States, so $74,000 doesn’t go anywhere near as far, especially if you live in Vancouver, Toronto, or in a northern area. Still, though, our income inequality is lower here, our class mobility is much higher, and our student loans are way way lower so it probably all works out.
There are expensive places in the US too, though — e.g. New York City, surely a more expensive place to live than most of Canada, where the median household income is about $50,000. (The key here is the difference between MEDIAN — which is much higher in Canada — and MEAN, which is about the same or slightly lower. But more people are more better off due to the flatter income distribution.)
True, although I think Vancouver recently became the most expensive place to live in North America. I think people in Canada are probably better off due to health care and all, but consumer goods and food are WAY more expensive here than throughout much of the US. A friend of mine immigrated here from Oregon, and her mother was so shocked by the price of canned goods when she visited that every time she drives up here she brings flats of cans of beans and whatnot.
Vancouver is definitely the most expensive place to buy real estate, but other things here are pretty reasonable. Renting is expensive but not like San Francisco or NYC expensive, and it gets way cheaper if you’re willing to live further from the city centre. Other costs in the city (transportation, food, cultural events) seem pretty normal to me based on other Canadian cities I’ve been to.
Yeah, I was surprised by that report, too. Vancouver doesn’t seem that bad, compared to what I hear about LA and NYC.
Nicole, as a selfish Canadian expat, I would love to read your emo writing about being Canadian some time.
I would also like to read this as well too!
Me three.
So, my husband is Canadian, and he and I live in the U.S. His brother is a writer and filmmaker, and lives in Canada, and while people often ask him why he hasn’t moved to L.A., all I can think is that part of the reason he has been able to sustain a career as a creative professional is the fact that he doesn’t need to worry about finding one single 9-5 job to pay for his health care. My mother-in-law is in a wheelchair, and the quality of care she receives in Canada is far superior to that of a man I know in the U.S. with the same condition. She has resources and options that he will never have, and I know that he deeply suffers as a result. I worry about what will happen as the years go by. Some older adults move closer to their adult children as they age, but how can she leave the Canadian healthcare system behind? (It is not really an option for us to move to Canada, due to the nature of my husband’s work.)
Also? Can I tell you the story about the time I needed to see a doctor and I was in Canada visiting family? I walked into a doctor’s office, and told them that I was American and visiting for a week. The doctor saw me and treated me immediately. I paid the receptionist $25, and walked out the door. No waiting. No bullshit. No insanely high medical bills. As a contrast, when I was uninsured ten years ago, I paid $300 for the exact same visit and treatment in the U.S. after waiting in an urgent care clinic for four hours.
I’m sure there are people out there with their socialized healthcare horror stories, but I am not one of them. I’m very grateful on behalf of my husband’s family for the lives they’ve been able to lead because of it.
(Don’t even get me started on the parental leave thing. If the ACA survives, I certainly hope decent parental leave policies are not far behind.)
OH MAH GOD the Sir John Eh musical!!!!! I have seen that musical. I own the soundtrack to that musical.
…things that happen when you live in Kingston…
Oh yeah temporary maternity leave jobs are great! I got my current job through one. I was working on-call at various places, scored a one-year mat leave position and then as that year was ending I applied for other internal jobs and got one! Mat leave positions are great for getting you into companies and access to internal postings you wouldn’t otherwise get. A friend of mine also scored her job thru a mat leave position when the woman who left decided not to return and they gave her the job permanently.
I also have these worries as a NZer in the US. New Zealand is a much more caring society to get ill or pregnant in, but it just doesn’t have the opportunities that the US has for me as a writer. I feel like I need to stick it out here until I have enough of a career that I can move home and continue it from the confines of a small home in the Coromandel.
I am mainly replying* because it seems like I’m the only Canadian reader who actually lives in Canada. I get to be a self-employed artist because rent in my wee city is affordable; even if I have to wait 3 weeks to get in at the doctor’s office it’s free as hell; and if I procreate, my dude can take the year of pat leave.
Bonus for ex-pats who have been out of the country for awhile: we have like hummus and stuff now, too.
*I have heretofore untarnished lurking skills.