> I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends.
Either they never lived outside of Canada, either they're lying to you.
Canada is a third-world country compared to the USA.
Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
11–20 of 185 posts
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#12Canada seems to be in so much trouble - I am wondering how things are there. # Massive flooring of the Canadian dollar. # Continued job losses months on end - Unemployment rate of 7.1% ! # Most expensive Natural Disaster in Canadian history. At least they got their Obama.
On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
Your mention of Alberta made me realize—the low dollar, the unemployment, and the wildfire are all hitting the province of Alberta in particular. (Respectively, oil dollars, oil jobs, and oil sands, may be responsible.) And the three are intertwined: the fires aren't just destroying nature and wildlife, they're destroying liquid-asset real estate and arable farmland (i.e. jobs) as well. A lot of people are going to be suddenly qualified for income assistance in Alberta this year.
If Alberta were its own country—as a few of their conservative pundits have semi-jokingly called for—this would be the point where you'd start to see pleas for international relief aid on the news, like those from Indonesia after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Instead, the Canadian government is going to have to try to soak up all those losses on its own. I wonder if its treasury is even that big?
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
Interesting to know. I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. But I get conflicting view from the news and statistics.
I hope you understand that unless you have a job lined up or citizenship it is somewhat difficult to move to Canada.
If I may make a modest suggestion perhaps try visiting Canada for a period of time in a region where you would want to eventually live instead of relying on the opinions of your friends (who may be biased) or statistics (which may not tell the whole story.)
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#14Canada seems to be in so much trouble - I am wondering how things are there. # Massive flooring of the Canadian dollar. # Continued job losses months on end - Unemployment rate of 7.1% ! # Most expensive Natural Disaster in Canadian history. At least they got their Obama.
On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
I am not sure this is going to happen. Calgary is a very conservative city, very little public transportation, a terrible cab system (and a city council who opposes alternatives), terrible road network (especially crowchild) no nightlife and very conservative drug and alcohol laws.
Software engineerings in Calgary are lucky to make 70k canadian (54k usd), so the good ones just move the the USA or work remotely. I don't see Calgary becoming a booming tech scene anytime soon.
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#15> I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. Either they never lived outside of Canada, either they're lying to you. Canada is a third-world country compared to the USA.
This comment breaks the HN guidelines, as have others you've posted. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing it, and instead post civilly and substantively, or not at all.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833516 and marked it off-topic.
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#16> I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. Either they never lived outside of Canada, either they're lying to you. Canada is a third-world country compared to the USA.
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Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#17I returned to Fort McMurray yesterday, after being evacuated a month ago. It was raining. Today the fire is a bit better because of the rain. I'm one of the lucky ones. My house is still standing, and there's no damage.
I cannot imagine how that feels to come back to your house intact. I've wondered ever since an acquaintance of mine, who had a house in the Oakland hills during its fire [1], talked about it. She had come back to her house and it was still standing, and then went on to relate how, for her, it was a mixed blessing. The house was there, and the stuff was there, but everything smelled of smoke (and would for years after…
> Some of her neighbors lost their homes, and a combination of the rebuilding challenges ... resulted them in selling their houses and moving away.
If this occurred in an urban/suburban environment, it would instantly cause the sort of "shrinking city" problem affecting places like Detroit—suddenly, your house might be the only house on its block, so the viability of delivering power, water, or mail to your lone house (or even keeping the roads maintained around you) would have to be reconsidered as a matter of urban planning. Your house might still be there, but if the city decides to redraw the city limits to exclude it, you may as well give it up as lost anyway—it doesn't have market value any more.
On the other hand, if this was a farm—probably then on unincorporated land—a very different set of considerations would be in play, since you (or a co-op you're a part of) would likely own an independent contract for the installation and maintenance of the entire run from the utility to you. On one hand, it would probably end up your responsibility to pay for any repairs to power poles/water mains/etc.—which might be a lot. On the other hand, knowing that, you'd probably have insurance for those "backhauls" for just such occasions. (A lot of farming is risk management of often-volatile commodities. There's a reason the CFTC—the US futures-market regulator—is under the Department of Agriculture.)
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the bright side, it is opening up some long-overdue political dialogue. For example diversification of the Alberta economy away from natural resources. Calgary's downtown office towers have reached record high vacancy rates, with so many engineers laid off. I'm hoping this is an opportunity for tech companies to take notice and move in.
Interesting to know. I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. But I get conflicting view from the news and statistics.
[deleted]
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#19Canada seems to be in so much trouble - I am wondering how things are there. # Massive flooring of the Canadian dollar. # Continued job losses months on end - Unemployment rate of 7.1% ! # Most expensive Natural Disaster in Canadian history. At least they got their Obama.
In a historical sense, Canadian dollar isn't particularly low, at least not so low that I would call it "massive flooring". [0][1]
Canada's unemployment rate of 7.1% is normal. [2]
0: The 80s were turbulent: http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/map-history-dollar/
1: There was a spike and collapse where you'd recently expect: http://www.profitconfidential.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12...
2: Historical unemployment data: http://well-being.esdc.gc.ca/misme-iowb/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.js...
Re: Canada’s $6.9B Wildfire Is the Size of Delaware and Still Out of Control
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting to know. I have been thinking of moving to Canada due to all the good things I hear from my Canadian friends. But I get conflicting view from the news and statistics.
I hope you understand that unless you have a job lined up or citizenship it is somewhat difficult to move to Canada. If I may make a modest suggestion perhaps try visiting Canada for a period of time in a region where you would want to eventually live instead of relying on the opinions of your friends (who may be biased) or statistics (which may not tell the whole story.)
Many countries can get work-holiday visas to Canada. It's a very nice deal, and you can get "serious" jobs with it, too.