Canada

[Blessed1974]

Hello Ladies

I have a question.  My other half has a job opportunity in Canada.  Now most of his family is in Detroit so I've been told thats a short car ride away.  My concern is that I, unlike him, have never lived anywhere but the U.S. and I was wondering if anyone had any insight on the living situation there.  My main concerns are still have access to adequate health care, schools for the girls, daycare and just everyday activities I guess.  We are a pretty liberal family you could say.  With my 2 oldest girls being teenagers I have concerns for them too.

Anywho, any information that you can give me would be very helpful.  Thanks in advance

Dee

[DanKenny]

Blessed,

I hope I am permitted to post in this forum...if not PM me:

but I have lived in Canada (in toronto in particular) for more than 10 years, and love it there.  If your better half is a short drive from Detroit, then it is likely you would be in Ontario -- which has excellent health care coverage.  You can PM for further details, with respect to location, etc.

DanKenny

[404error]

First of all to the moderators, I am a man, yes I know that this is the positive women forum and I am well aware of the fact that you want this as a forum for women to connect with women.  As I haven't come across any Canadian women on this site and this query has nothing to do with gender or HIV I'm going to give some feedback.

Blessed1974.  I am from Canada and have lived here for 28 years now.  Canada is a beautiful country and you're right, Detroit is just a short car ride away.  Mind you, if you aren't moving to Windsor or anywhere in Southern Ontario for that matter it becomes irrelevant as Canada is a massive country.  Since you didn't mention specifically where the job opportunity would have you relocating to I can't give you much more information in terms of distances and such. 

As far as health care goes I'm sure you will find that it is more than adequete.  Hospitals and clinics are clean and efficient.  I'm not sure of your health coverage, whether it is being provided by your other halfs employer (but assuming that you see this job offer as an opportunity, I'm going to assume it has benefits.)  You may or may not be entitled to free healthcare or healthcare at a very minimum charge like all Canadians.  It varies from province to province so I can't give you any specifics in that regard.  In Ontario there is OHIP.  It is free and requires photo identification to be accessed.  In British Columbia there is MSP, it costs about $60 a month but if you have any half way respectable full time job your employee benefits should surely cover that.  Prescription meds are much cheaper here.  In BC all HIV meds (regardless of your level of income) are free.  In Ontario they aren't free but are subsidized and again if you have benefits through work that should cover most, if not all of the rest.

On to education.  The education system in Canada is vastly superior to that in the United States.  A concern you might want to look into is whether or not your daughters credits will all transfer.  I had friends in high school who came here from places like Alabama, Oklahoma and Iowa.  They had to repeat some classes, namely maths, sciences and english as they were almost a year behind.  I don't know if this was because these students were particularly dim or because they really were a year behind but you shouldn't be concerned about them not getting a quality education.  If anything they'll be getting a much better quality education.

There are daycare programs here.  Quebec by far has the best policies in providing subsidized funding towards the care of children in working families.  There are still daycares across the rest of the country but the provincial governments don't offer much assitance and it's more up to you to pay out of your own pocket.  A lot of these benefits are only available to citizens or permenant residents and I'm not aware what your status will be so you may want to look into that.

In regards to everyday activites, I'm sure you'll find everything here that you did at home.  Malls, movie theatres, parks, campgrounds, bike trails, little league, pro sports, cable television (which by and large comes from America) and so on and so forth.  Last year the government passed legislation giving tax credits to families who enroll their kids in sports.  That means you get back some of what you spend on equiptment and league fees and such.  This was done to combat childhood obesity. 

I hope this addresses some of your concerns about the great nation of Canada.  If you have any further question feel free to PM me for details...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071205.wtest05/BNStory/Science/home

[BT65]

OK, men are NOT ALLOWED to post here.  Other than that, it looks like you got some good information.  I really don't know anything about Canada other than it has a much better healthcare system than we do here in the U.S.

[Seven]

I have lived here for almost 34 years and Love it, can't imagine being anywhere else.

Good luck with everything.

[Ann]

Hi Dee,

I hope you don't mind, but I moved your thread to Off Topic. I did this partly because two men posted (you guys know you're not allowed to post in the Women's forum - consider yourselves gently warned!) but more because you'll most likely get more responses here. Not all the men around here have such a cavalier attitude toward our posting guidelines and wouldn't have chimed in.

Ann
(who doesn't know jack about Canada)

[naftalim]

I guess if I can sum up an expectation for Canada, we are like the US but much less intense. Certainly, on the health care side, a visit to the Doctor won't bankrupt you. We are also much less celebrity focused, and less rah rah about the flag. The best thing about Canada is you can begin to enjoy Tim Hortons, that alone is worth the move 

Oh, and as far as teenagers go, we have malls 

Hello Ladies

I have a question.  My other half has a job opportunity in Canada.  Now most of his family is in Detroit so I've been told thats a short car ride away.  My concern is that I, unlike him, have never lived anywhere but the U.S. and I was wondering if anyone had any insight on the living situation there.  My main concerns are still have access to adequate health care, schools for the girls, daycare and just everyday activities I guess.  We are a pretty liberal family you could say.  With my 2 oldest girls being teenagers I have concerns for them too.

Anywho, any information that you can give me would be very helpful.  Thanks in advance

Dee

[Blessed1974]

Thank you all for the info