Close Reading

From Belgium. Good to see adults not mincing their words in front of narcissistic bullies. Bravo Canada!

I'm pretty sure more will come but many will leave so on once they understood that their living standards aren't improving. I see lot of people are struggling and moving to Netherlands, Belgium and soon. Even with two income it's hard to survive in any EU countries. The main reason behind all this misery is lack of housing, tax, tax and more taxes. Netherland is also not a good at housing and taxes. European are not work hard becasue it will only result in more taxes and causes more misery. In EU majority of people choose to spent time with family and friends than earning more money. It is cultural difference between EU and rest of the world.\n\nImmigrants come to EU thinking of earning more fortune like Dubai or USA, so that they can send remittance back to home has just become a day dream. In reality these countries take half of your fortune in taxes and in return they give good water, clean air and almost peaceful life.

As someone from Belgium that now lives in Columbus OH because of marriage, you're spot on with everything. Safety? Limited. Sprawl? Terrible. Rent? Eh it's not that bad. I make a base salary of $82.5k and my wife makes $50k. Our 2br 1ba apartment's rent is about $1000. It's a nice place, but it has some flaws. Our next place will be around $1500. I've told my wife I don't like the sprawl and lack of public transport here and I want to move to a place where that is less of an issue: Chicago, NYC or Boston. However, the latter two have crazy high rent.\n\nI must add, the terribly unsupported public education system in Columbus is by far the worst reason. My wife is a teacher at a Columbus City School that's almost 100% black. White families put their kids through private schools. The rest of the kids have terrible home lives and are therefore incredibly ill-behaved and under-educated. So much so that the teachers just CANNOT keep up with Ohio's learning standards. By the time these kids graduate (and that's a big IF), they would have learned about 20% of what a regular 18-year old would have learned in most of the world. This is in part due to:\n1. Parents that do not involve themselves in what their children do, and therefore do not discipline appropriately.\n2. Terrible school admins that force teachers to lower their standards to have a high passing rate for the school (otherwise it gets shut down). Also, due to the No Child Left Behind Act, admins also force teachers to teach how to pass state tests (repetitive bullshit) instead of important learning materials and/or critical thinking skills.\n3. A lot of these students are pushed into the gang lifestyle and see no future in their education. They don't even try.\n4. Burned out teachers that grew tired of the negative ROI and start giving out poor and inadequate work packets. However, I don't like blaming teachers, especially because my wife is the hardest working person I know.\n\nIt's hard to see my wife come back every day, exhausted. It pains me both for her and her kids. America doesn't give a fuck about education. The big theory is that they're purposely not giving public schools attention so they can be phased out and private education becomes the norm. And if you can't afford it? That's great, we need factory workers.\n\n\nI might convince my wife to move to Europe eventually (luckily a European marriage visa isn't as stupidly hard to obtain as it was for me to get here). Having kids in America is not something I'd like to think about. For now, I'm taking advantage of this high salary to save as much as I can and focus on advancing in my career. Sadly, that's really the only thing America is good for...

My wife, my 3 kids and I used to like Vancouver but not anymore!!! The weather is why we plan to leave for good but also the expensive rents! I also heard about horror stories at many hospitals (and yes, I have worked in Africa and to be honest, Africans hospitals are way more functional than the ones in Canada in terms of human aspect… there they care, Canadians do not give a shit about anyone!!! And I am saying this as a Belgian!!! I have some African colleagues at work here and at least 80 percent of them either want to go back to Africa (one is actually going to start an Afro business there and build his own house) or move to Europe (one of them plans to live to my homeland Belgium and two others in France as apparent the pensions there are way better than the Canadian one) as soon as they get enough experience in canada! None of us at work , including me, want to retire or get old here in Canada! For me personally, it is the Canadian extreme loneliness and lack of willingness to open to others that really shuts me down… I am fed up and and tired of paying taxes in a country where some (not all) hospitals and some retirement homes treat patients like … objects, not human beings! I now understand (as before I did not) why even some of my African colleagues are looking forward to go back to Africa or to some of them, immigrate to Europe! .. none of us want to be left alone and depressed in this so highly individualistic and unfriendly, falsely “cool” country called Canada… a country that claims America and France are racist countries when not even one CEO in Canada is coloured! I am also fed up of Canadians being cool!!!! Cool???? Yes, their humour is crap and they are all too serious… not astonishing why so many end up being depressed or on meds to be able to function! \nLast: I am fed up with 1. The stupid credit score system which makes North Americans anxious and frustrated!!!! Stupidity does not even exist in France or Belgium where I am from! 2.food is Canada is … not good…lol… really close to being bad! 3.the country is boring… reason… people are so disciplined and nothing happens!!! I just miss Europe even if we are far from being perfect and I prefer our imperfections to the Canadian perfect society which end up making people boring and annoying!!! 4. Canadians are shallow compared to us Europeans 5. Their transit system sucks if compared to Europe 6. Health care system is nothing comptable to what we got in Europe!!!! \nResult: I leave Canada years before retirement as The last thing I want for me is to remain in a country and get “sunk” Into Canadian depression, Canadian loneliness and Canadian “coolness”. \nOhh just as an indicator, it is really rare to see someone who is happy in Vancouver BC these days… the city just looks like a factory to make people work, make Canadian banks richer and pay taxes! Apart from that, I do not give a damn about the beautiful scenery and lakes as long as everyone around gets scammed with unjustified and ridiculous high cost of living!!!

I am from Kazakhstan lived in Canada Belgium America for 13 years after seeing this western boring, lonely, money saving, politically correct grocery, shelves is full of overpriced dead food and for every simple pill you need prescription wanna go back to home. but only exception Belgium was good , no complaints for Belgium ??