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Lets make montreal canadian again

***National Post***\nMuslim leaders should've condemned Hamas instead of fomenting hate\nIf they had spoken out against terrorism, their advocacy of the Palestinian cause would carry much more weight. \n\nPart of the reason we are seeing division, hatred and unrest in the streets of Montreal, Toronto and other communities across Canada is due to the collective failure of Muslim leaders, in Canada and around the world, to condemn the despicable Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas on Israeli civilians. \n\nIt was a horrific and cowardly attack by a terrorist group — not by all Palestinians, Arabs or the wider Muslim community. It should have been condemned and contained immediately. Muslims who pride themselves as followers of a peaceful religion should have empathized and consoled the grieving Jews. \n\nThere was a lot of time to do this. There was a lengthy delay between the attack and Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza. Instead of taking this time to condemn Hamas’s slaughter, Arab and Muslim politicians and government leaders promoted anti-Jewish hate to shore up their political support. This is nothing less than encouraging antisemitism. \n\nMuslim political and religious leaders, barring rare exceptions, chose to contextualize, equivocate and, in most cases, justify Hamas’s barbarity. What we have, as a result, is widespread hate bordering on violence in Canada — a country where communities have historically lived side-by-side in peace. \n\nThe situation got worse due to the statements made by community leaders like Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s special representative on combating Islamophobia, who did not hide her partisan and divisive outlook by clearly siding with the protesters on Canadian streets, characterizing them as “peaceful demonstrations,” even though we have seen people supporting Hamas, calling for genocide against Israeli Jews and harassing and intimidating Jewish-owned businesses. \n\nOn Twitter, Elghawaby approvingly cited a quote from a Toronto Star column reading, “The stories I have heard are both fantastical and true. Muslims (and others who silently sympathize with the loss of Palestinians lives) are being disciplined, maligned, isolated and targeted at work.” \n\nInstead of reaching across the aisle and consoling the Jewish community, she has instead chosen to focus her public comments on rising Islamophobia. \n\nSeriously? Remember the Muslim family who were killed in a hate-related attack in London, Ont., a couple years ago? All communities, including the Jewish community, across the political and religious spectrum unambiguously condemned that hate crime. And it brought a sense of relief and security to Muslims in Ontario. \n\nRemember how, after more that 50 people were gunned down while worshipping at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, political and religious leaders from all faiths stood behind Muslims and consoled them? \n\nAlso, after the Quebec mosque attack, almost all communities in Canada chose to stand with Muslims. There were images of people in Alberta who formed a human chain to protect Muslims. Similar scenes were witnessed elsewhere in the country. Jewish community leaders spoke out, loud and clear, in support of Muslims and against hate and bigotry. \n\nBut that is not what Elghawaby did. Instead, she makes it sounds as though it is Muslims who are the victims, while failing to mention the barbarity unleashed on Oct. 7. This is not leadership. This is not her mandate. Her job is to promote tolerance as enshrined in Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. \n\nNow imagine a scenario in which Muslims did what they ought to have done in the first place: condemned the Hamas attack, sided with the Jewish victims and dissociated themselves from terrorism. Their voices for the Palestinian cause would have carried much more weight. \n\nWhat we are seeing instead is a rising tide of anti-Jewish hate on our streets, promoted and peddled by Muslim leaders themselves, either by gaslighting the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, or wallpapering it with the political colours of the Palestinian cause. \n\nLet us all come together, not to let hate be poured onto the streets of Canada, but to stand united for a secure and prosperous country. \n\nNational Post \n\nRaheel Raza and Mohammad Rizwan are members of the Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism.

1) Toronto is poor value. Getting housing of any kind (buying or renting) is stupidly expensive. And the quality you get for the price is lousy. Especially the newer builds, which are just thrown up as quickly as possible and sold to investors. Policy measures generally all seem to serve to just inflate the price of housing further. The occasional lip service given to affordability is amusing, but ultimately sad. There are lots of people who really do not want the housing bubble to pop. They will fight against it with all they have.\n\n2) It has become kind of boring. There is lots to do if you have money, but it’s harder to find entertainment on a budget. Even the free stuff like parks are filling up. Stuff like sporting events, eating out, going out is very costly across the board. Even the “cheaper” stuff is expensive. It seems like a lot of local culture is disappearing. Even the cool neighbourhoods are filling up with the same chains. I think the high commercial rent and bureaucracy is deflating a lot of would-be entrepreneurs. Most landowners seem to just be banking on cashing out their land for condos.\n\n3) Canada overall has a high cost of living compared to salaries. In the US you can find lower cost of living areas that still give you a real city experience. And in Europe you can be poor but still live a decent, if no frills, life. In Canada the basic necessities are all expensive. Phone bills, grocery bills, rent, insurance are through the roof. Domestic travel is expensive. And the dollar sucks if you want to travel abroad. Health care is free but good luck finding a family doctor or waiting 8 hours in the ER these days. It’s expensive to be poor, or even middle class.\n\n4) Most of the Greater Toronto Area, outside the core, is soulless suburbs with awful transit - very “American” except with worse traffic congestion. You will need a car, which is another huge cost. Row upon row of old cookie cutter suburbs with the same crappy houses. Good luck walking anywhere, and if you do you will need to walk down boring, treeless arterial roads with cars zooming past right beside you, and cross giant eight lane intersections that were never built for humans on foot. In a rainstorm or on a fall evening you have to be really careful not to be run over by aggressive drivers.\n\n5) It is hard to raise a family in an apartment here. You can do it but it’s not very easy, and also you are still kind of judged for it. Lots of young people are feeling stuck and are deferring or avoiding starting a family. Buying any type of house, even a basic townhouse, requires pledging your soul to a bank by taking a massive mortgage with eye watering debt in a volatile market. But few apartment buildings have the kind of sensible gentle density, the family unit sizes and the common amenities, like little courtyards with jungle gyms, that you might find in Europe. No one ever contemplated that anyone would ever desire to raise kids in an apartment. It’s just a cultural thing that has worked its way into how things are planned and designed.\n\n6) The transit system is ok by North American standards but awful by international standards. There are only two real subway lines, one stub line, one line that is permanently out of service after a derailment, and another line that was supposed to open a couple years ago but still has no date for opening. The subways go out of service frequently, sometimes for the dumbest reasons, and then it is a zoo of shuttle buses. The streetcars are nice but so slow. The buses are fine if you find yourself dreaming about riding a daily herky jerky rolling tin of sardines. They are building a lot of transit but it will take decades to get done.\n\n7) There is still a lot of cool multiculturalism and opportunities to experience different foods and cultures - one of the best things about Toronto. Increasingly though it seems to be losing the fun vibe of the 90s, when everyone celebrated each other’s backgrounds and was chill. It seems the immigration is not as broad based anymore and also people are importing a lot of their “old country” grievances here. The immigration system also kind of preys on people abroad by selling them a false fairy tale, so they end up dejected when they arrive and see how things really are.\n\n8) This one might be controversial but it’s kind of an ugly city. There’s nothing particularly of historical meaning or value. Some of the older neighbourhoods are kind of nice, but the last 25 years they have only built giant glass skyboxes, one after another. There aren’t the cool “missing middle” walkups like in NY, Chicago or Montreal (or even LA). There are very few buildings with much architectural character. Some of the buildings they deem “heritage” here are an embarrassment.\n\n9) For safety, honestly on this score I think Toronto is not bad. There are not too many real “ghettos” and it’s night and day compared to much of the US. With that said, there is more vagrancy and social issues these days, with tents and such. It’s very sad but the shelters are full, lots of homeless go into the libraries, parks and transit system. It does make it harder to enjoy these public amenities safely. It is nowhere close to Europe where you might let your kids run free around town. Canadian parents still helicopter their kids and the place again is not designed to really be safe for kids, in the same way as Europe.\n\n10) Finally, a bit of a double edged sword. Toronto had a lot of youthful energy - people coming here from all over. It is definitely not as sleepy as many parts of the world. With that said, it is becoming a bit of a transient place (minus the world class experiences like London or NY). If you are from elsewhere you might find it hard making and keeping friends. I’ve seen lots of people struggle because it’s is hard to build a strong social network. We have a very “shallow” culture here - people are extremely polite but not overly warm and hospitable. We treat one another kind of like neighbours - meaning we’d like to have a cordial, drama-free coexistence and otherwise kind of stick to ourselves.

I live in Montreal Canada and as a refugee from Rwanda I have no other options but to stay. \nFor those who are from peaceful countries in Africa and well educated who make at least equivalent of $2000 in Africa, please do not come here.\nFor example: it's not easy to buy a house if you're single, you need to be married to be able to afford a house. Let alone buying a house, renting isn't also easy, the cheapest now for families is $1000.\nLet's say you make $20 per hour, this salary will never get you anywhere unless you're married or have other sources of income. You need a second job and the more you earn the more you're taxed.\nEven those high skilled people can only live comfortably only as working couple because as a single high skilled person even if you make more than $100k a year for you to live a good life here isn't easy. Yes of course, it's still better than the most african countries, but for those doing well in Africa already don't come here, come when you're hardly earning a living in Africa. \nNB: People who make $100k in Canada are less than 11% of the whole population. That's 4257000 million out of 38.7 canadians. The rest are considered low income generating workers who hardly afford things.

As a dual citizen, there are so many things that's incorrect about this video. First of all, to make it an apples to apples comparison, I see no attempt to adjust the comparison by population. There is no point comparing Montreal (where I have lived) vs. Columbus, Ohio. Montreal is roughly 1.7 million people or 4 million metro. The correct comparison would be something like Boston. Similarly, there is no point comparing Montreal vs. LA in terms of geographical spread when LA is more than three times the size. So of course your commute will be different.\n\nComparing Montreal to Boston for example, Boston is very very compact. Yes, Montreal does have better food options than Columbus or your random rural suburbs. It doesn't come even close to similarly sized American cities. It's the same reason for example that one doesn't compare San Francisco for example, against London, Ontario. It's a pointless comparison.\n\nAdditionally, the claim that the worst part of Canada is better than the best part of America is laugahble. There is no truly terrible neighborhoods in Canada compared to American ones (where you can tell if you're in a bad neighborhood), but Canadians can't even imagine the wealth and prestige of the best parts of America, let alone compare with it. The wealthiest don't live in downtown New York (where they maintain their work residence), they live in Montauk. They don't live in downtown Boston, they live in Newton or Weston. The most affluent parts of Canada like Bridle Path/Rosedale (Toronto), Westmount (Montreal) or North Vancouver would look like abject poverty by comparison.\n\nOh, let's not also forget other factors for being in the US. The median household income in Canada is $67,000 Canadian. The median for the US is $69,000 US. The typical American is far wealthier than the typical Canadian. Anybody who tried to buy any goods (or services) in Canada and compared their choices in the US, it's not remotely comparable. Of course, the usual, taxes.

I think you ladies are way out in left field and you really don't know what you're talkin about. Unfortunately for some people it doesn't work out for whatever reason usually because they do not want to assimilate very well. I grew up in Ontario to a french-canadian father and an Italian mother in my life in Canada was so perfect said if I had to dream up a better life I could not have done so. I grew up playing all the sports and enjoyed all the different sports and the changes of seasons. My parents had a summer home on the st-lawrence river and every summer we water-ski swam fished, play golf in the morning and barbecues every night right on the water. Even though my grandfather was in the hotel business I was all about sports and enjoying everything about it. I grew up in a town of about 50 thousand about 40 miles from Montreal. When I wanted some great nightlife just drove a short drive to Montreal and it had everything did anyone could want in Nightlife. I have lived in United States for forty years and I can tell you that it really isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Heaven forbid should you get some kind of catastrophic illness you are screwed. I knew a woman who work for travelers insurance for 30 years at the best insurance a money could buy had suffered a couple of strokes and was on the verge of going broke had she not died when she died. People think that insurance continues to pay his long as you're ill and nothing could be further from the truth. This lady was going to have to sell her house to continue paying for round-the-clock care had she not died when she did. United States middle class is getting wiped out. I've seen enough poverty and hardship in this country to last a lifetime. I find greed to be running rampant in this country. When I grew up in Canada there was always the grass is greener on the other side and when I did move over to the other side the US that is I can tell you unequivocally the dead grass is not greener on the other side. There are more millions and millions of people here that are one or two paychecks away from being homeless. And we're talkin 2023. Now let's talk about violence. There is a mass murder in the United States every single day of the year. And a mass murder is defined by four or more people being killed by one person at one time. Killing these so out of control in the United States that now even six-year-olds are shooting their teacher. I find a tremendous amount of built-up Anger from people. Food is very expensive and shelter is also out of control and non affordable to most people. Again I find United States being able to paint a much Rosier picture then does really exist. And there are more con artists and thieves , Crooks, con-artists, bamboozlers, cheats and scammers then anywhere that I've ever been. And I will say this is it it ain't getting any better and I don't see it ever getting better. I find it is everybody out for themselves no matter who they cheat. I live in Southern California and I can tell you that night life where I live is non-existent. Understand that LA and Hollywood they always have to glamorize everything to sell it to tourists. Just remember that things today are not what they were 40 years ago. Middle-class people in Canada would also be just middle-class people in the US. But if your life means anything to you as far as safety and raising a family then Canada wins hands down end of discussion. People that say Canada is boring is because they are boring. That's what I found to be pretty standard across the board. Life is what you make of it. But I will say that you gals definitely need to move away if you don't like Canada. Do not let the door hit your ass on the way out. And just for your information Canada ranks annually as one of the top countries in the world to immigrate to. Canada is the second largest country in the world by land area and next to Saudi Arabia has the third largest oil Reserves in the world. Canada has huge amount of freshwater which most of the rest of the world seems to be lacking and having spent my Summers on the Saint Lawrence River one of the Great Rivers in this world. I wouldn't change my twenty years in Canada for anyplace else in this world and I will be moving back shortly.