Close Reading

'WE two friends fighting is exactly what our OPPONENTS want to see' (Capitalisations mine) \n\nWhy is everyone so afraid to acknowledge and/or accept the fact that OUR opponents are not HIS opponents? They are his friends and his idols. He admires these people. He wants to BE these people. He is a danger not only to the United States, but to the entire world. Donald Trump will destroy everything we have ever known and relied upon regarding democracy and the worldwide rules-based system that we have all relied upon for 80 years now. Why won't anyone say that?

Trump is playing right into Putin's hands obviously has never read a history book or two look at America's stance at the end of World War II and we've been fighting against the Russians ever since they are not America's friend

Two friends fighting is what enemies love to see!smfh?

From France, hard to understand how these two countries are going into such a fight. It’s like a family fight between brothers. American friends, it’s Time to realise you elected a dangerous guy who obviously has too much confidence on doing dumb thîngs, and clearly is not qualified to act as a gentleman or just being a reasonable president. Canadian cousins, France will always stand behind you..

Us two friends fighting? Is exactly what opponents around the world want to see. Well said. Thank you.

We two friends fighting is exactly what our enemies want to see. Therein lies the exact objective. Trump is a foreign agent of an adversary nation.

We know that our president is a frigging idiot, but the fact he *noticeably* drops his language grade level when “talking directly to” Trump and says “we’ve done *big things*” twice and calls him a “very smart guy” and pulls it into a schoolyard metaphor of “two friends fighting.”\n\nI couldn’t wrap my head around how we got saddled with this joke of a human in 2016. \nCouldn’t fathom how it was close in 2020.\nWant to vomit every day that we allowed this deep, unchecked harm to befall us, our allies, and the entire world. \n\nI keep wanting to just wake up.\nI feel so insane that we seem to have literally no power to stop this, and that the *entirety* of the GOP is completely fine with this. They have the power, but truly with small margins. But they’re just … all complicit in this.\n\nAnd even NOW, when it’s clearly going to fuck the economy and markets in ways that hurt actual corporations (who truly run it all now, from all sides of the political aisle except what seems like 5 social Dems/independents federally), even THE MONEY isn’t talking.

The United States has become an unreliable world leader and trading partner, which will not put America first. The USMCA trade agreement between Canada, Mexico, and America, initially brokered and lauded by Trump as “terrific,” is now being scraped. The stated reason, a national security threat due to fentanyl originating from the Canadian border (approximately 43 pounds in 2024), is bogus. This pretend “security threat,” allows Trump to circumvent congressional oversight and undermine constitutional norms. Canada's historical contributions to the United States are extensive, including WWI, fighting Hitler in WWII for two years before they joined the fight, declaring war against Japan WWII after Pearl Harbour before America did, was 25% of D-Day’s landings, support during the Iranian hostage crisis, after 9/11, in Afghanistan, and during natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and California wildfires. However, Canada is now being treated transactionally, with a lack of respect to a historical friend and ally.

DON'T WORRY WHEN TWO FRIENDS FIGHTING THE BULLY CAN ONLY LOSE WHEN YOU STAND UP TO HIM....

My friend’s family bought a house with tenant two years ago. Big red flag Ik. For the past two years they didn’t pay a single penny in rent. They’ve been fighting to get them evicted but they give excuses to not show up at court. Even accused the judge of being racist to delay the eviction process. Finally they got evicted by Marshall last week. They owe over $60k in rents. Now they have to sue to recover the rent. After paying lawyers to get them evicted, god knows how they’re gonna recover any money. \n\nThis is in NYC, it’s a messed up system. And it’s not gonna change anytime soon.

From Poland. Arrived yo Canada at the end of 2020. I am nearing my 4th year here, in a small village. I arrived with my 6-year-old daughter to begin my writing career. Now, 40% of my daughter's childhood has been spent here and I I go to court soon to fight for my child to be returned home to me. After nearly one year- a year of financial hardship because I have to travel without a driver's license and without a group of friends to drive me- I have my very first hearing with a judge in Youth Court in a matter that has no foundation to begin with, follows no rule of law, and acts arbitrarily. My child whom I homeschooled to the praise of the provincial ministry of education and was following a classical liberal arts education path that had her outpacing students in the province was entrusted to the care of a Child Services company (that has a record of placements that have resulted in child murders). My child's life has been irrevocably upset to say the least. NO ONE LEAVING CANADA GIVES THIS STORY AS A RESON FOR QUITTING THIS COUNTRY. I guess no Canadians care about their children like I do my precious gift from God. True, O come from the former Soviet Union where Marshal Law (Emergency Measures Act) were commonplace. I lived through two in Canada in 4 years: one Federal, and one through Provincial Youth Court where I await my turn to see a judge after my daughter was removed from my care. People do not know they have no biological ownership of their children, because I guess few Canadians value their children to care about their own laws. But these laws also apply to immigrants too. What money was taken from me during the move and resettlement, the government takes by creating more expenses for me than I could ever imagine or budget for. Emotionally, I am a wreck. Rather than commencing my writing career, I have been seeking low-income lawyers, reading the provincial law on Youth Protection, filing complaints within a circular system (the watchdog is part of the system not outside of it) and preparing all evidence to prove I have done nothing wrong [just like in communist rule]. Have you ever given any thought to the difficulties in proving your innocence? \nNO ONESEEMS AWARE OF THIS DETERENT TO BRINGING CHILDREN TO CANADA. NO ONE. IT IS THE ONLY ONE I COULD NOT PLAN FOR. All other complaints like the economy, or the weather, or inflation I have survived. But taking away my child, my reason to settle in Canada for a life of freedom for her, my legacy, was unthinkable. People ask me in this small village where is my daughter. Their rosy cheeks become snow white when I tell them. Canadians here are unaware and scared like cattle in a thunder storm. Many are addicted to welfare payments, cannabis, prescription drugs, and television. They all seem to be waiting in a pen of fear. I am stuck here now, with little financial resource to fight for my child's life. It is unfortunate that no one will read my comment because it is an inscrutable wall of text or too frightening. Unless someone reads it, no help will come for my daughter. (Because she is a dual citizen, the local Polish Ambassador will not step in - another drawback for having a Canadian passport). Goodbye now.

Nice video. I watched it as I like to learn from other perspectives.\n\nI was born in Toronto, and I must say, this “no time for life and fun” is a new thing. This lack of access to health care is a new thing. I agree with your assessment. It now seems lonelier in Toronto. \n\nCanada used to be different because anyone with a good job could afford at least a condo, but life became unaffordable not just for immigrants, but for everyone unless you are in your 50s-60s and own a home. \n\nI have friends working double jobs supporting family back home in other countries, but for some of them the family back home sound like they are doing better than them and own a home. It’s like they are sacrificing their life to be in poverty or full of hardships and their families get to go out for dinners and drinks with friends. Not them. Not true for everyone, but for some yes and I worry about their own retirement because retirement in Canada without lots of savings means you might be homeless or forced to live with family even if it’s not your preference. \n\n without investments and savings, it will be hard to beat inflation. Getting into debt and getting bad credit can mean not getting an apartment. \n\nThe birth rate is going down because it is expensive to have kids and income isn’t enough to match with living costs. Getting help from government is really not something everyone gets access too. One person might get housing support, 10 others may get nothing. Different governments offer different things. Programs end and change often. \n\nIn Canada definitely bargain and shop around for good phone plans. one idea is to get a pay as you go until “Black Friday” then every year or two when your good offer expires there will be many others. It’s the time with the best deals saving almost half. For instance, I have 50 gigs for $25 for two years from a large provider. Telephone companies are the one place where people must bargain and even ask for better deals as a must.\n\nThe people you see living in big houses, will have kids that can’t afford the same. This is because prices keep rising. The system protects the very rich, but will also drain the middle class often within 1-2 generations. Do not link your business to your personal finance, or creditors can take your home. Some not knowing this lose everything and rich people know better. \n\nPeople live until they are very old, so inheritance is pretty much meaningless to rely on, so no matter what your parents have you must hustle in life. \n\nI do think Canada can become what we want over time. Citizens need to fight the trend of great community spaces, restaurants and bars going out of business and dumb corporations move in with bad boring restaurants. Like a McDonald’s where maybe a popular cultural hang out was. \n\nPart of the problem is a lack of mixed income housing areas, so it’s hard to stay living where you grew up. Artists and musicians help make a city great, but many cannot afford to live here.\n\nFamilies and communities staying together means more support for those with young kids and older relatives when they need help. Yet how is this possible in a city that is always pushing out lower income people when wealthier people desire the area. \n\nIn Toronto, every time you move you have to take what is available and that might mean moving an hour away from everyone you know. This weakens communities. Plus, if you live too far from your work you will have no time to socialize for most the week due to travel time. \n\nI think those who grew up in Toronto do have a certain culture of acceptance with others from many cultures, because your friends at school were from all over. But with new migrants sometimes it isn’t until the second generation that their social circles get diverse. This can be isolating and it’s even isolating as those from Toronto eventually leave dreaming of staying in one spot and not forced to move constantly when a landlord investor sells every house you move into. \n\n\nToronto really needs to protect affordability of housing for at least some housing in every section so that people can save money if they live in the city, and not have to leave their communities and be far from their friends and family. \n\notherwise eventually people get sick of the hustle and it’s too tiring to travel 1+ hrs each way to visit someone during Monday to Friday. \n\n20 years ago any professional could at least buy a condo. Not today. There is too much competition now and investors are allowed to buy up all the most affordable housing that once was a pathway to owning a home. \n\nRich policy makers got greedy and destroyed canada and hopefully diversity in leadership will help make Canada better. But they perhaps people knew to Canada can reject this lonely structure and help us rebuild Toronto into an amazing place. \n\nWe need to make sure everyone can afford housing with 30% of their income. I think that will help

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.

My career as a corporate pilot ended when my US multi-nat employer moved their flight department from Toronto to Binghamton, NY. They offered me a Restricted Green Card if I moved to Binghamton as the chief pilot. It was a moment of truth. Having worked for two different US companies, and having been in every state except Hawaii, I concluded that I could not do that to my kids. While I have friends in the US who are fantastic in every way, I never felt comfortable talking about politics or religion with any of them. I felt so strongly about it that I gave up flying even though I loved it. The American's excessive religiosity, gun fetish, racism, the possibility of being conscripted to fight in some bullshit, unnecessary war, and the lack of a national healthcare plan all factored into my decision. In 2015, when the US electorate chose an ignorant New York con man with authoritarian fascist ambitions to be their president, I felt fully vindicated in my choice.

It depends upon where in the US. You couldn't pay me enough to move to CA, NY, or IL. However, if I had a job offer and could get a green card, I would move to FL or TX in a heartbeat. My friend and his wife have been looking at houses in FL near Tampa. They are almost half the price of what they are in London, ON. As far as shootings, these people forget about the shootings and stabings in Canada. A mother of two was shot in what some think may have been a turf fight between two drug dealers, and she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. In Vancouver, a father was stabbed to death in front of his family at an outdoor cafe. At least in the US, you can protect yourself. In Canada it is illegal to have mace, or pepper spray, let alone carry a gun around.

I grew up in Calgary, two hours south. I've dealt with it on many levels, sometimes blatantly obvious, most times a series of micro aggressions that make you want to explode and destroy everything when it happens. As much pain it's caused over decades it's made me stronger as well as smarter. I will also say this and I can stress this enough, because of the demographics most of my friends are white and THEY HAVE MY BACK. in almost every aspect life will throw at me, they're ride or die people, I can say this with the utmost confidence The difference for me between Canada and the states is I'm not fighting alone if and when a situation comes up, there's people I can call if needed. Canada has it's issues no question and I could easily go ballistic when it happens to me or anyone I know, but we're not as bad as the states. I believe you can be heard.