My final assessment of Canada.

My final assessment of Canada - 10 May 2014 - by P.K.Odendaal.

I have now been living here for about a year, although I have been back to South Africa for a few months. I am closing this blog after this final assessment of a wide variety of aspects of changing life from South Africa to Canada.

What struck me most was the widely divergent culture, lifestyle, politics, justice system and social system of the two countries, and I will take them one by one.

Immigration.
Entering Canada as an immigrant varies widely. For me as a sponsored immigrant, sponsored by my daughter, took me about five years. One stands in a documentary queue and they only start to look at your a.pplication when four years have expired.
If you go the investment route it is also very difficult, as this route is quickly saturated by eager capitalists, and I never got it right - even in the four years I waited.
Doctors are still in high demand and they can get immigration permits within a month, but South African doctors lately trained (under the new South African system) are no longer allowed in.
Certain trades like electricians, welders, crane drivers, farmers and so on can get immigration almost immediately.

Social services.
Social services are almost always free, if you are a permanent resident - even if you are not a tax payer. In this regard it is very beneficial for older people who may be retiring here.
The downside of this is that you wait in a very long line to get certain specialized medical services. Seeing a specialist can easily take you four months, and getting a knee replacement can have you wait for eighteen months. Being a socialistic type of system, one cannot get preference, even if you are prepared to pay more.

Justice system.
The justice system is quite well developed, but two things you have to keep in mind is that the cost is very high and it takes very long - more and longer than I am prepared to wait for.
However, there is a small claims court for cases of less than $25000, in which case you might have redress within six months.

Discrimination.
In all my time here I could not detect any discrimination on the basis of race, class, sex, age or anything else. This is excellent, but one must remember that discrimination can never work here as Canadians are such a diverse group of nations. In Toronto there lives about one hundred and seventy different nationalities from all over the world.
The downside of this is that there is no deeply rooted culture and the people may be said to be very cosmopolitan.
I got the idea that there is no specific trait of the Canadian nation which can be said to be universal or national. One finds many of these immigrants keeping to their foreign beliefs, customs and culture and many of them live in enclaves where their nation or ethnic group is well represented. They however still live like they did in their countries of origin.

Law and regulation.
The country is very well organized, managed and ruled and about every aspect of public life is strictly ordered to the extent that there is very little room for innovation and creativity. This impedes the freedom of the individual and many individuals, like myself, will better like the unordered systems of other countries.
The downside of this is that red tape is rampant and you can wait for many months for documents, certificates or the like.
The upside of this is that Canadians are very law abiding and there is very little crime and disorderly people.

Lifestyle.
The lifestyle is easy and comfortable and salaries quite good, in fact commensurate with the high cost of living here. Most people have a good job (or two) and have a good quality of life, and the middle class is very large - about 80% of the total.

Adjustment.
I found that South Africans do not adjust completely and many of those I have met are still proudly South African. The problem is that most South Africans here have fled the country, and just have to adjust here. I do not think many will immigrate here if South Africa remained stable is in decades gone by.
The lifestyle of many white South Africans are colonial with many of its ups and downs, but enjoying mainly its ups. There (in SA) white households have servants for almost anything, and households here are mostly servant-less. Such a colonial lifestyle will never work here.

Climate.
The warm season in Canada is about four to five months a year, and it takes a lot of adjustment if you come from South Africa where the warm season is about eight or nine months a year. The summers here are beautiful and warm and the summer days are very long. Sunlight during mid-summer is about nineteen hours and recreation is well exercised during those months.

Demographics.
Roughly 90% of the population lives within a few hundred kilometers from the USA border and the rest of the country northward is very sparsely populated and is main populated by First Nations, living in small towns with less than  one thousand inhabitants.

First nations.
The nations who populated the country before it was occupied by Europeans are called first nations. Their fate and economic future is much the same as the first nations of South Africa. They live mainly in settlements or adjudicated areas or reserves and are heavily dependent on state funds and help.
Some have however assimilated with the rest of the ethnic groups.

Conclusion.
If you want to immigrate to Canada, you will be very safe from many ills of the world. However, if South Africa was stable, I can see no reason why one would immigrate here.