Grew up in Canada (Toronto), lived in California (San Francisco) for working (TN visa) from 2011 to 2018. Back in Canada now (Vancouver).
I would have to agree with many of my fellow Canadians that currently the States is not a good place to live ever since Trump was first elected back in 2017.
During the Obama years, I had a great time in California, I enjoyed the weather there, enjoyed the scenery, enjoyed making lots of friends, enjoyed the generally lower prices and easier access to consumer goods there.
After Trump was elected in 2017, I’ve felt that America was no longer friendly to immigrants, and a substantial portion of the American population was prone to believing in misinformation spread by social media and the Trump Administration. After Trump took office, I decided I could not keep staying there much longer and left for Vancouver in 2018 and haven’t thought about moving back.
Although Vancouver obviously doesn’t have California’s year round sunny weather, it’s the closest that we have to that kind of West coast chill lifestyle, and I don’t mind living here. I feel that although Canada has it’s fair share of crazies, it’s not quite as bad as in the USA – I still remember that my phone got snatched out of my hands twice in San Francisco and one deranged man had punched me in the head while I was on my scooter there – never happened to me in Canada. The homeless and druggies in Canada usually keep to themselves, they don’t tend to assault people like they do in the States.
And just the fact that there are so many *more* crazies in the US combined with the high number of racists, mass shootings from Americans being gun crazy, cost of higher education and healthcare, keeps me from going back.
Canada is not perfect by any means – it’s expensive to live in, it’s a bit *too* liberal at times, the taxes are high, the waiting times are long for the medical system, druggies and homeless exist etc BUT I would still choose to live there over the USA because of the issues I described.
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