• Zagorath@aussie.zone
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    1 month ago

    85% of Canadians live within 100 miles of the American border. And yous claim you don’t want to be part of them.

    *(runs and hides)*

    • merc@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      If anything, this proves how much Canadians don’t want to be Americans.

      Canadian weather is shitty, you can’t grow crops for most of the year. During the fraction of the year where the climate is suitable for growing crops, the variety of things that grow is small compared to what’s possible in the US. And, as bad as winter can be, summer’s no good either. You don’t want to be outside in the winter because it’s -30, and you don’t want to be outside in the summer because it’s +35. The cost of living in Canada is high because you need to heat your home in the winter and cool it in the summer. Almost everybody drives a car because of that “being outside sucks” thing, but cars are expensive to own and operate in Canada. There’s the cost of winter tires, more expensive winter fuels, antifreeze in the windshield washer, plus the constant freeze/thaw cycle wrecks the road surfaces, which results in potholes, which results in more wear and tear on cars. In addition, to make driving safe they drop a lot of salt and sand, which just rusts your car. Because the country is a thin strip, everything is far away, and everything communications-related is expensive. And, a low population relative to the US means that a lot of companies just don’t offer services in Canada because it isn’t worth it to comply with Canadian laws just to get the same number of customers you could get from a single American state. I could keep going on and on.

      Yet, despite all that, Canadians huddle up as close as possible to the border for warmth, but refuse to go any further south because that would mean entering the US. As bad as Canada’s climate is, putting up with that is an easy decision to make when the alternative is 'Murica.

      • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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        30 days ago

        One minor correction. The reason Canadians drive is not because the weather sucks, Canadians drive so much because our country refuses to build real transit or walkability. Hell half our country is going to court because a few of our provincial premiers want building bike lanes to be illegal. There are other countries with similar climates to Canada where people don’t need to extensively rely on their car to live their daily life.

        Id also say that the biggest factor to cost of living is cost of housing, which is largely related to our cities making it nearly impossible to build any housing that isnt detached single family homes with minimum lot sizes and set back requirements. This also reinforces the car dependancy

        • Evkob (they/them)@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          Seriously, half the fucking country lives in the Québec City - Windsor corridor and we don’t even have a high speed train there?? It’s a political issue, not a geographical one.

          • FireRetardant@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            But Canada is “too big” for rail. Except of course all those railways 100 years ago that pretty much made this nation possible, or how nearly every city had trams in most neighborhoods.

            • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
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              30 days ago

              And the Trans-Siberian railway has existed for years, is thousands of miles long in awful conditions, AND electrified. We don’t have an excuse.

      • Jamablaya@lemmy.worldBanned from community
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        1 month ago

        Meanwhile they have wheatfields 4 hours north of Edmonton. Posts like this always remind me how much I hate most Canadians and their whiny, weak, entitled, arrogant, half clever bullshit.

    • Univ3rse@lemmynsfw.com
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      1 month ago

      Hell, the US is all they talk about here on lemmy. I’m not sure they don’t want to join either.