It's actually really wild to think I spent a couple of years working in Boston more than a decade ago, and I used my zipcar subscription way more often than I've ever had to use a communauto in fake london (a city no one would mistake for having good urban planning).

> When I think about the counterfactual me that grew up in a large American city, New York or L.A. instead of Toronto, I see someone who's more stunted than me, in important ways. No skating classes, libraries too far to walk to on a regular basis and more poorly stocked. Student debt. Without generous public incentives, that version of me would only have the life that her own parents can afford to provide for her.

I wonder if the author would have a better outlook on their counterfactual American self if that person had grown up in a smaller town like myself. I can walk to the library, grocery store, school, park and coffee shop; nothing is locked behind shelves in our pharmacies or stores; my nephews are in skating classes and play in a little league Hockey team, in rural Iowa of all places.

Yes, infant formula, and yes, student debt. Canada has the US beat for sure in social safety nets.

As a tangent: I wonder how writing a piece on appreciating my own upbringing in rural America might be received.

Despite this, like the author, I was able to have an incredibly well rounded childhood full of activities through our recreation centers, a short 10 minute walk from my home (not so short in the winter!)

There are many times I look with frustration at the payroll taxes I incur paying my colleagues. Articles like this serve as a great reminder that my capabilities are not innate, but built through the sweat and tears of those before me.

I love Canada, and though I have had the incredible privilege to visit (and for short periods, live in!) many countries and every continent, there's nowhere I'd rather call home, nowhere I'd rather contribute to.

Canada may have a "go for bronze" attitude, but it doesn't have to stay that way. We can decide to go for gold, one day at a time.

The biggest problem, by far, was medical care. I didn't see a dentist for the first time until I was in my 20s. Any medical problem felt like a disaster that could put us on the street if not managed carefully. I'm very envious of Canada on this front.

Interestingly, I have a similar feeling of gratitude to the US the author has to Canada. Food stamps, and eventually tuition wavers and scholarships, let me break out of poverty. I'm so, so grateful I had those opportunities.

Like the author, I feel we could do a hell of a lot better in a lot of ways (especially lately!), but the core we have is still pretty dang good and I still feel lucky for having access to it.

I'm just a datapoint, but in Chicago suburbia i had all that the author laments as unavailable to American kids. Mom made sister and me take skating classes, though we already could (ice hockey on ponds with friends, figure skating classes for variety, though i didn't like that as much as hockey), no student debt (top 5 US engineering universities included one in my state), kick ass library bike ride away, awesome park district in a tree covered suburbia, and so on.

I mention this because I'm in no way unique among american kids (a couple decades or so later), and, with the author, we agree these things are great.

The US is not one country. It's two that are radically different.

There's wealthy America. The top 5% to 10% that have healthcare, have their own safety nets, don't need to worry about money, their kids go to select schools that they can buy into (mostly by buying into the right neighborhoods), an amazing pension plan, etc. My kids go to a fancy library with reading time, puppets and classical music. All the things I love about Canada and more.

That country is amazing and the quality of life is unparalleled unless you're obscenely wealthy.

The bottom 80 to 90% percent of Americans live a life that is far inferior to any western and even many developing countries. They have no safety nets, no job security, no retirement, housing insecurity, they're even the smallest accident away from ruin, etc.

In other countries people know roughly how badly or how well they're treated by the system. Only in the US have I experienced the level of brainwashing where people are thankful for the horrors of this system, and somehow wash away anything they see or hear about anywhere else in the world.

Because your family mostly decides if which America you live in, most people don't understand the other side at all and can't comprehend how they live.

I grew up leveraging many of the same programs, this post helped illuminate how lucky I was to have them. Thank you!

Is anyone currently moving from Canada to the US?

If so, are they the "smartest", or do they simply have different priorities than a lot of equally smart people?

Is this what Canadians actually believe? NYC has, off the top of my head, the Museum of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art--does Toronto, or even the entire rest of Canada, have anything remotely comparable, to even just one of those institutions? And these museums, BTW, are typically free or "pay what you want" for NY residents and children. And the NYPL has plenty of locations, though I'm not sure what the author's definition of "walking distance" is: https://www.nypl.org/locations

I never thought I'd see someone describe life in NYC or LA as "stunting," especially relative to Toronto, yet here it is.

America has long been a place where hardship or trauma for a subset of the population has been seen as the system working "correctly".

It's just that the makeup of that subset has shifted over time (although much less so for black Americans).

You'll find many people here that will believe that without deprivation of basics and even comforts, nobody would want to pursue or achieve anything.

This is often believed by people living in communities that - because of wealth clustering -provide basics and comforts, as well as growth opportunities, and sometimes especially by the few people who escaped deprivation into comfort and security through their grit, thereby assuming that is the best route for all of society.

We think we did it all ourselves, without any helping hand up, while often being ignorant of our own privilege.

Canada, and much of Europe, optimise for QoL. But in Europe at least, this impinges on people's mental ability to invest in growth, to have a risk taker mentality and "ownership of your own life" kind of thing.

US is the opposite. Screw QoL, screw inequality, go for growth and the rest will come. The poor will get more crumbs if the country grows more quickly, and over time will be better off than those in generous but stagnant European countries. Maybe.

Is Canada somehow finding a happy path? I'm getting mixed opinions. But would be great to know what Europe could learn from our friendly North American cousins.

From my side I can say, I visited Canada twice in my life, a very long time ago, and absolutely loved it. So I'm always rooting for the Maple Leaf people vs Team Orange (headed by Agent Orange..?).

As to who becomes a party leader: Party leaders are picked internally by party members via leadership races, not by the general public. This is good because the leader is selected not by "Low Information Voters" swayed by short-term issues like egg prices (as in the US), but by people who have gone through a qualification filter.

Post-election, the PM must sustain the House's confidence, with no-confidence votes possible anytime. So it is not necessary to watch helplessly for 4 years while your PM destroys the country.

Achedemics recently claimed that herodtudus was wrong when he wrote in 500bc that the pyramids were built by slaves. Their evidence: archeolgy shows that the builders were given food, housing, and medicine. Were they "slaves" or did we just adjust the meaning of the word to conform to the barbarism of colonists?

so, if they WERE slaves...what would that make me in the modern US?

And just think, those are the American areas most common to Canada.

There are places in America where those counterfactuals do not exist, where the necessities aren't locked behind counters, where community is thriving, and where the normality of civic life is an expectation.

I expect no honors for those parts of the country. If Canada didn't have an air of superiority to comfort itself with, it would have nothing at all.

If you live even just comfortably, you are the 1%. Such has been and continues to be the prevailing squalor of the world as a whole.

In the US, the polarisation between the poor (and working poor) and the wealthy is stark. But let's be clear that this is (sadly) nothing new in the history of human society. When the poor have had a chance, they have occasionally risen in starving, ragged fury against plutocrats.

But the US is still one nation under its current federal government. This government has consolidated its power over its own citizens. People are being seized without warrants; people are being killed by armed, masked government agents who appear to murder with impunity. The rule of law has vanished. Previously independent (or arm's length) government entities are now run by toadies and cronies of a brazen regime.

In perhaps the most tragic _self-own_ in modern history, the US has fallen to insidious elements from within. Other countries are watching not just a former ally -- but a former leading light -- extinguish itself and collapse into destructive dementia.

I can't help but roll my eyes. I understand this is supposed to be figurative and not literally mean there are two countries, but I still roll my eyes because no, it is just one country. It is one country that collectively decides stratification to this extent is fine.

This reminds me of when some people say "America isn't bad, it's the other party that's keeping us hostage." The rest of the world really doesn't care and is waiting for the US to get it together already. Other countries couldn't care less about a completely different country's peculiar internal differences that contribute to its overall terrible behavior. The US is one country and the buck stops there. If you can't get your house in order, then yes, the house is bad and can't take responsibility for domestic affairs.