Opinions

Planning on moving to Canada?

In print | November 13, 2008

Threatening to move to Canada has become, to many Americans, a political panacea. In 2004, the Canadian immigration website recorded its highest ever traffic the day after the presidential election — nearly 200,000 visitors, almost all Americans, flooded the site, seeking information on how to facilitate a Bush-driven escape from the United States. Author and humorist Christian Lander dedicated a chapter to “threatening to move to Canada” in his book of American social criticism, “Stuff White People Like.” And while few ultimately act on their professed desires, moving to Canada has become an automatic rejoinder for members of the losing party in the American political process.

The reasons for this would-be exodus are as myriad as they are misguided: we (erroneously) compress Canada into a land of progressive, hard-working (if slightly quirky) salt-of-the-earth types who like individual liberties, socialized medicine and moose. Their crime rates are lower, their politicians less crooked and their citizens more trusting. Even professional crank Michael Moore likes Canada. It is, in short, the paradise Americans wish they had been born into, and the perfect place to threaten to move to when the going gets tough in the States.

Following the election of Barack Obama, some of America’s conservatives stopped for a slightly confused pause: would it still be appropriate, as a Republican, to pick up the Democrats’ favorite move of threatening to move to Canada? No, argued Slate Magazine, although they helpfully provided a sometimes surprising list of conservative-friendly alternatives: Israel (hawkish), Poland (anti-Communist) and the Cayman Islands (no taxes) would all be adequate homes for red state refugees seeking to weather the Democratic storm.

But that some Americans believe they can escape political climates that they personal disagree with by fleeing to a foreign country reflects the overwhelming ignorance that many people in the United States have about the domestic affairs of the rest of the world. Or, put another way, we think that the grass is greener in Canada even though we’ve never seen it. The goal of this editorial, therefore, is to attempt to relieve some of that ignorance, at least in regards to Canada.

Let’s begin with a brief overview of what Canada does and doesn’t have to offer to the liberal Democratic crowd.

Unlike many Americans, Canadians have an aversion to guns. Not only does their constitution not explicitly protect Canadians’ natural right to bear arms (potentially excluded to avoid miscommunications resulting from the abundance of actual bears on Canadian soil), but only 22 percent of Canadians own guns. In comparison, a 2008 Gallup poll found that 42 percent of Americans own guns. More than half of the Republican respondents reported that they not only own guns, but are satisfied with America’s loose gun control regulations. Clearly Canada is not the place for America’s gunslingers.

Stoners, however, should keep their eyes to the north: whereas America seems to slowly be lumbering towards legalization (with Massachusetts decriminalizing cannabis possession and Michigan legalizing medicinal marijuana in 2008 ballot initiatives), Canada has consistently maintained a much more tolerant perspective. More than half of Canadian voters in 2008 supported the legalization of pot. Medicinal marijuana is legal in all ten provinces (and three territories, although the combined number of individuals growing medical marijuana in the Yukon, Nunavut and Northwest Territories is negligible). And Ontario’s courts have made a habit of striking down Canadian substance control laws. For loadies looking to legally smoke a joint, Canada may be looking more like home; but for those less inclined towards individual liberty and recreational drugs, it remains a dubious option.

With the bitter fight over Proposition 8 still raging in California, supporters of same-sex marriage can take comfort in knowing that, as of 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world to grant equal marital rights to gay and lesbian couples. In the fiendishly liberal Ontario, same-sex marriage has been legal since 2003, and the Canadian Supreme Court granted equal rights to unmarried same-sex couples in 1999. For liberals looking to escape the culture wars of red versus blue America, or for same-sex couples shunned from city halls throughout California, Canada seems increasingly appealing.

The list of appealing (at least to liberals) practices in Canada could continue in this vein — their social medical system has a habit of keeping their citizens alive longer and with lower costs than its American counterpart, they have two official languages, and so on — but this isn’t the complete story. There is an unmentionable, darker side to Canada, one that many knee-jerk would-be expatriates blithely ignore. Let’s explore that side in greater depth.

While Americans are loathe to hear about financial woes abroad with our domestic problems still weighing heavily on our minds, Canadian markets were in dire straits long before the Lehman Brothers dam burst. The Toronto stock exchange has fallen 37 percent from its heady high of nearly 15,000 in mid-June to a close of 9,424 on Tuesday. Canadian labor statistics show a loss of over 67,000 jobs in the manufacturing sector alone thus far this year. Fleeing Americans take note: even though the American economy has continued to flounder, the Canadian economy is not in much better shape. And as America, which buys 75 percent of Canada’s exports, sinks even deeper into a recession, it is almost certain to take Canada with it.

Considering that most Americans who threaten to move to Canada are doing so to escape from the perceived flaws of American politics, it may be surprising to note that the Canadian government is even more fractured than its American counterpart’s red-blue divide. Canada’s parliament is divided between five major parties, with a sixth (the newly minted Green Party) winning 7 percent of the popular vote but failing to get any seats. The largest party, the Conservatives, holds just under half of the seats of parliament, but only won 37.6 percent of the popular vote. The third largest, the Bloc Quebecois, holds 50 of the 308 parliamentary seats on a platform of secessionism, underscoring the growing divide between Quebec and the rest of Canada. The splintering of Canadian politics runs deep, and has proven difficult for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to remedy.

Canada also has a strange affinity for the known carcinogenic compound asbestos. Despite some of the highest mesothelioma (the cancer associated with asbestos) rates in the world, the highly effective lobbying of the asbestos industry has made Quebec’s government averse to shutting down the industry. The Canadian government has been similarly silent on the issue, despite a preponderance of medical evidence and a precedent set by a majority of developed and developing nations supporting an asbestos ban.

As if this weren’t enough, The Economist published a report in September detailing the increasing number of bear attacks plaguing outdoorsy Canadians. With 900,000 black bears and 70,000 grizzlies taking up residence in the woods of Canada, Americans frustrated by the actions of politicians they disagree with may want to reevaluate their options in light of the evisceration risk.
Whatever the credibility of threats of expatriation, the fact remains that a startling number of Americans are ignorant of the political, social and ursine challenges faced by our neighbors to the north. And in many ways, that ignorance is more offensive than the capriciousness with which we have come to regard our citizenship.