Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 563 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:11 am Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
I live in Alberta and I just can't stand it. Nothing unites us. People sit on the bus and no one talks. We have wealth and prosperity beyond our wildest dreams and yet no one smiles or laughs. No one celebrates or parties, we just sit at home and watch TV or go to the movie theater.
I want a sense of community. I'm a waiter at a local restaurant and I got a table of Newfoundlanders the other night, wow! Such nice and down to earth people, and a nice tip to boot. Even in Quebec, you have a sense of belonging. There wasn't one murder in Quebec City last year!
Here in Alberta, no one seems to care or talk. We sit in cars by ourselves and drive to and from work. We go home and make some food, watch some celebrity TV and go to bed. Random people with jobs. What a waste.
We never have celebrations besides the usual national celebrations. We have a farmers market but nothing for youth. We have about 5 bars in a city of 60,000 people and they're either scummy or secretly for seniors. I mean, we're one of the wealthiest cities in the country and yet it's just dead. Bah.
If I had a choice:
1) Quebec
2) BC
3) Newfoundland / New Brunswick
Joined: Dec 04, 2004 Posts: 2337 Location: perpetual state of exhaustion
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:25 am Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Quote:
Only one real piece of advice here. You sound like you are risk adverse and too willing to settle for what you have. What you have is freedom to be mobile and experiment. Sooner or later you will loose that. Use it while you can.
Actually my issue is the exact opposite and only lately I have been wondering if I take too many risks and if I shouldn't be more content to stay where I am and smell the flowers.
NIckolai: I spent a summer in edmonton and they used to have block parties in the summer. they don't do that anymore? that was so cool. everyone would come out and take part. the street we were on was basically closed off except to the odd car and they'd have barbecues out and lawn chairs set up. it was awesome, I'll never forget it.
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 1:11 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
uNkNowN ElEmEnt wrote:
Quote:
Only one real piece of advice here. You sound like you are risk adverse and too willing to settle for what you have. What you have is freedom to be mobile and experiment. Sooner or later you will loose that. Use it while you can.
Actually my issue is the exact opposite and only lately I have been wondering if I take too many risks and if I shouldn't be more content to stay where I am and smell the flowers.
NIckolai: I spent a summer in edmonton and they used to have block parties in the summer. they don't do that anymore? that was so cool. everyone would come out and take part. the street we were on was basically closed off except to the odd car and they'd have barbecues out and lawn chairs set up. it was awesome, I'll never forget it.
I lived in Edmonton as a teenager and liked it. Calgary was a horrific frontier town full of strangers, much like Nicholai describes. I'd rather live in a more colourful neighbourhood, with a higher crime rate, than the dull featureless void of a Prairie town, where nobody knows anyone.
It sounds like the dynamics of Edmonton are changing, as much of the oil money has shifted North towards Ft. McMurray. Just a guess. Plus, I think they've struck oil right around Edmonton.
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 1:17 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Nicholai wrote:
I live in Alberta and I just can't stand it. Nothing unites us. People sit on the bus and no one talks. We have wealth and prosperity beyond our wildest dreams and yet no one smiles or laughs. No one celebrates or parties, we just sit at home and watch TV or go to the movie theater.
I want a sense of community. I'm a waiter at a local restaurant and I got a table of Newfoundlanders the other night, wow! Such nice and down to earth people, and a nice tip to boot. Even in Quebec, you have a sense of belonging. There wasn't one murder in Quebec City last year!
Here in Alberta, no one seems to care or talk. We sit in cars by ourselves and drive to and from work. We go home and make some food, watch some celebrity TV and go to bed. Random people with jobs. What a waste.
We never have celebrations besides the usual national celebrations. We have a farmers market but nothing for youth. We have about 5 bars in a city of 60,000 people and they're either scummy or secretly for seniors. I mean, we're one of the wealthiest cities in the country and yet it's just dead. Bah.
If I had a choice:
1) Quebec
2) BC
3) Newfoundland / New Brunswick
Nicholai, I just watched a little piece on CBC the other night about how Newfoundland is going to need so many new workers for it's oil industry, that's now ramping up, as their own work force has all moved to Alberta. This could be particularly important in the future, as oil could actually drop in price, making Alberta oil less tenable and Newfie off shore oil, more important. So it wouldn't be a bad time to look at St. John's. Housing is affordable, jobs related directly or indirectly to the oil industry are going to be plentiful.
You are lucky in that you have identified at a very young age, what you find intolerable in a place, the basic social dynamics, so you have a great head start in finding a remedy for yourself. If only I had known at a much younger age, that the feeling of the void, wasn't so much my deficit as a cultural one. I grew up at a time and in places that actively promoted neuroses and poor mental health for the individual. If I had been more aware, it would have helped so much!
Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 563 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:00 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Edmonton has had enormous influxes of newcomers in the last few years. Same with Calgary. For a little while, we were getting over 100 new people into the city EACH DAY! ( would've been around 2006)
Edmonton isn't nearly the "Ukrainian Only" town that it used to be. In Northern Edmonton, Lebanese people make up a large demographic and violence between the Lebanese and Whites is quite high. My cousin plays football for a high school in north Edmonton and one of his friends tackled one of the other players quite hard (kind of embarrassed him I think). The player was Lebanese and came to my cousin's school the next day with a car full of people carrying machetes and knives. My cousin's friend was forced to switch schools.
In Millwoods it's predominantly East Indian and Chinese. It's considered the poorer part of the city.
Saint Albert is almost entirely White and the average house price is $425,000 according to the Saint Albert Gazette. Houses were going up $15,000 a month for a few months in 2006. My house is around 550,000 to 600,000.
Saint Albert is a bedroom community and things change, but only for the worse. Urban sprawl isn't part of St.Albert discussion, although it should be. There's a $12,000,000 dollar home being built in the richest part of my little suburb (it's about 8000 square feet for 4 people). We don't have many bars, and the ones we do have are scattered about so theres no "bar district". If you want to go to a bar, you have to take a cab to and from Edmonton. There are only 3 or 4 good clubs in the entire city that are safe and 'fun', the best is a club on the south side of Edmonton which costs a whopping $50 for a one-way taxi ride.
In Jonquiere Quebec, a city of less than 50,000 people (Saint Albert has 60,000 people) there was a HUGE bar strip and you could walk to and from your house without ever stepping foot in a car. There were parties in the downtown street every night, with a band, security guards and lights. Here...I'll show you what it was like. This is a picture of me and my friends in Jonquiere Quebec (they had a celebration like this EVERY NIGHT during the summer) Quebecers know how to have fun.
Because St.Albert is so boring, drug use among teenagers is VERY COMMON, as well as drinking. The bus system is getting better although everyone drives. There's no LRT between Saint Albert and Edmonton. There are block parties but they are fading away. No one knows anybody else because newcomers are coming and going and the sense of community has really gone to the dogs. I've never even met one of my neighbors. (I talk my jaw off so I'm surprised I haven't caught him yet)
Click some of the pictures of "Bal en blanc" and you might see me and my friends in the front. This was a techno party and they closed down the street. They had a bubble machine pump bubbles into the crowd and dancers on stage and everything. It was awesome. Afterward, we all went into the bars and had some beer and then went dancing. No one starts fights, no one gets stabbed.
In Saint Albert, we have a rodeo celebration but there's usually a fight with police and everyone dresses like cowboys and acts stupid. It's not very safe and it only goes on for a couple days. In Quebec, they had parties like this EVERY DAY for the ENTIRE SUMMER!
As for Alberta's economy. It's a joke. We're not saving a bloody penny and everyone knows that once the oil runs out, or our natural gas, or the price of oil falls, or major projects stop and we're flooded with workers, we're in deep crap. Everyone knows it, no one cares.
Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 563 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:12 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Oh yeah. There was this bar in Jonquiere that had 5 big glasses of beer for 8$!!!! In Alberta, it's like 5$ a shot and 4.50$ or more for a glass of beer. After we would drink at this bar, we would all go dancing and then go for poutine at this little poutine restaurant run by this nice old lady named Madame Pauline.
At the Bar
Bal en Blanc (bubble part in downtown Jonquiere, free of charge for everything!)
Joined: May 13, 2007 Posts: 610 Location: Athabasca, Alberta
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Women are not to bad either, perhaps you might consider it the place to spend peak oil. _________________ Appuis ait fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae.
Alias Redneck
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 4:27 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Nicholai, Come to think of it, I think what we're describing here, as much as geographical difference is the difference between established town and cities, as opposed to suburbs. Everything Kunstler says about suburbs is true.
When given a choice between life and death, we should always choose life. Living in a suburb is supporting an economy of death, that promotes death of the planet, and death of the soul. To have a strong aversion to it is to be mentally healthy, and to have a spirit that yearns to be in accordance with some kind of unwritten natural law.
French Canadians like the European French, have a less alienating culture, stronger interpersonal relationships. Canadian and American kids tend to drink to get drunk, as they need to be utterly numb to overcome shyness in social situations--I think. Of course social anxiety is treated like a disease and kids are given drugs like prozac to counter it, but it's really a completely natural manifestation of suburban life in North America.
Joined: Jun 15, 2007 Posts: 563 Location: St.Albert, AB
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:56 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
I couldn't agree more!
In Quebec, we would see handicapped people all the time. In the malls, walking around to say hello to different people. We never see them here.
Women there, holy crap! Not only were they really beautiful, but they didn't take crap from any guy or anyone in general. They had a personality and weren't afraid to butt heads with you if you were standing in their way or acting like an idiot.
People there had a sense of community and weren't afraid to argue or laugh. Everyone went to the bar and everyone had a drink, then everyone goes to party and we all go home for work the next day. No one cares if you're underage and you're in a bar. They would rather have you drink some beer inside the bar then chug a 26oz of vodka behind a bush (like here in Alberta).
It's a really nice life and people live in tiny little homes. They don't live in excess and they always think of others. Montreal is different...it's something of itself...but Jonquiere was really a nice place to be. I want to go back this summer but peak oil is driving me to look at Finland. I'll check out Finland, Norway and Iceland and see how I like it. If they don't work out, maybe I'll look at Quebec.
Joined: May 13, 2007 Posts: 610 Location: Athabasca, Alberta
Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:10 pm Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
Interesting what you said about Montreal, French Canadians shun the place, work there but live in the burbs.
Want a real expertience try Verdun. _________________ Appuis ait fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae.
Alias Redneck
Posted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:26 am Post subject: Re: CANADA THREAD
I find North New Brunswick to be similar to Eastern Quebec, especially close to the boarder. Personally my family on my fathers side is mostly french so I have the opportunity to travel to north NB once a year for a reunion... Great bunch of people and very accepting of my limited French. The Family is quite big too, my grand father had 15 brothers/sisters - so you can imagine the cousins uncles and aunts I have- Makes for a fun weekend (the reunions)
I personally on staying put where I am unless the economy completly dies here and I am forced to move to work
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 9:52 am Post subject: Re: What is the downside of buying a car in Canada?
I think you would not be able to import it to the US so really what is the point? You could get a Jetta diesel wagon that gets way better gas mileage than the gas powered Smart. I was going to buy the four door diesel Smart (here in Canada). The dealership said they were going to import them. That was 3 years ago! I bought a 1985 Mercedes diesel for $4k instead, best car I have ever had.
Last edited by mistel on Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:07 am; edited 1 time in total
Posted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:02 am Post subject: Re: What is the downside of buying a car in Canada?
I don't know what NAFTA did to import restrictions. I had dinner last night with some Canadian friends from Prince Edward Island. They seem to think their would be no problem. There is already one here in Florida. It belongs to seasonal visitors.
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