<p>I'm a U.S.-born dual citizen of Canada and the U.S.</p>
<p>I'd recommend: </p>
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<li><p>Get up-to-date on the current $ exchange rate between the two countries. This might account for your parents' perceptions of costs in Canada. FInd out whether the friends are speaking in $Canadian or $U.S., and how long ago they were there. The exchange rate is very dynamic news. </p></li>
<li><p>If you want to enjoy living in Montreal, study some French. Less essential for the other two institutions, although as you know, the country is officially bilingual. To enjoy the community of Montreal, the neighborhoods and so on, French is very helpful. Sometimes it's the only common language between
someone from, say, Asia or Africa, and the North American. </p></li>
<li><p>Especially after seeing SICKO, it's common knowledge that Canada has universal health care. (It's not free; it's universal.) What's the difference? Canadians pay excruciatingly high taxes to achieve that health care delivery. It's universal because everyone's included. Sometimes the waits are longer than in the U.S., by weeks, for routine procedures here; so be intelligent when you discuss the differences. You're so on the right track to question, with critical thinking, whether Canada might be "better" for more reasons than health care, but even in health care you can raise good critical questions to analyze it.</p></li>
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<p>I thought it was "better" because I liked walking down the street and realizing everyone was covered. But we paid for it in taxes, wait times, and the steady brain-drain departure of Canadian doctors to the U.S. I'm serious: 3 times in 9 years, I experienced going to "my" doctor in Canada, with whom I'd developed a relationship, to find while in the waiting room that he'd "given over" his practice and I'd be seen by the new doctor. Sometimes the new doctor sent notification by postcard of the change, other times not. Once I refused to be seen by the "new" doctor because of the lack of patient courtesy and my preference to research doctors. OTOH, the unbelievable saving in time/stress not to deal constantly with insurance companies is great for one's mental health.</p>
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<li>Canadians certainly do have a love/hate relationship with America. It's the mouse sleeping next to the elephant; if the elephant rolls over, it squashes the mouse. It's a beautiful thing that we share the world's longest peaceful border. I liked Canadian politeness, but even more so their ability to solve problems through consensus rather than confrontation. They consider us a violent culture because of our liberal gun control policies. The only cognitive dissonance I experienced was over race. I felt (mid-1980's-early 1990's) that the Canadians who called Americans racist were not confronting, sufficiently, their own racism in the form of attitudes towards the 1/3 of the nation that is neither French nor English, but immigrants from around the globe. They accept political refugees, not just economic immigrants. So, in the mid-l980's, Toronto was home to the most Somalis anywhere in the world outside of Somalia. My perception, having lived both in South and North in the U.S., was that the Canadians were NO BETTER than the Americans on the racism scorecard, but they constantly criticized Americans for their racism. </li>
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<p>These are the kinds of interesting differences you discover from studying in Canada as an American. I wish you good fortune wherever you decide to study!</p>