What widely held misconceptions to foreigners have about your country?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
141

fetus, I can’t speak as a Canadian. Nor will I fight if someone has any better information that supercedes my own. I’ve got a friend in BC who’s been having a number of problems with the Canadian Health system. Not least of her gripes is that she’s told me that there’s all of one MRI in the whole province. Think about that for a minute. One MRI facility in the whole province.

Even granting that it’s quite likely that in the US they’re being used in situations where there is not always a clear need for that level of resolution, that’s still shocking to me. I’m in an urban area with at least ten of them, that I can think of, and I believe we’ve got a fraction of the population of British Columbia.

She’s not exactly eager to leave for the US, but she’s also not much enthralled by the Canadian Health Services, either.

142

I’m from Central BC originally and I can attest to the fact that health care in that part of the province sucks.

In a city of 75,000 there were approx. 10,000 people without family doctors. They couldn’t get one. If you already had one, you couldn’t switch, unless you wanted a terrible one. Those ones always had room because their turnover was so high. Sure, if any of the 10,000 had a problem they could go to “emergency” or the local “walk-in” (pack a lunch), but they didn’t really have an opportunity to work on their condition long-term with a series of visits to the same family doctor.

The last time I was there they still didn’t have an allergist or an ear/nose/throat specialist. This is a city of 75,000 with 150,000 in the surrounding area…

Also, up until a few years ago, the city shared a mobile MRI unit with two other population centres. One unit for maybe 200-300 thousand people.

Conversely, I worked in Alberta for a while in a city of 45,000 that has two MRI machines, as I understand.

Also, when my mother was sick with cancer she was sent to the University of Alberta hospital in Edmonton, Alberta. I couldn’t believe the quality of the health care in Alberta. Quite superior. The difference is amazing. It’s all that oil money.

143

FWIW, Shamozzle, my friend is in a small central BC City. Perhaps the same one you’re referring to, I’m not sure. Thanks for the better information.

144

[QUOTE=fetus]
Canadians: Is there a marked difference in quality between Canadian provinces? Like, are there provinces that are commonly known as bad places to get (regular/primary physician) care, and provinces that are commonly known as good places? I hear a lot of Americans say that “Canada’s health care system” is a terrible failure, it takes months to see your doctor, you can’t get anything covered when you need it, etc. And I’ve heard Canadians give mixed reviews, but never paid much attention as to which province they were from. Can anyone shed some light on this?
[/QUOTE]

Bear in mind too that our health care systems have been half-pecked to death by ducks over the last quarter-century. Gotta get that deficit down, don’t you know.

145

matt_mcl, isn’t that part and parcel of the same thing that’s happening here in the US with the general aging of the population, and the growing burden of Baby Boomers on health care systems? It’s not simply that funds are being cut from health care, but the expectations for what should be spent on health care keep going up, too.

146

[QUOTE=OtakuLoki]
FWIW, Shamozzle, my friend is in a small central BC City. Perhaps the same one you’re referring to, I’m not sure. Thanks for the better information.
[/QUOTE]
Prince George, BC, is the city in question.

147

Vermont:
We’re not all pot-smoking, barefoot-going, skiing hippies. Nor are we all shack-living, deer-hunting, libertarians. Most of us are an even mix of the two. :stuck_out_tongue:
While not all Vermonters drive Subarus, there is a DAMN lot of them on the roads here.
I don’t know any members of Phish, Ben or Jerry, or…umm…well, ok that covers all the still-living famous Vermonters.
Yeah, we think Bernie Sanders is crazy, too…but we still vote for him, cause the Senate needs a good dose of crazy.

On the other hand, we do all drink maple syrup day in day out. That’s actually what comes out of the kitchen faucet round here. :smiley:

148

[QUOTE=bouv]

While not all Vermonters drive Subarus, there is a DAMN lot of them on the roads here.
[/QUOTE]

Well. It seems as though Vermonters and Israelis have exactly one thing in common.

149

[QUOTE=ShibbOleth]
She’s possibly thinking of Henrik Larsson, whose father is from Cape Verde.
[/QUOTE]

I would think she’s thinking of Carew (pic) if it’s the Norwegian player we’re talking about.

Anyway, I don’t really know any misconceptions people have of Norway, since I don’t usually stand out when I travel and don’t get a lot of tourists where I live.

Though if anyone has any, I’d be more than willing to help out :slight_smile:

(Of course, there was the spot where the American guy believed we were Communists. Um, what?)

150

[QUOTE=matt_mcl]
Bear in mind too that our health care systems have been half-pecked to death by ducks over the last quarter-century. Gotta get that deficit down, don’t you know.
[/QUOTE]

Pecked to death by ducks? Here in Alberta, King Ralph stripped all the meat off the bones, and then ground the bones up. But by god he balanced that budget! I don’t think our healthcare and education will ever recover from the bloody gutting he gave them.

151

[QUOTE=fetus]
Lots of great info. Big question here: is all criminal law handled at the federal level? What about traffic law? For example, between local, county, provincial and federal, what level of government would have beef with you in:
[/quote]
I’ll answer your list in order, then explain a little more:

  • A parking ticket? Muncipal, but ultimately provincial, since municipalities are chartered under provincial law. If you don’t pay your parking ticket on time, fines increase; don’t pay it at all, and the province can take steps such as not renewing your driver’s license.

  • A labor contract violation? Provincial, and a provincial arbitrator or mediation board would try to handle the problem. Of course, if (say), violence occurs on a picket line–folks getting beat up, cars being damaged–then the criminal law comes into play, and charges of aggravated assault etc. can result.

  • A liquor law violation? Provincial. I’m assuming you mean selling alcohol to a minor, or a bar staying open past regular closing hours. Fines and/or loss of liquor license would result.

  • Petty theft? Federal. Theft of all kinds falls under the Criminal Code of Canada.

  • Major shoplifting? Federal, see above.

  • Murder? Federal, see above.

  • Simple drug crimes (simple possession, selling, etc.)? Federal, but in addition to the Criminal Code, you also have to bring the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act into play. There is no truth to the rumour I’ve been asked about by a couple of Americans of my acquaintance that a certain province “has legalized marijuana.” The province has no jurisdiction over the legalization of marijuana, or of any other drug on the CDSA list. Of course, if local law enforcement chooses to look the other way for small amounts, that’s its business. But the feds make the drug laws, which apply uniformly across the country.

Ask yourself if jail is a possible punishment for a given offense. If it is, then the offense is likely criminal (and thus federal law); if it is not, the offense is likely against some provincial law or regulation. Provinces cannot jail people, but they can levy fines. On occasion, it may seem as if somebody is being jailed for breaking a provincial law–for example, the stockbroker with shady dealings who is breaking the provincial Securities Act somehow–but a closer look reveals a criminal act: fraud of some sort, which is in the federal Criminal Code. The red-light runner is breaking a provincial traffic law–but if he or she hits and kills a pedestrian in doing so, it is a homicide charge of some sort, and comes under the federal Criminal Code. Incidentally, drunk driving is also in the federal Criminal Code, since you can be jailed for it.

There are no real municipal or county courts anywhere. Yes, breaking a traffic law (provincial jurisdiction) in Calgary will land you in a Calgary courtroom, but it will be a provincial traffic court held in Calgary for convenience’s sake. Criminal trials tend to take place where the crime occurred: the person who murdered another in Halifax may well be arrested in Vancouver, but will be returned to Halifax to stand trial. This is one benefit of a uniform national Criminal Code: no jurisdictional or extraditionary squabbles between provinces, as occurs in the US.

Provincial laws can and do vary between provinces, naturally. For example, certain documents are needed to transfer land in Alberta, but the equivalent of these documents are not needed in Nova Scotia. The voting age is set at 18 nationally, but provinces set their own legal ages for such things as drinking and gambling, which is why you find that 18-year-olds can drink legally in Alberta, but not in Ontario, where they must wait until they are 19.

But the federal Criminal Code applies across the country, in all provinces and territories. The feds really don’t care if an Albertan 18-year-old tries to buy beer in Ontario. They do care if he succeeds, gets drunk, and drives his car–then it becomes a federal criminal charge.

Did I answer your question, fetus? I get the feeling I haven’t covered everything.

152

[QUOTE=Askance]
No, I don’t, despite diligent searching, which is why I bothered to make the rough calculations at all. I realise the huge immigration waves in the 1850-60s and post WWII will have diluted convict heritage to a large extent, but on the other hand they were over 1/3 of the population 200 years ago so will have had a long opportunity to spread their genes widely (if thinly) through the population.

If “convict ancestry” means that any one of your direct ancestors was a convict, then each convict who bred at all is likely to have many ancestors now. Each of us has 64 ancestors of 6 generations ago (some of whom may be the same, it’s true) and only one of them has to be convict for you to count as having convict ancestry.
[/QUOTE]

I think that the lower figures for Australians with convict ancestry are more likely to be right.

[QUOTE=Askance]
From founding in 1788 up to when transportation into NSW ceased in 1840 (only 52 years) 150,000 convicts had been sent to Australia (more went to Perth from 1850 up to 1868). In 1850 the whole population of Australia was only 400,000, so convicts or their descendants were already more than a third.
[/QUOTE]

Those figures do not show that convicts or their descendants were morethan a third. because by 1840 many of those 150,000 convicts would have been dead, and many would have died without offspring. Part of the problem would have been low numbers of women in the colony (both convict and free), so that if you were a man and didn’t bring a wife along with you, you would be unlikely to produce children – and less likely if you were a convict, rather than a soldier or free settler, because options are fewer at the bottom of the social ladder.

Some convicts (or emancipists) did manage to raise families, but most of those 150,000 probably did not, and this would be why the proportion with convict ancestry is low. But you also have the problem of the difficulty of tracing ancestry in Australia. My father and I have traced ancestry back to the Victorian goldfields in the mid 19th century, but we get stuck with what was probably an illegitimate birth, so we don’t know who the father is – who would be my great grandfather. So it’s possible that I have convict ancestry, and don’t know it, but I think it’s actually far more likely that this unknown man was Chinese, so I have part-Chinese ancestry.

153

[QUOTE=flodnak]
you can get sushi
[/QUOTE]

I hope it’s cheaper than it was at one place I looked at in Copenhagen. I was sure I was doing the math for converting the currencies wrong, but Mr. Neville said I got it right- they wanted the equivalent of $9 for six little vegetable rolls :eek:

154

[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
I hope it’s cheaper than it was at one place I looked at in Copenhagen. I was sure I was doing the math for converting the currencies wrong, but Mr. Neville said I got it right- they wanted the equivalent of $9 for six little vegetable rolls :eek:
[/QUOTE]

Is that a lot? :confused: I don’t eat sushi/sashimi, but I’m fairly certain that around here, the average price for a six-pack of sushi rolls at just the grocery store is $6. I imagine it would be a little higher at a restaurant that specializes in it.

155

[QUOTE=bouv]
Is that a lot? :confused: I don’t eat sushi/sashimi, but I’m fairly certain that around here, the average price for a six-pack of sushi rolls at just the grocery store is $6. I imagine it would be a little higher at a restaurant that specializes in it.
[/QUOTE]

8 pieces of veggie roll goes for $4.50 at my bar and they come loaded with avocado.

156

[QUOTE=bouv]
Is that a lot? :confused: I don’t eat sushi/sashimi, but I’m fairly certain that around here, the average price for a six-pack of sushi rolls at just the grocery store is $6.
[/QUOTE]

It is a lot here. Vegetable rolls are almost always cheaper than ones with raw fish (makes sense, sushi-grade ahi tuna costs quite a bit more per pound than vegetables), and that would be expensive for six little rolls with some ordinary kind of fish (such as tuna) around here.

157

Spoons, great info, thanks. I was trying to get a feel for the line between provincial and federal law, more than trying to answer a specific question–although the “marijuana is legal in X part of Canada” thing I’m always hearing was at the front of my mind. Of course, if you can walk down the street smoking a fatty in downtown Calgary and nobody cares–or if you can roll a blunt in class in Toronto and nobody cares (both of which are anecdotes from people who live there)–that’s almost as “legal” as Amsterdam. And everyone considers weed to be “legal” in Amsterdam, while it’s more like “tolerated, with just enough legal protection for the consumer that the police can ignore it legitimately”.

158

[QUOTE=fetus]
[<snip>Of course, if you can walk down the street smoking a fatty in downtown Calgary and nobody cares–or if you can roll a blunt in class in Toronto and nobody cares (both of which are anecdotes from people who live there)–that’s almost as “legal” as Amsterdam. And everyone considers weed to be “legal” in Amsterdam, while it’s more like “tolerated, with just enough legal protection for the consumer that the police can ignore it legitimately”.
[/QUOTE]

I think this is actually fairly accurate. I personally have seen people walking around downtown Calgary during lunch hour having a nice joint. Nobody seems to care. I would be bothered by someone smoking a joint inside, because it’s smoke, and I don’t like smoke.

159

[QUOTE=fetus]
Spoons, great info, thanks. I was trying to get a feel for the line between provincial and federal law, more than trying to answer a specific question–although the “marijuana is legal in X part of Canada” thing I’m always hearing was at the front of my mind. Of course, if you can walk down the street smoking a fatty in downtown Calgary and nobody cares–or if you can roll a blunt in class in Toronto and nobody cares (both of which are anecdotes from people who live there)–that’s almost as “legal” as Amsterdam. And everyone considers weed to be “legal” in Amsterdam, while it’s more like “tolerated, with just enough legal protection for the consumer that the police can ignore it legitimately”.
[/QUOTE]
Well, you can try, and you may be able to get away with it too. Certainly, I’ve seen such things before. But because of the federal nature of the legislation, it is important to remember that getting away with it is not a sure thing in any province or city. No province can legally stop a hardcase cop or gung-ho Crown prosecutor (same as a DA) from using all legal means to arrest and prosecute somebody smoking marijuana on a Canadian city street. The police do have discretion, but I’d still have to say it’s not quite like Amsterdam. However, I’ll also grant that perhaps the situation is closer to Amsterdam than you’d find in any American city.

160

[QUOTE=Spoons]
…No province can legally stop a hardcase cop or gung-ho Crown prosecutor (same as a DA) from using all legal means to arrest and prosecute somebody smoking marijuana on a Canadian city street…
[/QUOTE]

Aren’t Canadian prosecutors all employed by the local provincial Ministry of Justice, instead of being elected on a local basis as in the US? Couldn’t a provincial Justice Minister just instuct eir subordinates not to file certain charges and overule them if they do?