By David Ljunggren
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Disgruntled Democrats seeking a safe Canadian haven after President Bush won Tuesday's election should not pack their bags just yet.
Canadian officials made clear on Wednesday that any U.S. citizens so fed up with Bush that they want to make a fresh start up north would have to stand in line like any other would-be immigrants -- a wait that can take up to a year.
"You just can't come into Canada and say 'I'm going to stay here'. In other words, there has to be an application. There has to be a reason why the person is coming to Canada," said immigration ministry spokeswoman Maria Iadinardi.
There are anywhere from 600,000 to a million Americans living in Canada, a country that leans more to the left than the United States and has traditionally favored the Democrats over the Republicans.
But recent statistics show a gradual decline in U.S. citizens coming to work in Canada, which has a creaking publicly funded healthcare system and relatively high levels of personal taxation.
Government officials, real estate brokers and Democrat activists said that while some Americans might talk about a move to Canada rather than living with a new Bush administration, they did not expect a mass influx.
"It's one thing to say 'I'm leaving for Canada' and quite another to actually find a job here and wonder about where you're going to live and where the children are going to go to school," said one government official.
Roger King of the Toronto-based Democrats Abroad group said he had heard nothing to back up talk of a possible exodus of party members.
"I imagine most committed Democrats will want to stay in the United States and continue being politically active there," he told Reuters.
Americans seeking to immigrate can apply to become permanent citizens of Canada, a process that often takes a year. Becoming a full citizen takes a further three years....
No refuge in Canada as Ashcroft unleashes his inquisitors!
Perhaps they could cross the border at night and crash at Mike's pad?
"If scientists and inventors who develop disease cures and useful technologies don't get lifetime royalties, I'd like to know what fucking rationale you have for some guy getting lifetime royalties for writing an episode of Full House." - Mike Wong
"The present air situation in the Pacific is entirely the result of fighting a fifth rate air power." - U.S. Navy Memo - 24 July 1944
Americans won't even move from a spot on the banks of the Mississippi River when it floods every two years and destroys their house, so I wouldn't expect them to move en masse for this. But we do have a fair number of ex-Americans living here, as there are a fair number of ex-Canadians living down there. It depends on personal values and motivations, but also heavily on job opportunities.
"It's not evil for God to do it. Or for someone to do it at God's command."- Jonathan Boyd on baby-killing
"you guys are fascinated with the use of those "rules of logic" to the extent that you don't really want to discussus anything."- GC
"I do not believe Russian Roulette is a stupid act" - Embracer of Darkness
"Viagra commercials appear to save lives" - tharkûn on US health care.
Darth Wong wrote:Americans won't even move from a spot on the banks of the Mississippi River when it floods every two years and destroys their house, so I wouldn't expect them to move en masse for this. But we do have a fair number of ex-Americans living here, as there are a fair number of ex-Canadians living down there. It depends on personal values and motivations, but also heavily on job opportunities.
Thanks to the government endorsing their stupidity by footing the bill for rebuilding. Another goddamned congressional boondoggle.
Reuters wrote:But recent statistics show a gradual decline in U.S. citizens coming to work in Canada, which has a creaking publicly funded healthcare system and relatively high levels of personal taxation
Is this journalist actually trying to suggest that US citizen’s actually find Canada’s ‘creaking’ public health system unappealing in comparison to the US’s practially nonexistent public health system and horrifyingly inefficient and expensive private healthcare system? The mind truly boggles
You've obviously not read some of the more notable debates here about Canada and others with socialised health service versus the mighty, privately run US health care system.
Admiral Valdemar wrote:You've obviously not read some of the more notable debates here about Canada and others with socialised health service versus the mighty, privately run US health care system.
I have read and contributed to a few of those threads, I still can't get my head around American's delusional belief in their system though, if anything it seems even more prevalent than the unfortunate belief in genesis that’s so popular over there
Instead of emigrating one by one, why not get the "blue" states to secede and join Canada? The "Red" states who vote for Republicans will be cut off from welfare (the money they get from "Blue" states) and will be forced to -how do right-wingers say it?- pull themselves up. Let the Cracker Belt crumble with its own stupidity.
Is this journalist actually trying to suggest that US citizen’s actually find Canada’s ‘creaking’ public health system unappealing in comparison to the US’s practially nonexistent public health system and horrifyingly inefficient and expensive private healthcare system? The mind truly boggles
Most of the people who can afford to move across the border are not those without health insurance. The poorer you are, the less mobile you tend to be. I be massively surprised if the obscene majority of Americans living in Canada aren't middle-class at a minimum; most of them will be able to afford decent private healthcare in the US. If you have the money for good healthcare, then private almost always trumps public.
Elfdart wrote:Instead of emigrating one by one, why not get the "blue" states to secede and join Canada? The "Red" states who vote for Republicans will be cut off from welfare (the money they get from "Blue" states) and will be forced to -how do right-wingers say it?- pull themselves up. Let the Cracker Belt crumble with its own stupidity.
Wonderful and economic ruin for all, of all your suggestions this itself is the most moronic, instead of of simply shooting yourself in the foot you prefer to shoot yourself repeatably in the head... brilliant
Nevermind it goes aginst "Democrates are for the Rich and Republicans are Rich White SOB with no idea about the rest of the country"
"A cult is a religion with no political power." -Tom Wolfe Pardon me for sounding like a dick, but I'm playing the tiniest violin in the world right now-Dalton
tharkûn wrote:
Most of the people who can afford to move across the border are not those without health insurance. The poorer you are, the less mobile you tend to be. I be massively surprised if the obscene majority of Americans living in Canada aren't middle-class at a minimum; most of them will be able to afford decent private healthcare in the US. If you have the money for good healthcare, then private almost always trumps public.
That's true, though remember, the government run healthcare system was always to deal with those that couldn't afford medical treatment, not those that could easily go private. It is encouraged to go private if you can for non-urgent ops as it frees up resources for the rest.
