Americans vs. Canadians

All statements below are my opinion & what I know to be true within the Toronto area at the time of writing them.

Laws may change, so please always check with a government site or official before taking my word for anything.

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So it came to my attention a few years ago that Americans have a LOT more regulations in place when it comes to landlords, while at least here in Ontario, landlords get away with murder.

Tenants are for the most part treated like 2nd class citizens & generally (not always) the landlords win every case in the Tribunal.

After being ripped off regarding a rent to own scam, I learned a lot more about the whole Landlord & Tenant situation within the Toronto area. It was my first time going to court for a really big case having to defend myself against a landlord who had ultimately ripped me off.

Of course who won? The landlord.

During  my many months defending myself, I learned the following:

1. About 90% of all cases brought to the Tribunal are brought by the landlord, NOT the tenants. I know for a fact that most tenants either just move to avoid having to face the landlord in court, they don’t complain because they know nothing will ever be done, or a 3rd option is that they pay for the problem to be fixed even though it’s not their house so the landlord gets their house fixed for them free of charge.I believe this is why there is a constant war going on between landlords & tenants. I know that the minute the landlord lies to me or starts to disrespect me, I lose all respect for their house & while I would never go out of my way to harm the house I live in, I no longer care about keeping it as if it were my own.Why should I, they don’t respect me, so I don’t respect them.

   To show you how bad the situation is amongst tenants, one time just as I was moving into a house, the guy living in the basement ran out to warn me about the landlady & what a bitch she was. He said I shouldn’t move in.

   He told me he’s had water from rain flooding in his apartment for months, & she won’t fix the problem. I asked him why he didn’t take her to court. He just shrugged his shoulders. He planned on  moving out within the next day or two.

   That tells me that tenants just don’t want to deal with the stress, or they think they won’t win anyway which is most likely true. So, they just grin & bear the abuse.

   Remember, moving is one of the top 3 stressors in life. People don’t want to have to move if they don’t have to.

   I know that in every single house I’ve ever rented, the landlord has NEVER wanted to fix any of the problems & they either stalled in fixing the problem, or they brought in cheap unlicensed unskilled handymen instead of real contractors so essentially the problem still remained.

   Since I was 18, I’ve lived in probably 10-15 different houses within the Toronto, Ontario area & it’s always been the same abuse. Either the house is freezing, the toilets don’t work, there is mold, the dishwasher doesn’t work well, the water pressure in the house is terrible, the lights don’t work, cupboards are broken, etc.

   In that house where the guy in the basement warned me… in the end he was right. The slum landlord had had around 7-10 different tenants going in & out of her house (that’s how much mail was piling up) & the utilities were in HER name, so when it came time for winter, the gas company REFUSED to turn the gas on because she didn’t pay her bill. Can you believe that???

   I called the property standards branch which is a joke, had them come over & you know what they said…

   Because I didn’t have a lease, it was as if I didn’t live there, so there was nothing they could do about it.

   I went the entire 3 months with NO heat in the dead of Canadian winter & no one cared. They didn’t even care that there was a child in the house.

   Then the slum landlord was allowed to put the house on the market & I had no choice but to allow tons of people into MY HOME on a constant basis.

   I was told this is the scam she pulls in order to get the tenants to move out. Once they move out, she changes her mind about the house going up for sale & she rents it out again.

2. I also learned that most tenants don’t even know the laws that protect them. For example, in Ontario, a landlord can not tell you that you can’t have a pet, yet in 98% of all rental ads they say “no pets”.
3. Most of the laws protecting tenants are not enforced & as you will see below, whatever laws that do exist, they definitely do NOT measure up to what the US has in place for their tenants.
4. A lot of the adjudicators don’t even know the laws & make tons of mistakes in court.
5. Lastly, I could tell that the adjudicator for my case was against me & for the landlord.That’s the problem, these people who judge these cases have biases against tenants because they are home owners themselves, & maybe some of them have also been landlords or they have a friend or family member who’s been a landlord, so in my opinion, there’s no way they can be partial to the situation.I know that almost ALL landlords think that all tenants are scum. I’ve even talked to governmental officials who let their disdain for tenants shine through during the conversation.

Here is what I learned about the States… If I don’t say otherwise, here in Ontario we do NOT have any of this available to us tenants in the Toronto area.

1. Each municipality has a body that overseas the tenants’ rights.
2. All landlords have to be licensed.
3. Lawyers can not show up in court to represent landlords or tenants because the Tribunal (not sure what they call it in the States) isn’t a criminal or civil court.
4. They aren’t adjudicators, but actual REAL judges who know the law.
5. Landlords have to paint the entire house before a new tenant moves in.
6. Landlords have to clean or replace the carpet before a new tenant moves in.
7. In some cities there are associations that help the tenants if they are having problems with the landlord.All the tenants have to do, is call up, explain what is going on with the landlord, & the association takes over to fight their cause.In some cities there’s even a hotline tenants can call, like 311.
8. In some cities there are housing inspectors that inspect the condition of the house, the quality of the contractor’s work, etc.
9. Landlords can NOT put a house up for sale while there is a tenant living in there.
10. The gas company can NOT prevent the tenant from having gas in the home, even if the landlord has not paid the bill.
11. Not sure if this is a law in the US, but over here in Canada, the landlord does NOT have to disclose why you aren’t getting the rental property even if they promise it to you verbally. This allows for gender, ethnic, single mother discrimination, etc. which of course has happened to me several times & I’ve been told I’d get the house & then within a few days or a week, suddenly they aren’t returning calls, or I hear I’m not getting the house & I just wasted my time.

So you be the judge of which country you’d like to live in. Your home is your most precious commodity, it is supposed to protect you & make you feel safe.

So there’s a HUGE misconception about the health care Canadians receive in Canada.

Many many Americans think Canadians have it soooo great over here & I feel we don’t & here’s why:

1. First I just found out that what the citizens receive regarding health is Provincial, NOT Federal like I had originally thought.
2. I live in Ontario, so I can’t speak for the rest of the provinces.
3. Over here, every year the Canadian government is slashing more & more health services the people in Ontario receive. I only notice this when I go to inquire about a health service I need which isn’t often because I don’t believe in conventional medicine, only holistic medicine, so you can imagine how much they have slashed that I don’t know about & can’t detail here.Some of the things they have slashed over the years…

   Chiropractic services – I’m not even sure what they cover anymore since I no longer see chiropractors, I see osteopaths, but back when I was seeing my chiropractor, he was complaining OHIP had slashed how much they would pay towards each visit.

   Eye exams aren’t covered under health care (kids under the age of 16 get them for free, otherwise unless you are over the age of 65 or on some sort of disability, you have to fork over the $85+ dollars.)

   It used to be that you could get an eye exam every year, then they made it every other year, now you don’t get anything at all & that’s a service I DO need since I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 7 years old.

4. I just recently heard that in British Columbia they are allowed acupuncture treatments, while in Ontario they allow for NOTHING holistic at all, so I pay through my taxes for conventional services I NEVER use.
5. While I agree that if I got into a car accident & needed emergency care I would need Canada’s health care system, but I don’t live in fear & think “what if”.I live in the here & now & I feel that holistic doctors & alternative health care should be covered. I should have the choice of how I deal with my health, I shouldn’t be forced by governments to use doctors who farm out chemicals to try & heal patients – which of course never works.
6. Speaking of emergency care…If you go to the hospital, you have to wait for minimum 2-4 hours to see anyone.

   I heard years ago that in the Toronto area people coming in on ambulances were turned away even if they were bleeding all over the place.

   So Americans, think AGAIN, Canada does NOT provide proper health care.

7. Did you know that MDs (medical doctors) are no longer taking on new patients?You heard me, as of about 8-10 years ago all the general practitioners stopped taking on new patients.

   That’s one of the reasons why the hospitals are always so full of people waiting to see a doctor. Several years back they closed own a ton of hospitals in the province of Ontario.

   In the Windsor area when I tried to find a doctor, I was told I had to APPLY LOL, can you believe that?

   Never in all my years have I heard of anything soooo ridiculous. You have to apply (like a job) to see a doctor? And of course this one doctor’s staff didn’t return phone calls, so when I kept pressing, one of his staff just turned me down right on the phone saying THEY choose who they want to take on & we AREN’T interested.

   Thank god I wasn’t seriously ill, clearly that Dr. is an asshole, so he treats his patients as such.

   My point is, he wasn’t the only doctor requiring an application AND the wait time to even be approved is minimum 3-6 months.

   CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT????

   If I needed health care right now, what would I do???

   One of the main reasons (I’m sure there are others I don’t know about) for this is because all the good doctors moved to the US to work over there.

   They couldn’t stand being ripped off by Health Canada, so they all moved down south.

   I remember 13 years ago approximately hearing that obstetricians weren’t being given the same amount of money to deliver babies, so this obstetrician I was seeing STOPPED delivering babies.

   It’s just amazing to me how Canadian citizens get the short end of the stick & other countries think Canada is sooo great. IT’S NOT!

8. Americans are generally shocked when I tell them that dentistry is NOT covered & this is a HUGE thing. I can’t send my son or myself to a dentist because it’s just too costly.
9. Many Canadians who need specialists go down to the States just to get immediate medical care. I’ve been hearing this for years.
10. Because I haven’t had a family doctor in years, I go to walk-in clinics for blood tests or anything else I may need & when I go, I receive very poor patient care. I was shocked as to how these doctors even managed to get their license to practice medicine in the first place. Any of the doctors in these walk-in clinics (one doctor had his own practice he wasn’t a walk-in) I went to didn’t know how to perform vaginal exams (they actually avoided it & had ME do it instead).

    Yes, you heard me people, the doctor was passing off HIS JOB to me, the patient. The woman at the lab who took my swab (the doctor made me walk it to the lab) was furious that the doctor himself wasn’t doing the exam & she had complained several times before.
    Another female doctor at a different walk-in clinic did a mercury blood test on me as per my instructions. It came back elevated, & she had NO CLUE what that meant.

    Her words, “I’ve never done a test like this before” AND, she wasn’t some young chicken out of med school either.

    This is WHY I don’t deal with conventional doctors, because unless I’m going in for surgery which I don’t believe in, they seem to be about as clueless as someone who isn’t a doctor.

So Americans, you tell me if you think Canada has a good health care system.

In the States if you have a very low income, you get food stamps which help you to pay for food.

Here in Canada, when I had to ask the government for help to help put food on the table, not only was I put on a waiting list for months, their program was low end & here’s why:

1. Depending on how much money you needed every month, it would either last you 3 months or 6 months (I think it was 6, it could have been 12). I needed every penny, so I went the 3 month route because you got a lot less if you went on the program longer.
2. You didn’t get the full amount of money, because you had to PAY them $40 to get the gift cards to go grocery shopping at Superstore. Yes, you heard me, you have to pay the government to get their help.
3. The entire program is geared towards trying to get the family to budget their money better & while I agree with the concept, the total scrutiny by telling me I was paying too much in rent when I didn’t feel I was was disheartening. They tried to make it seem like I was overspending when nothing could have been further from the truth. These ARE the prices for rent in Canada, they are THROUGH the roof & the Canadian government CLEARLY doesn’t know this or just looks the other way.

   In fact, every time I tell people how much I pay in rent for my house, they are shocked at what a good price I pay.
   The case worker wanted me to move from a home I feel comfortable in (I work from home, so my surroundings have to feel comfortable to me.)

   Her logic was also out to lunch, but I expect this from these people. They don’t listen to each case individually, they use a formula that THEY feel should cover EVERYONE.

   Somehow in her mind it was better for me to pay $1-2k to move (that’s how much it costs me every time I move) to a government house that was more disgusting plus go through all the stress & the lost days of work & school for my son, then to just stay put.

   She “claimed” the government houses were as nice as the one I was in, but I didn’t believe her.

4. She gave me the woman’s information who was supposed to help people find new housing, I called & left a message, but I never heard back from her. Told my case worker, nothing ever came of it.

This may not have been a typical welfare program, I was never sure, but when comparing it to a program in the States, it once again shows that Canada doesn’t take care of its citizens if you have no money.

My sister in Monsey, New York is on the food stamp program & it’s an ongoing program, they don’t try to guilt her, tell her to move (she’s paying double what I pay in rent every month), in fact she says they encourage her to get the help.

Keep up the GREAT work Canada, you are a LOVELY country – NOT

So it came to my attention the other day that Americans seem to get larger quantities of products & Canadians get the short end of the stick.

I only know of these instances, if you want to add more, feel free:

1. I purchased the Charmain toilet paper pack from a Costco in the US & when I got it home, I was sure the rolls (not the pack itself) were larger than what I normally get in Canada.I finally ran out of it & bought more Charmain toilet paper from Wallmart here in Canada & low & behold was SHOCKED that the rolls are now narrower than they were even before I bought the large pack from the US.

   So that’s one rip off.

2. I was talking to a hairdresser about it & she goes to shop in the US at least once per month & she said yes, at McDonalds in the States, they get way bigger drinks than Canadians get over here at McDonalds. That’s comparing each size to its equivalent in Canada.

So clearly the Canadian versions of the US companies think they can slide this underneath Canadians’ noses & guess what, THEY ARE!

So in typical fashion, Canada is WAY behind the times when it comes to allowing its citizens to work from home for companies.

I needed to get some extra money by working from home & realized very quickly that while there are TONS of American companies that will hire people to work from their home, so I consider that to be a sign of progression. Unfortunately NONE of them will allow Canadians to join their workforce.

When I tried to search online to find Canadian companies that hire workers that work from him, I found NONE.

Lovely.

While I certainly don’t feel children should be disrespected & children ARE human beings & a great part of our society, I feel the vast majority of children are immature, are still growing, are easily manipulated (peer pressure), & aren’t responsible. I find this to be especially the case in today’s society.

So, why is it that up until last year, 2008, the age of consent for having sex was only 14? What took Canada soooo long to bump it up to 16?

Does Canada even know what is going on between parents & teenagers? I can tell you based on my experience as a mother, they don’t.

Not to say that 14 year olds aren’t going to still have sex, I’m just saying come on, I feel a 14 year old is still too young, & this is coming from me, someone who is VERY open minded.

Now there are always going to be exceptions to the rule. A 15 year old who sleeps with a 16 year old to me is NOT breaking the law & it breaks my heart when the police & courts go after these kids when they are so close in age & have feelings for each other. There have even been cases when the parents called it rape when it wasn’t, & got away with having the boy prosecuted (these cases may have been in the States).

Back to Canada, Canada hasn’t changed the age of consent law since 1892.

The reason they suddenly changed it, was to cut down on the predators online molesting kids under 16.

In that case, I think the law should be more specific, like if you are over the age of 21, then the person has to be 16 years old.

I don’t know what the law for age of consent is in the States, but this brings me to the REAL reason I’m posting this, although both laws are issues most parents have to deal with…

I am a parent, & my son is almost 17 years old.

He has been causing me tons of stress for a year now, some being “typical” teen behavior, some not.

Since he is my first & only child, I soon learned that as of the age of 16, a parent can throw their child out of the house. At first I was all confused about this, not even being able to imagine doing this to him, & wondering why the law would even THINK that a teenager who’s only 16 is mature enough to make it on his/her own.

The fighting & breaking the law increased, so I started threatening that I would throw him out, but then I started to realize many months later that this law can actually backfire & cause parents a WHOLE bunch of stress & here’s why:

1. If you want ANY children’s services for your 16-18 year old, Canada WON’T help you.So that’s nothing from Children’s Aid, or any other governmental support agency.

   There are some places that deal with teens & even younger kids, but these aren’t the types of services I am referring to.

   Basically Canada has thrown the parents & the kids of these parents under the bus.

   They have to fend for themselves when it comes to help from the government because they are now 16 years old.

2. If you go to seek counseling (therapy), the kid has to consent to even let you in the room. LOL, can you believe that?

   The one group therapy he has to go to now mandated by the police isn’t helping of course.

   I found out recently that the guy who runs this group was going to find out for my son how he can get welfare. This tells me that if my son did move out (I did kick him out just recently because of what he did to me again, & then I brought him back), I wouldn’t even have known about it.

   This so called social worker was prepared to help my son just up & leave.

   At this place they seem to like to help split up families instead of help keep them together & solve problems. When I first went to this place, another social worker wanted to split us up after talking to us for only 15 minutes.

   They make it seem like the children are THE most important people there & I felt there was no help at all for me. Granted it has the word “children” on the door, but I was naive enough to think it was about family.

3. If they go for a psych assessment, same thing, they have to give the parent permission to see the results. I took my son to the chidren’s centre for his 2nd psych assessment, & when we went in for the results, he went in first while I had to wait outside for an hour. Only after he gave me permission (he even had to sign a piece of paper), was I allowed to go in.

   I have since heard a therapist I hired say that’s not true, but this therapist has made sooo many mistakes since I started with her, that I don’t believe anything she says anymore. Don’t worry, I’m about to fire her.In my opinion, this is absolutely nuts. If you have a problem child, in the end, the kid is controlling the parents & the parents are helpless.

4. If the kid doesn’t listen & sneaks out or is roaming the streets with his buddies, calling the police won’t help at all. He’s 16 & can do whatever he wants. I tried that. Unless he is a danger, they won’t do anything.I could even go after him, but legally I can’t drag him home.

   How lovely, it’s hard enough to deal with teenagers, but then give them this power that they can do whatever they want & the parents aren’t “really” their parents anymore, & suddenly it’s almost pointless to even have any rules after the age of 16.

   The police’s response is… “you can kick him out whenever you want.”

   Well what if I don’t want to?

   I want to solve the problems, not kick him out onto the street.

Whoever thought it was smart to think that the average 16 year old is mature enough, responsible enough, & smart enough to go live on his/her own is a total moron in my opinion.

Especially boys who we know are much less mature then females, although even now that is questionable.

Sure maybe 5% of all teenagers have the above characteristics, but the other 95% not only don’t have those emotional & intellectual characteristics, in this day & age with the maturity level of kids decreasing year by year, I feel it’s even more dangerous to allow kids this kind of power.

Teenagers already think they can walk on water & the moon & then you tell them their parents can’t even enforce any rules in the house because he can just walk out & WOW, that’s a recipe for disaster.

Way to go Canada.

Once again I must clarify that I don’t feel parents should control their kids. I never believed in this, but now that I started to have so many problems with him, it’s been a huge power struggle with me losing the battle & I’m starting to learn that there does need to be rules in every home.

Note: I am trying out a new parenting system I just received from the States. If it helps me (it already has), I will post the name & link here, as I feel most parents need all the help they can get.

As for the States, the age is 18, so the police can be called.

Another point…

Canada allows kids to move out at the age of 16, but then they make the parents responsible for supporting them up until the age of 18, or longer if they go to post secondary. Now that may only be the case if the kid is still living at home, I’m not sure at this point.

Sure there are some parents that can’t control their kids any longer & want to get rid of their 16 year old (I’ve heard from one or two already), but this is one more reason why kids have become wild & unmanageable, because they are given this unrealistic sense that “you can’t make me.”

Parents, what are your views on these 2 laws?

This is one of my biggest gripes about Canadians, & this time it has nothing to do with the government, but more to do with the Canadian people themselves.

Around 6-7 or so years ago around 2002 or 2003, I read in a business magazine that Canadian businesses were behind the times when it came to having websites.

I figured Canada was just late in blooming, but I was wrong.

It’s now 2009 and Canadian businesses and Canadian surfers are still so far behind the times and archaic when it comes to an Internet presence, that even the UK and Australia surpasses Canada.

The Internet is no longer what it used to be.

I used to be able to search on a search engine, and get the best results for my search.

NOW, Google, Yahoo (don’t use MSN) hold me hostage to Canadian search results.

If I want to post something on Kijiji.com, I can’t, they won’t let me.

Somehow their logic is that if I want to sell or hire from the US, it’s considered a cardinal sin. I can ONLY sell or hire, or seek a relationship within my own country.

So, long gone are the days where the Internet broke down all those confining lines in the sand & allowed free trade, now each country tells US who we can speak to & who we can’t speak to. The Communist Internet is here to stay.

All of this would maybe be okay if I was ONLY looking for something to buy in my Canadian city, or ONLY sell to Canadians, or ONLY seek friends in Canada, but most of the time I’m not.

You see I’m a netrepreneur, and I hire independent contractors all over the world, but especially in the States. I tried hiring only Canadians before & had mainly negative experiences with them.

Anyway, so now when I go to search for American companies, I have to use a proxy just to get around the search engines telling ME where I should and should not search.

Let’s get back to Canada now.

How many times have I tried to find a store within my city (or all of Canada) with the product I’m looking for?

Too many times to count.

Each time I have issues with either the search results, or the results I do get. I end up wasting a ton of my time & most times I walk away not buying anything at all.

Of course all of this means that Canada’s selling power is very weak.

I myself look down upon businesses if they don’t have a fully functioning website that gives me the information I need to either educate me or allow me to purchase.

This means I will be more apt to purchase from a company that has a great site, vs. a company that has no site at all, or is poorly designed or coded.

While I’ve never heard a Canadian say they require a company to have a website or they won’t purchase, I’ve heard Americans say this.

In fact one independent contractor I had many years ago around 2004 said one of her favorite companies she used to purchase from didn’t develop a site, so she stopped buying from them.

Can you believe that, they had her as a regular customer, and they lost her all because they were too slow to create a site, or didn’t care at all. This was an American company just to be clear.

The bottom line is, the majority of Canadian businesses think the Internet is a joke.

In fact the only Canadian sites I think are sort of well designed, are the governmental ones if you can believe that.

Canadian companies generally don’t respond back to e-mails in a timely manner (Americans are bad for that too, but not as bad), they don’t even think they should have to, or they think the Internet is not worth their time.

How many times have I tried to find a restaurant’s website online or called them up asking them for the URL to their website so I can read their menu & pricing, only to be told they don’t have one.

Go look at the amount of American restaurant websites. You will be hard pressed to find restaurants that don’t have one.

Canadian businesses not caring about having an Internet presence is true, I’m not making this up, I’ve heard it from business owners’ mouths.

Now when I search for Canadian results, I get more search results from the UK and Australia then I do from within Canada itself & those I don’t need.

I was once talking to a Canadian copywriter who had just started in the business of writing copy.

When I started to complain about Canadian websites, she started telling me that she agreed 100%.

She had to do research on her first client’s competition (he was Canadian), and she couldn’t find any Canadian competitor’s site, or if she found it, the information on it was limited or useless.

She literally had to go searching for American competition just so she could learn about her client’s industry.

Canadians are just very ignorant when it even comes to why they need a website in the first place.

Many of them think it’s ONLY for selling items online.

Nothing could be further from the truth, websites are used for many reasons.

We might as well not even have an Internet for Canadians because most of the search results are useless, so even if a company has a website, the information on it is either useless, or barely there.

Then there are sites that don’t show up in the search engines because they don’t know the first thing about running or marketing a website & SEO.

Now let’s compare the huge corporations and their websites.

Ever taken a look at the American and Canadian version of all those huge corporations?

You will notice that the Canadian version is very weak compared to the American version, or it doesn’t even work.

Amazon.ca doesn’t have all the information Amazon.com does
Burts Bees website, I couldn’t fill out the contact form on the Canadian side because they had a problem with one of their fields. Only the US version worked.

I can’t remember the other huge Canadian company sites I’ve had problems with over the years where the US version was flawless, but there were many, & not only does it waste my time, it just shows how Canadians don’t care about their customers, not like Americans do.

Lastly, I sell all over the world, and do you know how many Canadian customers I get every year?

1-5.

Out of all the customers I get, Americans buy more online than Canadians do, even people from the UK & Austrailia purchase more than Canadians do.

Then when I complain on forums that happen to have Canadians on it, all they do is bully me by saying I just love to complain, or the problem is on my end.

Canadians love to live in denial. Weak people usually do. Hey, why fix the problem, it’s a lot better to ignore it or bully the person complaining.

If you want more proof of how weak Canadian consumers are, just compare ebay.com sales to ebay.ca sales, or try selling something used you want to get rid of on Craigs List or Kijiji in the States, then sell that same thing in Canada.

Here’s another one for you, try selling used books on Amazon.com vs. Amazon.ca and NO, I don’t buy that it has anything to do with Canada not having as large a popullation as the US.

One may say the reasons don’t buy is because they like to save money, but I don’t buy that excuse, I think Canadians buy, it’s just not online.

I heard that Canadians are scared to purchase online.

I’ve had American customers who were scared to purchase online, but there has to be a very good reason why the Canadian Internet Economy is useless.

I have many gripes about Canadian TV stations like CTV & the A Channel.

First, the chances of them canceling a TV show that you are in the middle of watching is very very high.

I’ve also missed many season finales either because they didn’t air them, or the TV Guide screwed up & either put down the wrong show, wrong time or wrong channel.

The Canadian version of the paper version of TV Guide bailed out around 3-4 years ago, so now you can only find the shows on www.tvguide.ca which is TERRIBLY RUN (sometimes they have missed even entering in the shows & MSN (Microsoft) doesn’t care), or on http://www.canada.com/topics/entertainment/television/tvlistings/results.aspx which I’m not realizing is also terrible.

Why you ask?

Because I prepare all the shows I’m going to tape 1-2 weeks in advance. What they are doing is changing the lineup around after I’ve already entered everything onto my programming sheet. I don’t watch TV straight from the TV, I watch VHS or DVDs that have the taped shows. This way my life is my own & I’m not held hostage to only watching one show, or watching it when they want me to watch it.

I don’t check the shows while they are being taped, I’m too busy for that, so I only learned that they are changing the lineup because my son is now noticing this.

I also heard that Canadian TV stations put in a ton more commercials in the hour hence chopping off part of the show, & I just recently watched one show on the A Channel that would cut off the dialogue in the last 5-10 seconds just so they could cut to the commercial.

I pay a lot of money to get cable TV stations up to channel 60, I SHOULDN’T be treated in this manner.

And how many times have I missed shows that used to air, because they can’t be bothered to air them. I was ignorant in thinking they had stopped producing the shows, only to find out that the US sees them all the time.

I feel like I’m in a 3rd world country sometimes not being able to see shows everyone else can watch.

I can’t make blanket judgments about every single city in the US & Canada regarding this issue of how landlords treat tenants, but after going through hell being a tenant since I was 18 years old, I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Ontario treats their tenants like garbage. Since we all know Canadians don’t complain about things that actually matter, I have yet to see even a site where tenants complain about landlords, not even in the Toronto area where I know it’s a terrible situation.

This has been going on for years (I’m now 42), and one of the reasons it happens, is because the Canadian government allows it to happen.

Canadian tenants just eat it (as usual) & so nothing changes.

I even started 2 sites regarding this issue, & not ONE Canadian tenant offered to help me with the sites & try to promote change & when they filled out my surveys, it was clear that some had gone through even more than I had.

If you think the Landlord & Tenant Board is there to protect tenants LOL, think again.

Just ask any duty counsel who sits in their office and listens to tenants crying to them for help.

They will tell you the crying out for help is “normal”, & that 90% of all the cases brought to the Tribunal are from landlords, & that most of the members (they are called members, not judges because most of them have NO legal education) side with the landlords.

I experienced all of this when I went to court after being ripped off in a Rent to Own scam. Oh & the Canadian government doesn’t care about these Rent to Own scams either, & the members say it’s not their business because the tenants aren’t really renting, yet the landlord takes you to the landlord & tenant board to get you evicted which just proves that YES, you are still a tenant, because you don’t own the bloody house.

It became very clear to me that the member who I had to deal with was siding with the landlord from day 1, & even after I filed a complaint against her to the Chair Woman in charge of the Landlord & Tenant Board, I never heard back as to what happened with this member.

When I started to complain to Americans about what was happening to me, I was SHOCKED to learn that American tenants are protected sooooo much more than Canadian tenants are.

While I’m sure this isn’t 100% in every city in every State, for the most part, the tenants rally together if they are being taken advantage of & they make change when it comes to the laws.

In the ENTIRE General Toronto Area (GTA), did you know there’s only ONE association to help tenants AND, it’s run by the government????

When I phoned up saying I wanted to start my own association & wanted to collaborate, the girl on the phone started to give me attitude, which tells me she doesn’t care about tenants, only about THEIR ASSOCIATION being in control of how tenants are helped.

That’s ONLY one association for over 5,113,149 million people, which does nothing by the way, except tell you what the law is, & even then there are times when they get it wrong. In the States, some of their associations will fight for you & take over your case against the landlord.

Also in the States when you go to court, you can’t show up with a lawyer. Americans thought this was really unfair that lawyers are allowed in the landlord and tenant tribunal, because clearly landlords can afford lawyers much more than tenants can.

Also in the States they have actual real judges to reside over the cases, not some publicly appointed biased citizen who thinks all tenants are garbage.

There are many other differences, but these are just the few that prove that in the States, landlords HAVE to treat their tenants with respect (figuratively speaking), & fix things that aren’t working in the house, whereas in the Toronto area, a landlord can get away with never fixing anything & still get a tenant thrown out.

The corruption is clearly there & goes beyond the court system all the way up to the government level, because I should have been notified about what action was taken against that member who clearly clearly sided towards the landlord. While I have no proof, how much you want to bet she is still residing in court.

Even after the rent to own scam landlord had taken me for almost $10,000, I still had to settle with him & promise to pay him another $500 just to get him off my back because I had stopped paying rent just to recoup my money back.

Used to be owned by a private company, now it’s owned by the government & I didn’t realize until recently how bad Canada Post is until I saw people online complaining about them.

1. They charge a TON more than the US does to send mail, & I’m talking within Canada, not outside Canada.
2. It will cost me the same price to send something to the US as it costs me to send that same thing within the Toronto area. NUTS!
3. In the US they have a flat rate to ship a book, it’s $3.99, here, there is NO SUCH ANIMAL.Why is that?

   Somehow Canada has to pay more just to truck or fly the same item an American has to truck or fly? I don’t think so.

4. One of the reasons why Net Flix isn’t coming to Canada, is probably because according to these people who use online DVD rental companies, Canada Post is unreliable. So, if the DVD rental company can’t ship you your DVD in a reasonable time, what’s the point? They would constantly be having to dole out refunds, or get tons of angry customers which www.zip.ca has a reputation of doing.
5. I personally have had problems with Canada Post’s redirection service, & I was told I could NOT get a refund even though their service wasn’t working 100%. I lost mail that was supposed to come to me, even my son didn’t get a cheque for his birthday, & they said because we didn’t report it until months later, we were SOL. Ummm, my son & I didn’t find out until months later, because we hadn’t spoken to the person who sent him the cheque. Instead the envelope got returned.
6. Almost forgot, the US gets mail on Saturdays & always has, Canada only delivers mail Monday through Friday.

How can you find out about lost mail when it’s lost & the person or company who sent it doesn’t tell you? LOL, give me a break, use common sense.

I had to finally contact the Ombudsman, but after I wrote my letter, he didn’t fully understand me & so the refund I got was minuscule compared to all the time I wasted calling up to complain, typing out the letter, etc.

I think what irks me is that these postal outlets in the Shopper’s Drug Mart know full well our postal system is unfair, because I saw her face when I was shocked that my price of shipping is the same within the city as it is to the States. It’s not like I’m complaining about something that can’t be fixed. Why can an American send a book for almost 1/2 the price that a Canadian is forced to pay?

This prevents Canadians from selling things online & here’s why…

Because Canadians by & large don’t buy things from online. They are toooo scared of the big old Internet, so if you want to make any money selling things, you have to also cater to the American market.

I can post an item on Craig’s List & never sell it, while that same item can be posted in the States & sell within a week.

When I tried to sell my items on www.amazon.com in addition to www.amazon.ca, that’s when I found out that if I did that, I’d make no profit selling my books because they only give you a $3.99 credit since that’s ALL that an American has to pay to ship the book they sell.

So, this prevents us from really competing with American sellers online.

To futher prove my point, www.ebay.ca is constantly giving Canadians deals on posting items for sale & unless I’m wrong because www.ebay.com knows I’m from Canada, www.ebay.com never e-mails out notices about deals on the American side.

That tells me that Canadians aren’t posting items for sale & eBay is trying to drum up business on the Canadian side.