I liked France , I liked the people I met, and I enjoyed my experiences there.
But the French have a bad reputation as a whole...

I liked Montreal somewhat, I was there for the excitement of Expo 67 where the affable Jean Drapeau had brought in humanity from around the World in an exhibition named "Man And His World".
Today you can't be this sexclusive.

But collectively the Quebecors took away the rights and freedoms of Canadians and immigrants living in that province with bill after bill taking away language rights.

In any place on this planet you can look for and find the negative.
Equally you can look for and find the positive.

I think the message people get from Canadian teleivision is largely negative, and most of the conversations I hear are complainative.

Turn the thing off!
Watch some good videos... forget the crime dramas where someone is doing someone else in and where the police are heros...
We should not worship the police too much they might become too powerful for our freedom and take liberties like murder and getting away with it.

British television has a lot more comedy, and pleasant shows.
There's even humour in Coronation Street!

American teleivision used to have more comedy such as Stalag 13, and Batman... Those were brighter times.

Canadians take things far too seriously.

i ve been in france for a total of about 1 year and i went to england for vacation only but i have friends and families who live there, and i hear alot of shit that happens there.

i ve been in france for a total of about 1 year and i went to england for vacation only but i have friends and families who live there, and i hear alot of shit that happens there.

This is why it is so important to travel and where possible live in a country for a while.
I am 'living' in Chiang Mai at the moment, just for a short time this time
But being here for a longer period I really get to know the place, the people, and the way of life.

I heard the complaints in England but fortunately it was mixed with humour.
They complain about the NHS, the waiting lists for operations etc, just like the Canadians complain about their health systems...
Except IMHO the Canadians have more right to complain, the British NHS is hugely better than the Canadian system... I've been in Vancouver area hospitals... You are lucky to come out of Surrey Memorial hospital alive!
I took a suffering Japanese girl into the Royal Columbian and it was quiet there, it's an understaffed hospital, she waited an hour and a half to be seen and was seen only after she had fainted with the pain.
I went into St Richards hospital in Chichester England after I overstressed myself swinging a prop on a C195 on a hot Sunday afternoon, I was seen immediately.

Here in Thailand they have very very good hospitals with well trained doctors, state of the art equipment, and high efficiency.
The first time I came here I took out BCAA insurance that would fly me back to BC should anything happen.
No way do I ever want to be flown back to BC for medical attention! Please leave me here, it's 1,000% better in that regard!... and the nurses are prettier, there's more of them, and they are all very sweet.
Girls like to be girls here, and some boys like to be girls too!

There's no place that's perfect in this World, everywhere has positives and negatives.

Here things have changed and I am not doing the flying I did 8 months ago.
They decided to restrict my validation to one club's aircraft, and the atmosphere has changed
But there are plenty of compensations.

One of Canada's problems is the nature of immigrants.
Many Brits who immigrated immigrated with chips on their shoulders... They complained about their country to the point of leaving it.
It's these people's nature to complain about everything, and so such people arrive in their new country to become negative about it as well.

I believe Canada suffers from too many complainative people as a result of the number of immigrants who came with this 'complaint'.

For me I had no option that first time.
I was 12 and in my second year at Grammar School (= High School)... In Pierrefonds was stuck in grade 7 Elementary School because of my age, 2 years behind in educational level, and with kids 5 years behind in maturity. It hurt me terribly.
At home I lived with one of the most negative complainative immigrants you could meet who fits in well with the complainative Canadian set.

I am lucky though.
At 19 I found myself in England, I started to learn to fly... In a letter my father told me to stay in England and make my own way...
Learning to fly was the way I got over a lot of the negativity I grew up with, and now it has mostly gone.

I often think about my decision to come to Canada again and do the CPL, in retrospect I now realise that it would have been better to have borrowed the big money at huge risk and done the British CPL instead.
But I made a decision and I stuck with it.
Now I go with the flow somewhat and seldom fight the current.
I make efforts in the direction I want to go and it seems to work out in the end.

Then there's the decision whether to take out Canadian citizenship or not.
In this I have sometimes come to the point, and then something happens and I don't feel like joining...

It might be Cretien's decision to cancel the EH101 costing Canada millions for nothing, taking away high technology jobs from Canadians, to eventually purchase the same helicopters built elsewhere.

The police taking action to close Vancouver during the Y2K celebration without the legal right to do so...

That young lad having a bullet put in the back of his head after opening a beer in public.

Canada's people are in danger of losing their care for their fellow human beings.

Canada might be the World's peace keeper, but I think that Canadians need to care for each other as much as they might care for those in Afghanistan.

You missed some first class entertainment Michael.

We have had a few days of good TV watching Mulroney and that German arms dealer slag each other in Parliament.

Great stuff as education material to show you the quality of political leaders Canada has been blessed with.

For believability and general moral character I'll take the German arms dealer.

DAVE THE RAVE wrote:Canadians by and large don't travel. If you travel throughout the world you will always bump into a Brit, Aussie and Kiwi.

Funny, as I travel across Canada, I am always coming across people from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, etc.

Just because many Canadians might not travel overseas does not mean that they do not travel. I personally have lived in different areas of Canada that are farther away from each other that London is from Moscow. So have many other Canadians I know.

If I could drive to 30 different countries in two weeks, I'd be a world traveller as well.

We have had a few days of good TV watching Mulroney and that German arms dealer slag each other in Parliament.

In Parliament? I thought they'd be in the high court.

In the UK they'd laugh, they laugh all the time especially when there's a scandal.
The politicians and judges caught at Madam Whiplash's house doing naughty things caused a great deal of mirth...
If a Canadian politician is caught wearing kinky leather I wonder what the response would be?

Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, British Columbia, etc.

I wonder if the differences between those provinces would be as marked as say.


England, France, Egypt, China, etc?

Wow, it seems that this has sparked a debate!

I will read all the posts and then post my opinion too

Wow, it seems that this has sparked a debate!

When you ask your question of a Canadian it will spark more than a debate usually.
This is TNT to Canadians brought up to believe they live in the "Best Place on Earth" as the television advertising says... Remember the vast majority of people are media lead in Canada.

I tread a careful path and really have to work on my diplomacy and tact.
Many people get almost violent when you say anything critical of Canada and usually the conversation ends or goes rapidly downhill into abusive language.

Canada is not a bad place to be, it has its positives... But then one has to think.
I have been sorry to leave England, a little less sorry to leave Canada, but to leave Thailand?
Thailand is just such a nice place to be with pleasant people and a fun human lifestyle, it's always difficult for me to leave.

So what is the Best Place on Earth?

We are all different people. Different people fit into different places.
If Canadians travel they might find their 'Best Place' somewhere else other than Canada...
Some do.
On my website there's a Canadian who spent most of his time here and in Laos, he died young and I wonder why, but perhaps he died happy, I'll link the picture below.

We are fortunate to live in an age where air travel is attainable to anywhere... I get on the bus, and then off again thousands of miles away in a place that would have taken months to get to not so long ago.

I thank my friend from Thailand who gave me the reason to come to a place so often in the news for its sleezy side; recently in the news for the abuses a Canadian did to boys...

Thailand has its sex trade, but then so does Vancouver. IMHO the needles on the ground, the beggars, and the sex business in Vancouver are more than equal to what you read of south east Asia.

I might never have come to this piece of heaven if I believed the Canadian media.

Like Vancouver, in Thailand you don't have to go to the places that offend you.
There is so much more to a place than what you read in the media.

A Canadian in the World who made a difference:

There are so many truly beautiful places that it is difficult to choose....Rio is truly scenic. Cape Town..ditto.

I can pretty well live anywhere I want and have chosen Vancouver Island as my permanent place of residence...but there sure are tons of other places that are great.

One thing that irritates the hell out of me is when I read about how Canadians are so accepted all around the world....and then the same people slag the Americans for being patriotic.

New Year's Eve here was dead... Are Canadian spirits dying under political correctness and the growing fear of the police?

I travelled back from Thailand where everything is celebrated and the party spirit is alive and well...
We took off from Taipei as the New Year began there, right on midnight, there were fireworks everywhere!
Flew back into 2007 as we crossed the dateline and arrived here at 17:27 right on schedule; China Airlines.

It's New Year's Eve, I've seen many a good one in English pubs, and last year I saw it in in Thailand Sanook sanook mak mak!
I even saw the New Year in in China once, great fun and friendly people.

I remember 1999/2000 the New Millenium here in Vancouver... Dead!
A friend in London shared the celebrations with 5 million other people there while Vancouver was closed off by the police here! Dead.

Ladner on New Year's Eve was dead, dead, dead... The roads empty but for a solitary unmarked police car cruising for victims in their motor cars should they dare to venture out, even sober!
I went to Speeds Pub; Speeds himself bought me a beer, but he was closing the pub at 10pm.
I went to the Landing, there was life there, but people stay in their cliques, and strangers like me are not easily welcomed. A pub here is not like an English pub....

I regard Canada as a place where I work, where I really enjoy flying, but where the quality of life is poor, and getting poorer. People are burying their hearts and souls, losing their fun, while being obsessed by political correctness, their work, and the police.
There's a big difference between standard of living and quality of life.

Life is supposed to be fun at times

Don't you know that our standard of living is determined by how much we can buy at WAL*MART each week?

OldSmokey wrote:No doubt this will probably spark a riot, but I am just interested in the whole argument about 'Quality of Life being greater in Canada vs UK' as well as more aviation opportunities.

Some people state Canada is one of the best countries to live in the world, higher quality of life, cheaper, less taxes, vancouver being the greatest city etc etc

I have not been to Canada myself and will probably go out there for the first time around May - therefore I have nothing to benchmark against!

As they say the 'Grass is always Greener on the other side', but is it really greener?

Your thoughts please... It will be interesting to get some comments from Brits out in Canada as well as Canadians themselfs

Stay in the UK because I am assuming you're looking for the question if the pilot's life style in Canada is better. I'd say getting a JAR license and not having to worry about converting to a TC/FAA license would be the better route to a more sucessful lifestyle.

In Europe, you got major airlines looking for pilots right this moment. Get your licenses, advance your flight time, get hired, and live a good life. If you want, you can always convert to TC Standards by taking a few air law tests and a CAT I medical... much cheaper and easier than going from TC to JAR.


Living in Europe, I say stay and don't bother moving across the pond.
My 2 cents

I would agree...if flying is what you're wanting and going to be doing, stay in the UK. You''ll be flying bigger things sooner.

I can't believe all the slagging on Canada here. Yes, I have travelled quite extensively and it seems to me that the Canadian nationality seems to be about the most respected nationality out there ... and it is for good reason. Everywhere I go I here from the locals only good things and experiences with Canadians. Have you guys looked around at the standard of living in other countries? Recreational flying isn't possible or affordable to the degree that it is in Canada. I think some of you guys who are slagging Canada are a bunch of chronic whiners who post habitually to complain * End of rant *

Canadians who travel are highly respected and liked as was the Canadian in my example above.

I don't think anyone really slagged Canada on here, it is what it is.
There are good points and bad points about any country and some places are better than others for different aspects of life.

I fly in BC and it is one of the best places to be to do what I do and so that's why I live here.
But it is also the loneliest place I have ever lived in with people who are scared to be themselves and who try to conform with what they believe people expect them to be.

Lately I have heard such ignorance from some people here, especially over my travels in Thailand.
Canadians are media led and tend to believe in it.
If a person here asks a visitor how they like Vancouver and hears anything negative at all they get very upset.
The media says that Vancouver is the best place in the World to live!

I get quite offended by people pontificating on places they have never been.

There are many beautiful places on this planet, and BC is one of them.

I strongly recommend Canadians travel, and see this World...

If Vancouver's city planners travelled to Bangkok they'd get some ideas of how to fix the road network.
If they went to England and learned about Green Belt, they might not be creating the awful sprawl of housing that is ruining Surrey through to Langley.

Canada is part of a Global communtiy where there are so many wonderful things to learn and see.
There is no one place that is better than another, and Vancouver is not the best place to live for everyone...

One thing for sure, socialism has its burden to bear....high taxes....and Canada is a world leader in that department.