Similarities & Differences between Canada & United States

Crossed Flag Pins USA-Canada

It has been a while that I want to write a post about the similarities and differences between Canada and the United States. Before arriving here, I used to think that Canada and USA were pretty similar, mainly because of the British heritage and the proximity between the two countries. 

At least for me, when I figured out that celebrities like James Cameron, Bryan Adams, Avril Lavigne, Ryan Reynolds, Jim Carrey are Canadians, I always thought: Oh my God! Really? I thought s/he was American.

I listed some differences that I noticed since I am here. One: the government policy for immigration is considerable different. It is much easier to immigrate to Canada than to the US. It is possible to see, even in a small city like Nanaimo, an expressive number of immigrants who live here legally, paying their taxes and working hard to boost the economy of the country.

Another big difference is Canada´s connection to the British monarchy. USA did not keep the Queen and the connection to the monarchy and Commonwealth.

Besides, it is impossible to write about Canada and USA and do not mention the health care. The majority of the Canadians are proud of their health care system. Even Justin Bieber (yes... Justin Bieber, I cannot believe that I am quoting him) already expressed his thought about it. In an interview to Rolling Stone magazine, Bieber weighed in on the US health care system. He mentioned: “You guys are evil. Canada's the best country in the world. We go to the doctor and we don't need to worry about paying him, but here, your whole life, you're broke because of medical bills.”

Everybody knows that both nations predominantly speak English, but if you ask a Canadian to say words like ABOUT or HOUSE , it is easy to notice a different accent. It is funny for us... We have some professors that are sooooooooo Canadians when they say those words. And: pay attention! Here, we do not write harbor, Nanaimo is the harbour city! There is not bad behavior... The right way is bad behaviuor...

One difference more: if you are speaking with someone that you do not know if it is a American or a Canadian, just start to count how many times this person says the words: sorry and thanks! If he or she says those words too much, certainly, they are legitimate Canadians.

To finish this post, of course I need to mention that Canadians play hockey better than Americans do. I am so sorry for my American friends, but since Canada beat United States to seal ice hockey gold in Vancouver Winter Games, I can write that! I have a Canadian friend that told me once: “there are two things that Canadians do better than the rest of the world: play hockey and complain about the weather”.

I am sure that Americans (even the US population who lives along the border) do not complain about the weather like Canadians. Oh my God! They talk about the weather during all seasons! Now it is summer time, so they are happy! In the summer, every time you are in the elevator, your neighbour will look at you and say: “Nice day, eh?” By the way, this "eh" is really Canadian. In USA, probably you are going to hear: “Nice day, huh?!” Anyway, if the day is nice they are happy and do not complain!

Hope you have enjoyed the reading! See you!

Some (Weird) Thoughts

"I'm with the skater boy...I said see you later boy...I'll be backstage after the show"

Hey everybody, first of all, we would like to say sorry for last week, when we did not post anything… One assignment due last week made us use more time than we were predicting!

But let’s come back to the topic of the week: I am more than sure than an MBA program makes us smarter. Actually, veeeeery smarter. Seriously, this is an unbelievable program. Hard workload, but it is definitely worthwhile. However, the MBAs eventually drive their students crazy. I have been going through some weird thoughts since the beginning of the program. 

For example, today, while I was commuting to my job I was thinking about what I could do during my break. However, my thoughts suddenly went to soccer. After some minutes, my thought went away from soccer to another thing that I love: music. Upon those two moments, some thoughts about the Canadian workplace came along and joined the other previous thoughts. Weird, eh… And then I started thinking that those sudden changes in my mind were not accidental. I mean, they could have happened because my mind was trying to tell me that I can join soccer, music, and job somehow. Yes!! This is the moment to be innovative and have some innovative ideas and stand out in the workplace in the near future! 

Upon that, first thing that my came up to my head: wow, I can be innovative when presenting the results of a project. Instead of boring PPT presentations, why not taking the computer with the presentation and hit it down to the ground and break it completely and yell "woohoo"! Well, that is what some rock stars do after performing a good song. And that works for them: the public in general yells together with the rockstars and when the concert is over, everybody says that that was a success! So, why not to smash the computer?

Hmmm, OK, OK, I have to acknowledge that maybe that would not be suitable in a meeting room. However, my thoughts did not give up and keep moving on. And that is why I have another insight: well, maybe music and workplace does not match well, but soccer does! So, I thought about a way to deliver an animated presentation and my crazy mind brought up another idea: in Brazil, soccer players use to celebrate scored goals by showing some message in a t-shirt that they are using underneath the team jersey. They deliver messages such as “God loves you” and “100% Sao Paulo” (this second message tries to say that the player loves Sao Paulo too much). So, I thought that it could be a good idea to do something like that to animate a boring presentation about the company’s financials. During the presentation I could pull up my t-shirt and show messages like “Shareholders: company XYZ loves you!”, “100% net income”, or “0% losses”... Who knows, that could work! 

OK, only one more thought that I would like to share with you to know what you think about: in Brazil, players use to play some samba songs when they are commuting to the stadium. What if, the CEO, the CFO, and the COO of the company, during their flight to the investor annual meeting, sing some Bryan Adams, Avril Lavigne, Neil Young, or Simple Plan songs to be more relaxed at the meeting? I can imagine the CEO and the CFO doing a duet singing Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boy”…      

Well, I would love to hear other ideas about this! In the future, when I apply those ideas in the workplace and give you the credits for those!! 

Thanks for reading all those crazy ideas! I told you that MBA drives us nuts… Anyways, we see you next week!

The Things We Have Missed

Sao Paulo pleasant traffic!

Like Patrícia wrote on the previous post, a year ago we arrived in Canada! Yeah, time flies... Of course we miss a whole bunch of people like our parents, our brothers, our first niece, our friends, our dogs (yes, they are like human in my opinion)… Classic, eh! And believe it or not, we miss our in-laws too!

But besides the people we miss, there are some “things” that we miss. It may sound weird, but I miss a real rain. Yes, I miss exactly what you have just read: a “real rain”. Come on, Nanaimo’s daily rain is not a real rain. Where are the thunders? And what about the lightning? I really miss those things. People from Nanaimo may not know, but, even though, pouring rains are scary, they produce one of the best melodies for you to sleep. It is true: a pouring rain at night has a great somniferous effect! But I have to acknowledge that a pouring rain in the rush hour is not nice. Especially when you live in Sao Paulo… In January and February it rains hard almost every day down there around 6pm. The problem is that this is the time for everybody to take off their jobs and go home, so: traffic is a mess. It was common for me to leave the bus and walk some kilometres to get home because cars and buses were simply stuck due to the flooded streets or because of some fallen trees in the middle of the way. Well, definitely I do not miss pouring rains in the rush hour! 

Back to the things we miss. I know that is obvious, but we miss our beaches with sand, warm temperatures, and warm water!!! Canadians can say there are sand beaches here and somewhat warm temperatures in some places in the summer. But, if a Canadian tells me that there is a beach with warm water, I will not believe! So, when Patrícia and I have our first vacations here we will fly down to the US or to Central America to relax and dive in warm waters. 

Besides the thunders, lightning, pouring rains, beaches with warm waters, there are other things that we have not seen here and that we do not miss at all, such as: air pollution, messy traffic, social inequality, cars drivers that do not respect pedestrian crossing the streets, and… cockroaches. I think Canada also has cockroaches. I run a quick research and found this. So: if Canada’s Government is concerned about the cockroaches maybe they are here. But we have never seen them in Nanaimo, what is good for us!

Well, that is all for today! Have a good week and see you soon!   

One Year in Canada

The two flags have been with us since the beginning...

June 20, 2010. While our friends were celebrating a 3-1 Brazil's victory over Ivory Coast at World Cup 2010, we went to Guarulhos International Airport. Tears falling from our eyes when we said goodbye to our families, 128kg checked baggage limit, and a lot of anxiety regarding what we would face in Canada.

A year ago we arrived in Canada. Certainly this year abroad was the most intense year of our lives. The balance could not be more positive. Everything has been going fine up to now (despite the Canucks' loss to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final). We rented a nice apartment as soon as we arrived here; we discovered how to use bike as a transportation (under the sun, rain, snow...whatever); we went back to our "student life" and counted every single penny spent, we prepared our first Christmas turkey (away from home); we saw the snow falling; just three weeks after getting our Work Permit Visa, we found two jobs (one on-campus and other off-campus), we made friends from all around the world, and we have been studying, studying, studying!  

We were positively impressed by the high level of the education in Canada. We are studying so hard like we have never studied before!

Today we understand why almost no one who attends the program works at the same time. We do not have time for anything else. We sleep (less than 8 hours a day), we work 25 hours per week, we attend classes, we work in several assignments, and we study for the quizzes, mid-terms, and final exams. After this year, we can say: we are tired! We want our Hawaii vacations! But, on the other hand, we are so happy with everything and there are a lot of surprises happening that give us a boost of energy! All the time, we realized that we are on the right track. 

The good news that happened recently was the fact that we have found great companies to do our internships! To finish the program a four-month internship is mandatory. 

So we thought about what we wanted to do after graduation and we chose the companies that we would like to work for. And... guess what? We both just got the "internship of our dreams"! We are very happy with the quick response of the companies and with the availability of our future bosses!

Of course the city we chose to work “helped” us. While everyone wants to live in Vancouver because of the proximity to the sea and the better weather during the winter months, we will re-start our life in Calgary, Alberta. The province of Alberta is the richest in Canada because of the huge oil reserves discovered in the early 1950s. The winter is severe though. In other words, many job opportunities and few resources available. That is what everybody says! Let's see... Calgary: here we go! Now we are going to live in the real Canadian winter.

We are moving in August. Now, a new cycle of anxiety starts. A different province, a different and larger city (Calgary has 1 million people), a life under - 40° C, working in different areas of expertise. I am going to work in the Investor Relations area for a mining company: TVI Pacific. Renato is going to work in a well-known university (in the International Centre) in a project to bring more Latin American students to the school: SAIT Polytechnic.

To sum up, we are very happy, especially because Renato and I worked on this Canadian project together and, so far, everything is going pretty well for both. It could not be better. See you!

What can you Buy with a Dollar?

Take care of your Loonie

As everybody knows the purchase power is something relative, it depends of a lot of factors and, mainly, it is related to how much you can earn “selling your labor force”. We also know that everybody likes to say: “Oh! The cost of living is increasing! The price of everything is getting more and more expensive”. But for us, almost everything here is much cheaper in comparison to Sao Paulo, the city we lived in Brazil. 

There are three things here that are complete different for us. First, the coupons to save money! We do not have coupons to clip in Brazil and here we love it! Every week we check at the newspaper to see how we can save our precious money! This weekend I used a coupon and get 5 dollars OFF to buy three bottles of shampoo! Without the coupon I would pay $11.31 and I paid $6.311! Good deal, eh!?! 

The second is the promotions. Here the promotions are really promotions! This weekend we also bought a 2 liter bottle of Coke for $1.09, and the regular price is in general $2.38. It is also pretty common to find some products with a label “Quick Sale (50% off regular price)” and the other one is “Pay One, Get Two”! Of course, we loved all types of promotion!

Last but not least: it is possible to buy something with one dollar. For example, fruits: more than one pound of banana or apple; vegetables: more than one pound of cabbage, eggplant or yucca; canned fruits and vegetable; two liters of soda; donuts; danishes, cookies, etc, etc, etc… I can guarantee that the list is pretty big! 

Our summer semester ends next week so we have no time for anything, no time for spending one dollar! LOL So the blog post will be short tonight… but we have cool news, and  we will share them soon! See you soon!

Nouvellement Marié, Nouvellement Immatriculés

Brand names in English: President's Choice® and no name® 

Brand names in French: le Choix du President® and sans nom®…

One of the things that I really love about Canada is the fact that the country has two official languages. I do not know why I like that, but I really do it. Maybe because it is so fancy J! Or because in my opinion it is very cool to see two different nations living relatively harmonically within a country like it happens here in Canada with Quebecois and the other Canadians.

I think that it is fair enough to have the anthem in French and English (the French version is better than the English one in my opinion, by the way), it is also fair enough that the politicians in campaign have to debate their ideas in English and French, it is also fair enough to provide general information to the population in English and French. Quebecois people have the right to receive the same information that English speaker Canadians receive.

However (there is always a “however”), some things are so weird… Example: some brands have their name in English and French!! Whaaaaaaaat? Yeah, unbelievable, at least for me! I can imagine some marketing teachers crying, having horrible nightmares, or in more extreme cases, trying to kill themselves when they see stuff like that. Well, at least brand managers can make more money here in Canada than in any other country in the world. Of course they can: if I were a brand manager here I would ask my company to double my salary.

For me, having two brand names is like having two names: one in English and another one in French. So, if my name is Peter in any country, when I am here in Canada you can call me Peter-Pierre. If you are John in your country of origin, you would be John-Jean in Canada and so on.

Hmmm, now that I am thinking about this, I think that maybe I am in trouble… My last name “Coelho” means “rabbit”, in English. So, in this case, as long as I am in Canada, should I change my last name to “Coelho-Rabbit-Lapin”? I will think about that…Rendez-vous la semaine prochaine!

Fifteen Degrees, Haunted Houses, etc

OK, Vancouver looks good, but what is going on with the prices of the houses???

Next month we are going to complete one year in Canada. It has been interesting and weird to notice how our parameters have changed over this period here.

Moving from Brazil to Canada resulted on a big change on our temperature parameter first of all. In our home country, when it was 15 degrees, we used to think “oh my God, it is getting cold, let’s take a movie and stay in home”. Now, if it is 15 degrees, we celebrate “whoohoo, let’s wear our shorts, sandal and go outside to have some fun”.

In Brazil, when we saw an apartment for sale for CAD 150,000 we imagined “wow, this must be a really really good one, this is for rich people, not for us”, especially when we put the ridiculous Brazilian interest rates into the account… No way! Here, if we see a house for sale for CAD 150,000, we use to think “hmmm, there is something wrong with this house: leaks, weird neighbours, haunted house, whatever”. Houses here are a way more expensive than in Brazil, especially in Southern BC: totally out of our league! Vancouver? What is going on with that city? Is there any gold mine or an oil reserve underneath?

Our parameters also changed in regards to sports. When we were in Brazil, it was impossible to imagine Sunday and Wednesday without watching a soccer game. Now, I am sad because the 2010-2011 hockey season is heading to its end and I will not have any single game to watch over the weeks… Our Moroccan friend Ali Bouharrak cannot believe that Brazilian guys are comparing the excitement of a soccer game to the excitement of a hockey game!

Clothes? Electronic stuff? Food? Here we have all of those much cheaper than in Brazil. We use to spend twice more money in food than we spend here! And now we understand why, in Brazil, a job opportunity to make CAD 3,000/month would not be so good and why, in Canada, a job opportunity to make that amount would be good. With that and with all the economic background that professors Daniel Simons, Rosmy Jean Louis, and Raimo Martalla provided us, it has been impossible not to think about the huge differences between Canada and Brazil in regards to income distribution. But, well, this is a big topic and we can talk about that on another post in the near future!

See you soon!