It's Official: We're in a Recession
While the announcement yesterday wasn't a surprise, it is good to acknowledge what many people have already known and felt. The National Bureau of Economic Research, or NBER said Monday...
Don't Treat Your 401k Like a Savings Account
The holidays can be a time where money becomes tight, and many people turn to their 401(k) or other retirement plans for some quick cash. If your retirement plan has...
Saving Money is Easy if You Make it Automatic
Many people think saving money is hard, but it doesn't have to be. The biggest problem is that most people treat savings as something that should be done after all...
Health Insurance Options After Termination or Early Retirement
If you're a full-time employee, chances are health insurance is one of the benefits available to you. If you choose to take advantage of this benefit, you probably understand that...
3 Tips to Help You Maintain a Budget
The process of creating a budget can be daunting at first, but creating one is actually the easiest part. Maintaining and staying true to your budget for any period of...
Use the Rule of 72 to Estimate How Long it Takes Your Money to Double
Have you ever wondered how you can quickly estimate how fast your money or investments will grow? Sure, you can plug numbers into a financial calculator or software program to...
Be Aware of the Warning Signs of Too Much Debt
Is paying off debt bogging you down and keeping you from reaching your financial goals? Using credit and can be a powerful tool that allows you to buy a home,...


for several weeks in July or August) to the more humid heat of locations along the St. Lawrence River (Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa).

Get Used to Distance

Eighty percent of Canada’s population is located in the strip of land that runs from Quebec City to Windsor at the American border. The three biggest cities in the nation are located at opposite ends of the country: Montreal and Toronto in the east are within an easy day’s drive of each other, while Vancouver lies far to the west on the Pacific Ocean. Most other cities are well under 1 million people, and the farther north you go, the more empty space you can expect to find between population centres.

Social programs and Big Taxes

If you ask a Canadian what the country’s most important institutions are, nine out of ten will point to Universal Health Care and the Public Education System. These systems guarantee that all Canadian citizens have access to good health care and every child can attend school up until grade 12 without having to pay for it. Both systems are within the jurisdiction of the provinces, as the Catholic background of Quebec was a major contributor to the development of both its hospitals and its schools; therefore, it is necessary to purchase health insurance even when traveling out of the province you reside in.

Hand in hand with comprehensive social programs come high taxes in order to fund these programs. Canada has taxes on almost everything that you could imagine, from various federal and provincial gasoline taxes to taxes on alcohol, cigarettes, hotel rooms, and cross border goods. In addition, the federal government applies a 6% tax to all goods and services, and every province but Alberta has some form of provincial sales tax. Income taxes for Canadians are also quite high, with a greater share deducted the more you earn.

Like any country, Canada has points in its favour and against. As most Canadian citizens will point out, the price of taxes is fairly minor when measured up against the many benefits Canadians enjoy, not the least of which is being one of the cleanest and safest countries in the world.

Article Source: http://articlecrazy.com

For more information on this article or on relocating to Toronto, visit Toronto-Relocation.com.

Here are some more financial planning articles...