Canada is Scary!

I am a proud Canadian and think my native country is wonderful. It is a large country with varied landscapes and cultures, offering something for everyone. Canada is a safe, politically stable country, with a great worldwide reputation. And even though I love France, my adopted country, it is sometimes hard not to compare things here to Canada. And because of my patriotic bias, Canada often has an unfair advantage in these comparisons. So imagine how astounded I was when I recently met people that fear life in Canada!

In the past several weeks, I met three French people that were given the chance to move to Calgary with Total, the company that brought us to France. It was three separate encounters, but each one of them looked at me in awe, saying “but it is so cold!” .

One of the families decided to take the position and move to Calgary. I met with the lady of the family to discuss life in Calgary and Canada. She has lived her whole life in southern France, and was clearly uneasy about her pending move. We discussed many aspects of her new life, but somehow about every ten minutes, she brought the conversation back to the weather. Here are some of the questions I received, many of them more than once: How cold does it get? When does it get cold? Do the kids play outside at school? Where do I buy boots? You plug your car in? I tried my best to put a positive spin on things. I explained that Calgary gets several chinooks every winter. I told her the kids would love playing in the snow, sledding, making snowmen. Maybe they will learn to skate. I tried not to mention that the temperature can sometimes drop very low in October, or that it can snow in May. She was anxious enough as it was, I did not need to fuel her fear.

Last week I met a lady that turned down the chance to move to Calgary because of the weather. I was dumbfounded! I would think that being posted in Calgary with Total would be equivalent to winning the lottery. This is a company that does work in some very unstable, isolated, and potentially unsafe locations around the world. This family could alternately be offered to move to Nigeria, Angola, Myanmar, Qatar, but they refused to go to Canada because of a little snow!?! They would prefer potential car-jacking, civil war, droughts and developing world conditions to freezing temperatures!?!

Is life that unfavourable in the winter? Are Canadians really living at a disadvantage? I obviously do not think so, but it is interesting to see how others perceive our country.