u/DrFunky4

40 year old WM here, grew up in Niagara Falls New York and now I live in the Greater Toronto area.

I saw the post/meme that went viral about the housing costs in NF NY vs NF Ontario and saw all the comments and a lot of misinformation.

If you aren't sure what im talking about, basically the average cost of a house in Niagara Falls NY is $176,000 vs the Canadian side which is like $660,000.

And now, all the Canadian right wingers want to buy houses on the American side.

They think its some kind of utopia and they keep bringing up how they want to "get away from the Indians". How Canada now has so much crime, overburdened health care systems blah blah blah

I feel like I need to set the record straight...

1. Niagara Falls NY is like Flint Michigan with a waterfall. Our per capita crime rates blow the NF Ontario Canada side out of the water. Most Canadians cross over the rainbow bridge, and head right to the mall, they just assume NF NY is just some quiet little town because its so empty, but they don't realize the massive amounts of gun violence that takes place in those neighborhoods over the years. And yes NF Canada has gun violence as well, ...but no where near the same per capita.

Its hard for me to get a direct side by side comparison because the Niagara Falls Police Department collects crime statistics different than the Niagara Regional Police do, and the NFPD only covers Niagara Falls NY, which is only like 47,000 people.

Niagara Regional Police is more like a Canadian version of a County Sheriff and they cover NF Ontario, St Catherines, Fort Erie ect, its like half a million people they cover. So their crime stats are not solely focused on NF Ontario like how the American side is. And they have a very broad, generic "gun crime" category that doesnt match well.

The american version of that would be to combine Gun Shot victim stats and Armed Robbery stats together.

Its really odd how the Canadian Police do it.

But anyways, for an mental image on what im trying to get across...

The entire population of Niagara Falls NY could literally fit into Blue Jays baseball stadium and in one year alone we had 47 people shot. So imagine 47 people shot in the stands during a Jays game. And thats just one year.

Yes im aware gun violence occurs in Toronto, Brampton, and even Niagara Falls Ontario but the frequency of occurance is the difference. Theres 3 million people in Toronto, the odds of experiencing gun violence are lower than in NF NY.

Think of it like shooting at a fish swimming in a barrel vs shooting at a fish swimming in an ocean. Theres a difference.

And NF Ontario only have like 5 shootings a year at most. With a population of almost 100k.

Now google this " how many people have been shot per year in niagara falls new york since 2013? " and keep in mind all of that happens in a town of 47k people. Small enough to fit into Blue Jays Stadium in Toronto so imagine all them people being shot yearly in the stands in Blue Jays Stadium.

2. The "too many indians" stuff comes off as mad racist. The stuff about the indians is interesting to sit back and observe. The whites dont like them cuz they want their neighborhoods to stay white, the black canadians dont like them because the indians are racist against black people.

The whole thing makes me think of Los Angeles and how the white Americans and the black Americans view the Mexicans. I mean the comments are damn near identical.

Me personally, its a weird feeling cuz my wife is black my kids are mixed and we've already gotten a huge aura of racism from some of our white neighbors i guess it wouldn't much change if the neighborhood turned totally Indian. We are kinda fucked either way. And i personally dont care if Indians want to move to Canada. I understand what its like to want to leave a fucked up area for better opportunities.

But if you are white Canadian and you think you are going to move to Niagara Falls NY to move into some David Duke Wet Dream Sundown town white utopia you are sadly mistaken. Lol

Another thing Canadians always forget about because they never have them.. race riots.

Theres never been a race riot in a canadian city. Imagine all of Scarborough burning to the ground because of a police shooting.

And in america now the small cities are burning to the ground, like Ferguson Missouri. Theres only like 18,000 people there.

Imagine all of St Catherines burning to the ground. Or Grimsby. Lol

You want to move to America so bad? Better get riot insurance.

I already know about the G20 riots, that was nothing in comparison. That was a handful of white kids burning cop cars on Yonge Street.

Compare that to the LA riots where ALL of South Central burned to the ground. Thats equivalent to ALL of Scarborough burning to the ground. Its apples to dump trucks.

3. The American health care system is just as overburdened as the Canadian system. Theres news reports all the time about people who die in American hospitals waiting for treatment constantly. Just google it. "Do people die in american hospitals waiting for treatment?"

My wife has high blood pressure, we went into the ER in Canada, they took her blood pressure, she was given a bed immediately.

Do people die waiting in Canada? Probably.

But they die waiting in America too. Thats what the right wing canadians refuse to educate themselves about.

The difference is in America they toss a $20,000 bill on top of your corpse.

4. The economy in NF NY is completely collapsed. The population shrank from 102,000 people to 47,000 people. Half the houses are abandoned and burned to a crisp from arson fires and the biggest employer is the Casino, the Air reserve station and Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center. Theres no more industry base and the tourism industry is horrible compared to the canadian side.

Vs NF Ontario which sees a growing population every year, the skyline grows every single year, the economy in NF Ontario is BOOMING. Its unbelievable. You can literally see the difference.

Niagara Falls New York doesnt even have a YMCA, not even a basic ass YMCA...

5. One other thing you all keep forgetting is Niagara Falls NY is where Love Canal happened. If you've never heard of it, google it. 10,000 barrels of toxic waste are still buried underground in LaSalle. And they just found more toxic waste outside of love Canal. Lol so the toxic waste pollution issue never went away. So yea, you might move into your racist all white neighborhood in LaSalle but your tap water glows green at night. Lol so good luck with that.

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All in all my only beef with the Toronto area is that its too expensive and theres too much traffic. And Canada's wonderland, wetnwild and Costco are too overcrowded.

But everything else is a much better environment than back home.

I would much rather raise my kids anywhere in Canada, than Niagara Falls NY.

The right wing canadians have a very distorted view of how bad they think Canada is.

The United States is much worse off than Canada. From personal experience.