My parents moved to Canada to give me a better life. Do I need to take my kids back to Colombia to give them the same?
By Manuel Arellano Contributor
I still remember the view. The Toronto skyline at night. Just a few hours earlier I was in my hometown of Cali, Colombia. Now I was in Canada, my new home.
It was May 31, 1999, the day my family moved to Canada. I was amazed at the diversity, cleanliness, and orderliness of Toronto. Canada promised a land of opportunity and high standard of living.
However, today, things are different. The standard of living in Canada has declined and the cost of living has skyrocketed. While I am grateful for my parent’s choice to move to here, the current situation in Canada makes me question whether it is worth staying or if there are better places to raise a family.
Last year, my family returned to Colombia for vacation. Something that caught my wife’s and my attention was how our relatives back home seemed happier and less stressed than our family in Canada.
While there are still safety concerns in Colombia, there are also many benefits. For example, our family there spends significantly less on housing and food than we do in Canada. They also have access to high-quality education and health care. Our Colombian relatives appear to be thriving, both financially and in terms of health.
In Canada, a third of our household income goes to taxes. When you add the cost of housing, 50 to 70 per cent of our income goes to the government and the bank. This doesn’t even include the price of food and groceries. By the end of the month, we have little left to save or invest for the future. We are a middle-class family living paycheque to paycheque.
While our Colombian relatives must pay for health care and education, the quality of the services they receive is superior to what is available in Canada. Living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), seeing a doctor can be a cumbersome process. Between calling the doctor’s office to book an appointment and (if you are lucky to get an appointment) waiting in the doctor’s office to be seen, we can easily spend three to four hours. Need to see a specialist? Be ready to wait weeks or even months.
Given these circumstances and seeing higher standards of living outside Canada, my wife and I have asked ourselves a valid question: Is Canada worth it?
My daughter is 6 years old and I compare her childhood in Canada to mine in Colombia. She has spent most of her life indoors. My daughter watches at least one to two hours of TV each day. Between October and April, the usual plan is to go to the mall or an indoor playground. When the weather starts to warm up, we can finally spend some time outdoors.
Raising children in Canada is expensive. Our daughter has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), so we have enrolled her in extracurricular activities to provide the stimulation that her brain seeks, which the school can’t fully provide. Tutoring, sports and art classes and summer camps are significant expenses in our family budget.
Young families are not the only ones who are struggling. We know boomers who immigrated to Canada over 20 years ago who are also considering moving back to their country of origin. If they wish to ever retire and be mortgage-free, leaving the GTA — or Canada altogether — may be their only option.
Should I Stay or Should I Go?
My wife and I are expecting our second child in September and plan to spend part of our parental leave in Colombia. A key factor in deciding whether to stay beyond the leave will be how well our daughter adjusts to school there. Even though she is fully bilingual, starting Grade 2 in a different country is a big transition.
If we decide to return to Canada, we will have built nice memories as a family in Colombia. If we decide to stay in Colombia, we will always carry a piece of Canada in our hearts.
Manuel Arellano is a 38-year-old communications professional originally from Colombia. He lives with his wife and daughter in the Greater Toronto Area.
