• I’ve lived in Canada for over a decade, and while it’s not perfect, I prefer it to the United States.
• I had major surgery and dealt with long COVID for years and didn’t pay a dime for healthcare.
• Traveling to Canada can be more expensive, but my husband and I have found ways to make it work.

When my partner was offered a job in Toronto 13 years ago it felt like we had won the lottery.

We lived in the Midwest, where people looked at us like they’d never seen a multiracial couple before and Cosmopolitan Magazine was covered in black plastic at the supermarket because it was too racy.

We have long wanted to live in a more diverse, walkable place with less violence. Settling in downtown Toronto – where we could walk or take public transport and more than half the population was born outside of Canada – it was like being in a smaller, cleaner version of New York City.

Add to that the promise of Canadian health care and we were close to nirvana.

After living in Canada for over a decade, we realized that the the country is far from perfect. But there are many factors that make it unimaginable for me to live in the United States again.

Canada’s health care system isn’t perfect, but I prefer it to the United States

Health care in Canada has its drawbacks.

Even though the majority of care is free, people generally have to pay out of pocket for prescriptions, mental health dental and vision care, which can make these services inaccessible to many people.

Despite this, I cannot imagine living without socialized medicine Again. I had a complicated pregnancy and emergency C-section and developed long COVID four years ago, but I’ve never paid a dime for healthcare here.

While living in the United States, I worked in public health in California, helping uninsured families access care. I saw first hand how medical debt could ruin people.

There was also a brief period, when I was in my twenties, before the Affordable Care Act, where I lived without health insurance in California and he was terrified of getting hurt and ending up with a huge hospital bill.

Traveling to Canada can cost more, but we’ve found ways to manage

Due to federal regulationsdomestic flights within Canada are often more expensive than flights to the United States. However, we found ways to manage the situation by coordinating work trips and visits to friends.

The nature of Canada is one of our favorite aspects of living here. We have traveled across the country, but we have a particular fondness for the Laurentians of Quebec and the forests of Ontario.

We also spent months in the Yukon subarctic, where we saw a grizzly bear, a lynx, a moose, dozens of ravens, and more pristine wilderness than I thought possible.

We love diversity in Toronto, but we have experienced racism

My husband and I found friends through community groups and parenting and baby classes with other immigrant parents. Our friends come from all over, including Nigeria, Russia, Pakistan, Mexico, China and Peru.

Living in such a globalized environment is simply second nature for our child born in Canada, who became trilingual in kindergarten in a French public school.

However, immigrants and people of color are not always treated kindly, even though Canada has an official government. multiculturalism policy since 1971.

My Afro-Latino partner often laments the racism he experienced in Canada, which was more directly harmful to him than the racism he experienced in the United States.

For example, he sold his bike after nearly being hit several times by drivers, including one who told him to get off the road before calling him the N-word.

When he drops off some children’s items I sold on Marketplace on the porch, he is followed and questioned by people who act like he is a thief.

And when we renewed his employer-sponsored work permit at the border ten years ago, an immigration officer questioned him and said, “Couldn’t they find a Canadian for the job?”

Partly because of these experiences, my husband felt compelled to connect even more with different BIPOC communities in Canada.

After we moved here, he discovered his indigenous Caribbean ancestry through genetic testing, and it became an extremely important part of our experience as a family to educate ourselves about the history, life, and teachings indigenous peoples. We see this as one of our responsibilities as settlers.

I prefer to live in Canada than in the United States

The longer I live here, the less I feel out of place when I return to the United States.

My family inhabits multiple marginalized identities: queer, disabledimmigrants and BIPOC – who are under attack in the United States. The ability to live and thrive outside of the United States, with the added bonus of free health care, has long made me feel survivor’s guilt for taking advantage of this stability.

There are compromises to be made in Canadian life: Astronomical housing costs caused by foreign investment and government policy makes me worry that when my child is an adult, he will no longer be able to pay his rent, let alone buy a house.

I am also disabled and cannot work full time. If I ever find myself without the financial support of my partner, I would not be eligible or be able to live on my provincial income. paltry disability benefits.

Ultimately, it’s a balancing act.

I will always follow events in American society and politics, even if I one day become a Canadian citizen. But for the safety and health of my family, I cannot go back.