O Canada, are your apples like mine?

In a recent guest opinion (“O Canada, how should we govern?” May 16), the writer tells of some of the good aspects of life in Canada. I agree that Canada is a fine country and with many positives but several footnotes should be added.

We in States are not against immigration but rather illegal immigration. Over the last 20 years, about 700,000 people apply for naturalization each year and 1,000,000 new people obtain resident status and a green card for employment each year. And we do not have the restrictions that Canada has in evaluating education, employability and such to determine if the person will be accepted as an immigrant.

The legitimate concern is with the 700,000 “got aways” (last year’s number) who just come across our southern border and disappear into the country. And they are in addition to the current backlog of 3.6 million people who have claimed asylum and are awaiting a decision. And we don’t even know where most of these people are.

Health care costs are lower but no mention is made of the timely availability of medical care or the variety of pharmaceuticals. And so forth with the other statistics. Is there a true advantage or are you getting something different for your money?

By the way, the average Canadian family pays 42.5% of their income in taxes.

We do have problems in this country that need to be addressed. But when making comparisons, a little more information should be gathered so that we are doing an apples to apples comparison.

As the author said in his letter “there aren’t millions of Americans yearning to get into Canada” and “despite all our supposed problems in this country, I’m staying put here.”

Dick Sakulich, Doylestown

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