Canadians and Americans share a border & language. They also have plenty of cultural overlaps. However, they don’t organize public systems the same way, and it’s mostly because Canadians have deliberately chosen to take a different path than their southern neighbors.
Even some of the most deeply embedded American ways of doing things haven’t made it to Canada.
Here are ten American systems that Canadians refuse to copy, for one reason or another. Which of these do you think would be the hardest for you to live with?
Employer-based health insurance
Quite a few American workers depend on employer-sponsored health insurance to get by, and that means that their health coverage is based on their job status & employer benefits.
Changing a job could mean losing their coverage terms entirely. They’ll have to deal with a new doctor & network before getting proper treatment.
It’s no surprise that Canada chose to follow a different healthcare model, where public health insurance funds medically necessary hospital and physician services. Workplace-based plans aren’t really a thing over here.
At-will employment
There’s a surprising number of American states that operate under at-will employment rules. These allow employers to terminate workers whenever they wish, as long as it’s not for any illegal reason. Yes, really.
They don’t even need to give an extended notice period or severance pay to workers.
Such a system would never fly in Canada because the labour standards here tend to require notice before firing. Any company that does end a worker’s employment without cause usually has to compensate them fairly. We also have more protections under our employment laws.
State right-to-work laws
Another difference in working systems is in terms of right-to-work laws. These exist in a lot of U.S. states to stop unions from forcing workers to pay dues, despite the fact that unions may have helped to negotiate contracts on their behalf.
Canada doesn’t have the same kind of system. The security rules for unions come from provincial labour laws instead, and these allow for more collective bargaining structures that also include broader rules about financial participation.
It’s all because Canadians don’t want to weaken union bargaining power or representation in the workplace.
Commercial bail bonds for pretrial release
It’s normal to secure a pretrial release from jail in the United States by paying cash bail or using a commercial bail bond. The companies charge people non-refundable fees to cover bond costs.
However, Canada doesn’t have a large commercial bail bonds industry, and people have to rely on other methods for release instead.
It all depends on your release conditions & sureties over here, as well as court-managed bail processes. Canadians understand the issues with the American system. They know that it can create inequality, since a person’s prerelease depends entirely on their ability to pay.
Elected county sheriffs
Many American sheriffs get into power through elections, and then they oversee local law enforcement & jail operations. In theory, that means more accountability.
But Canadians see things differently, and our systems rely on appointed police leadership & police boards.
We generally prefer centralized oversight. Over here, the goal is to avoid elected sheriff systems because these put quite a bit of pressure on policing, and we’d rather have more standardized forms of ensuring accountability.
Capital punishment
Canada formally removed the death penalty with the 1976 Criminal Code. Executions haven’t been carried out here for decades.
Yet the United States allows states to choose their own rules on capital punishment, and it’s allowed in some states & at the federal level.
Canadians have consistently rejected any attempts at restoring the death penalty. It’s more common for people here to see life imprisonment as a better option, and that’s had a knock-on effect on legal & parliamentary decisions ever since.
Buying firearms without a national licensing model
It’s no secret that it’s far easier to get a firearm in the United States than in Canada. This is mostly due to the fact that we have a robust licensing system, known as a Possession and Acquisition Licence, that involves background checks & safety training.
The RCMP also continually screens firearm owners for their eligibility to own a weapon. But there’s no such system in the United States, nor is there any kind of equivalent nationwide licensing policy for owning a firearm. Generally, people here prefer centralized licensing & screening controls.
Child care priced through a market system
There’s a national early learning and childcare framework across the entirety of Canada that aims to reduce average fees to around $10 per day. Our framework is all thanks to agreements between the federal government and provinces.
It’s rather different from the American system, where childcare is treated as a market-priced service that lacks any kind of fee-reduction program across the country. Canadians don’t want that. They know it’d likely raise costs for families, and that’s never a good thing.
Electoral college
The popular vote isn’t the only factor in deciding the president in the United States, as the electoral college has quite an important role to play. Canada has never adopted anything similar. Nor is it likely to.
It’s through federal elections that MPs get chosen, with the leader of the governing party later becoming prime minister. Canadians often reject the electoral college system because they don’t think it’s fair for it to override the popular vote and complicate things further.
Local property taxes to support public school funding
You’ll find that many public schools are funded primarily by local property taxes in America. That kind of system means that school budgets can change quite a bit because of neighborhood wealth, and it’s one of the reasons the same system doesn’t exist in Canada.
Provinces control educational funding more centrally. Canadians understand that relying on local property taxes may cause gaps in funding between communities, and it can also lead to inequality in school resources.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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