If you were a US citizen with health issues, how easy would it be to re-locate somewhere with social healthcare? I always thought you had to have a job in the new country and be able to meet residency requirements and/or jump through other hoops. And that's why before the affordable care act in the United States you didn't see mass migrations of uninsured Americans going to Canada or elsewhere...
You're right: you'd find it difficult. There are reasons there hasn't been a mass US migration.
It's hard to get by in Canada and find employment without proof of legal residency. A person with the right family connections can sometimes find "under the table" employment if they have significant family connections, but depending on what province it is, many social programs aren't going to be available if a person doesn't have the legal right to be there.
To immigrate legally there's an evaluation process that considers age (number of financially productive years), profession, language skills, and a bunch of other stuff. If you've got skills the region needs you go to the head of the line and there's a 6-month turnaround for permanent residency papers using the "express" process that came out last year. Otherwise I hear people have to wait a while. A person who waits until their old and sick and
then tries to immigrate is less likely to get the express option.
There's an independent medical exam: people with serious health conditions aren't allowed to stay. There's also a criminal background check and a financial background check. It's pretty exhaustive. To get a police certificate from, say, the United States you do have to send in your fingerprints and get a FBI database check. (Yes, immigrants to Canada are indeed fingerprinted. Nobody seems to find it scandalous.)
Anyone with a criminal record (including impaired driving or a drug record), or who's committed a crime that would justify a 10-year sentence in Canada is ineligible (even if they didn't get caught or convicted). Same goes for someone with a serious financial problem, or who's married to or supporting someone with any of those situations. That simply rules out most of the working poor or people who grow up in generational poverty. Something like 65 to 70 million US citizens (roughly a fourth of the population) has a criminal record of some kind, and that's roughly a quarter of the population. By contrast, Canada's population is a little over 35 million.
In general-- and this is everywhere on our planet-- when a less populous nation lives next door to a big, populous one that contains two adult criminals for every man, woman, and child in the little nation, the little nation is going to have some cultural paranoia about barbarian invaders. Canada's immigration laws do reflect that.
Criminal records, serious illness, and big financial problems correlate with poverty and working-poor realities in most countries. Meanwhile, attributes such as language fluency, solid work history, and in-demand professional or trade credentials that would make an American an eligible or attractive immigrant to Canada also make that person highly employable in the USA and able to enjoy a fairly comfortable lifestyle that, while it does have tradeoffs, is as least as nice overall as what they can get anywhere else on the planet, and better than most. Why would they want to leave such a good thing?
Visualize a Venn diagram with two circles that don't overlap. One circle contains the kind of American who can breeze through the Canadian immigration process. The other circle contains the kind of American who really would be far better off living in that country.
[/quote]
Gee, if you suggest any of those restrictions in the US, you would be called racist.
You are called racist to even suggest a photo ID to vote. Argh!