BA to Calgary

Another day, another first face-to-face meeting with someone from Latin America that I have been talking to for years. This was their first trip to YVR - here for four days, ostensibly to see a concert.

Federico is from Buenos Aires and is married to Carolina, also from BA. They moved to Calgary a couple of years ago and, while "who can say", it seems they are probably here permanently. He is an engineer, currently working on oil projects, and she is an architect, working on home renovation projects.

They are both quite a bit more positive on Canada than my Chile friend.

We talked a LOT and, being old, I can't remember a lot of the details, but one thing that stands out:

While mostly positive on the Canadian immigration process, some resentment for the strong preference shown to anyone who speaks French and/or (ideally and) is a refugee vs an economic migrant (like them). It's easy to fake refugee status eg. by claiming to be gay (hard to prove) from a country where that is persecuted (for example). They both seem like ideal immigrant candidates (professionals, young, fluent English, no dependents) yet feel that Canada makes it awfully expensive, hard, and time consuming.

That's said, better than Australia in this respect - and, arguably, only this respect. Australia welcomes foreign workers but is very stingy handing out PR or citizenship. On the other hand (this part is more me than them!), they have awesome beaches, a super strong economy, beer, a great climate, decent relations with pretty much everybody, and are much less likely to get fallout (literal or metaphorical) from any future wars involving the US.

This was a real Spanish workout. If I could do this more often, I would be 100% fluent in no time, haha. Well, I do hope to see them again!

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