I also expect an influx of Americans coming to Canada to escape Trump. Don't disappoint me this time! I'm still waiting for the Americans who threatened to move to Canada when Obama was elected 8 years ago. Don't just make idle crybabyish threats like usual!
I've tried, I've tried, I've tried...
There are only two options to moving to Canada:
Bring as much as possible in, and work for the rest of my life, until I drop dead. I'm unwilling to do that. (The nature of my work very commonly involves carrying around boxes which weigh around 10kg, and that would be impossible if I'm ever disabled in any real way. That would be a horrible time to be kicked out of Canada because I can no longer work.)
or..."buy my way in" with massive entrance fees to get a permanent residency visa. I have certain limits involving climate and such; I hate snow, and long winters shred my skin into bloody pieces of meat, basically. Ontario requires a $3 MILLION "deposit" to move in. I remember BC was some similarly incredible amount. I could deal with Ontario and I'd do it in a heartbeat (even if Clinton had won), but that kind of money is utterly impossible. AB, SK, MB, QC, NL, PE, NB, NS would give me a CRUEL and miserable winter climate. I thought that Saint John NB (in a province that has an entrance bounty that I actually CAN deal with) might work, and I found that I think I can like the place, but the climate is still bad enough that I would be entirely miserable with it. Climate is considerably worse than where I live now, which already tests my limits. That also puts me 300 or more miles from ANY AND ALL friends and family that I have ever had in my entire lifetime - and a border crossing away, as well, from far more than 90%.
I don't remember whether NB was $100K or $300K entrance fee (and I'm trying to talk to the immigration attorney again...but it's impossible, they're probably getting SLAMMED by inquiries), but even if it's a "mere" $100K, it will cost me around one-half million to go there, even before any housing costs. I estimate I would lose $300,000 or more simply by being forced to sell so much of my inventory as immediately as possible (so that I don't have to move 22 to 25 tons of stuff in, which would result in truly massive Customs duty), because bulk buyers only give pennies on the dollar and I need to sell bulk for 5% to 7% of what I could get, at the most. The five or six tons I would still make sure I have left over, very likely I could be hit for as much as $50,000 on Customs duties. Having to get rid of bulk quickly (so that I don't wait until 2020 or 2021 to move in, which would be pointless) would cost me that massively because it would need to be done so quickly.
I would also need to move my retirement annuity to Canada, and there's a 7% early surrender fee on it (at least for this year, it decreases over time). That's another five-figure amount that I lose.
Furthermore, there are some hints that I may be heading toward the first loving, long-term relationship ever in my lifetime. It would be a relationship without sex. (Meh...sex is a very trivial part of my life, and I have no trouble with that sacrifice.) Why no sex? Because he is HIV+. And, moving to Canada, OF COURSE he would lose his American insurance (which he told me came out of the Ryan White Act)...so he would be the "health care refugee" that Canada fears. Furthermore, he has a DUI conviction in summer 2014 - which is "only" a high misdemeanor in Indiana, but a FELONY in Canada. Therefore, a move to Canada would be entirely fatal to any hopes of preserving any relationship which may happen (or not). NO WAY would he be let in. Even if these factors weren't there, I would need to pay HIS way in, and that would be ANOTHER $100K or $300K or whatever it is.
My passport expires in 2023, and I fear that, no longer being a USA resident, nor a CITIZEN of Canada, there may be no possible way to renew it. I haven't studied that aspect, but it's frightening.
Bailing out of a possible relationship, losing at least half a million dollars and possibly even close to 3/4 million, and living in a brutal and utterly unacceptable climate (because the "good climates have been taken" by higher immigrant demand and, therefore, unthinkable entrance fees), and being that far from everything that I have ever loved...and possibly even never again being able to travel out of Canada after 2023...
I CAN'T DO IT.
Shit.
I would still do it, if it was GUARANTEED that **all** of the Fifty States will degenerate into the Fourth Reich, but it is not a guarantee at all. Instead, I'm looking at some places - a couple states in particular which are likely not in danger of electing entire Republican-controlled delegations to sit in their legislatures - New Jersey and Rhode Island. 100% of those awful anti-gay laws and bathroom laws, etc. are invarialbly passed by Republican legislatures and signed by Republican governors. I've found probable affordable target locations in both states which are probably acceptably nice and diverse, but still AFFORDABLE. That wouldn't normally be a major concern but, in my case where I have a requirement for truly massive amounts of space, the $1 million six-room condos in most of the "cool" places are out of reach. Oh, if I could just fit into the ordinary three rooms, MANY more options would be open like in California, Oregon, Chicago, etc.
So, that's where I'm at. The "relationship thing" was the straw that broke its back.
I ALSO HAVE TO THINK: "So let's say I live in Canada, then." I would be visiting the United States OFTEN. Somehow I get arrested, perhaps I'm smoking pot with people in the "wrong state" or something and there's a bust. Would I then be barred from ever again entering Canada for any reason, and all my "stuff" and everything I've ever moved there ends up being forfeited?
Damn it. I'm safer in the States.
I have decided, though, that - the fact I have never made final burial or final disposal arrangements - I may try to have my remains end up in Canada. Very possibly my epitaph would say something like "I always wished, from childhood, that I was Canadian. Well, here I am!"
