Poll for an English Assignment

[MegaWoman]

I lock my doors during the day and at night. The cars and garage are locked too. We live in a suburb of Toronto (population 45000).

I grew up in Montreal and we always locked our doors there too, cars and garage also.

I too agree that Michael Moore seems to think that Canada is a Utopia. We love living here, and yes, we have a much lower violent crime rate. But at one time Montreal was the car theft capital of North America (not sure if that's still true). Toronto has it's share of gun crime. Montreal has the biker gang wars, and Vancouver has hate crimes.

When I saw that scene in Bowling for Columbine I thought it was misleading. For the record he was interviewing people in the Windsor area. I think he was making a comparison for Detroit vs. Windsor.

Interesting homework assignment! Hope you get a good grade.

 

[encinc]

We keep our doors locked, day and night, home or not. DH's parents are paranoid about crime, so he grew up being a lot more careful about keeping things locked than I did.

We live in a city of about 100,000 about 45 mins outside of Toronto. Our home is in a small "complex" of condominium townhomes where there are a lot of seniors. One day, I left (well, probably more accurately DS4 left, but I suppose I'm responsible) the front door wide open (not just unlocked, but open!) when I left for work in the morning. I came home to a parcel from the post office tucked safely inside the door, but nothing had been disturbed in the house. One of my neighbours mentioned that she noticed the door open, but she did not want to close it, just in case I'd done it on purpose. She said that she kept a close eye on the house for me. I'm sure she sat in her living room all day and watched for any comings or goings at our house. That's just the kind of neighbourhood I live in, but it certainly is not typical.

 

[NikP]

Till reading this post it never crossed my mind to lock our door during the day when we are home. I just assumed the door lock is used for when you are not at home. We always lock the door at night.

Both my SIL's never lock their doors when going out in the day. I don't know if my husbands family could find their house key to lock up.

We live in a small community of 10,000 in Southern Ontario.

 

[SoccerDogWithEars]

Thank you all again so much for helping me out! I wasn't sure how to "assess the validity" of that statement.......DISboards are the answer to everything!!!

 

[SplashMountainMama]

My doors are usually locked except in the summer during the day when I leave the screen door open and it doesn't even have a lock. I live in a city of about 36,000 people and the crime rate is very low. Good luck with your assignment.
Just for the record Michael Moore (in Sicko) also said in London, Ontario you only wait 20 minutes in the emergency room of any hospital. Right, buddy. I would hazard to guess it is at least a 2 to 6 hour wait most days. I live very close to London and have spent many hours in their emergency rooms!

20 minutes??? Maybe he's talking about how long it takes to get through the line of people trying to sign in and use the hand-sanitizer before they can talk to anyone! With the up-coming presidential election you can tell that health care is on the minds of a lot of Americans. On our last day at WDW 3 weeks ago, we entered EPCOT through the World Showcase side and the man checking our bags was drilling me for info about our health care system when he found out we were Canadian. He was shocked when I told him that sometimes the wait list to get an MRI can be 6 weeks or more depending on where you live, even if they've found something on an ultrasound or x-ray. (This happened to our neighbour when they found a mass on her liver in a routine ultrasound for something else)

As for locking doors, I live in a suburb of a city of 200,000 and only lock the doors at night. If I'm running out during the day I try to remember to lock the door, but it really depends on how much stuff I have in my hands. I do lock our car at night because if I don't DH gets on my case, especially because I usually have left my wallet/purse on the front seat.

 

[maggieb9975]

I live in a small town in Ontario and we lock our doors only at night, if we go out they are open....we don't have a house key lost it somewhere along the way I guess 'cause we never use it....I don't lock my van either....

I grew up in Toronto and did lock up....

Good luck with your project!

Re the hospital emerg , again most of the time it is 20 minute tops wait....
small town life

 

[Nomi]

My family does lock the door at night or when we are away, but we do leave it open if we are home and awake. Unless we want to play a joke an our parents who try to go open the door and find it locked (teehee).

Then again, even though we live in Edmonton (fairly big city) we do live out in the suburbs.

 

[F4disneyfan]

We quite often leave our house and cars unlocked this is even after havint the house broken into in 01. I will head to the mall for a few hours during the day and the house is wide open so to speak. We often times don't even lock our doors or vehicles at night and we live in a city of over 300 thousand.

 

[F4disneyfan]

20 minutes??? Maybe he's talking about how long it takes to get through the line of people trying to sign in and use the hand-sanitizer before they can talk to anyone! With the up-coming presidential election you can tell that health care is on the minds of a lot of Americans. On our last day at WDW 3 weeks ago, we entered EPCOT through the World Showcase side and the man checking our bags was drilling me for info about our health care system when he found out we were Canadian. He was shocked when I told him that sometimes the wait list to get an MRI can be 6 weeks or more depending on where you live, even if they've found something on an ultrasound or x-ray. (This happened to our neighbour when they found a mass on her liver in a routine ultrasound for something else)

As for locking doors, I live in a suburb of a city of 200,000 and only lock the doors at night. If I'm running out during the day I try to remember to lock the door, but it really depends on how much stuff I have in my hands. I do lock our car at night because if I don't DH gets on my case, especially because I usually have left my wallet/purse on the front seat.

We took our 5 year old to the Emerge when he fell and smacked his head on the ice and we only waited about 4 minutes to get in and see the emerge Dr. I to have never waited in Emerge for more than 7 to 8 minutes for anything. Now our urgent care clinics can be a hassle in London sometimes but even there it isn't unbearable. So from my personal experiances in London (lived here my whole life) he is about bang on the money for what I have seen and dealt with.

 

[tlens]

I sometimes lock them when I'm home. Sometimes not. They are locked when I leave...most of the time. LOL. We lock out garage but sometimes don't lock the door from the garage to the house when we leave.

We also have an alarm that I pay $25.00/month for that we only use if we are going out of town. Don't know why I keep paying for it.

Car is ALWAYS locked though.

I live within walking distance of 2 universities and surprisingly crime is extemely low in my area.

 

[MaryannF]

We live in Toronto. We lock our doors all the time. Our garage is locked all the time. Our cars are locked all the time. The gate is kept closed and our backyard bbq is locked and chained to the house. When the kids were little their bicycles were kept in a locked shed. We don't feel we live in a high crime area but have had some unpleasant experiences over the past 30 years that we have lived in the same house. No one I know in this area leaves anything unlocked.

 

[SplashMountainMama]

We took our 5 year old to the Emerge when he fell and smacked his head on the ice and we only waited about 4 minutes to get in and see the emerge Dr. I to have never waited in Emerge for more than 7 to 8 minutes for anything. Now our urgent care clinics can be a hassle in London sometimes but even there it isn't unbearable. So from my personal experiances in London (lived here my whole life) he is about bang on the money for what I have seen and dealt with.

I'm sure it doesn't help that I live in Windsor and we are extremely underserviced for doctors, but 7 or 8 minutes seems like an impossibility to me. Here, I prefer the urgent care clinics because even though the wait is long at least there's a line you wait in as opposed to the hospital emerg. where as long as someone more severe than you comes in you are left waiting.

 

[ronandannette]

Too late to be counted into the research project, I know, but I couldn't help wanting to weigh in, especially since most of the input has come from south/central Ontario.

We live in Calgary (Alberta, pop. +/- 1,100,000).

Locks: House is open 24/7 unless we're away overnight. Car is unlocked usually with the keys under the seat so I don't misplace them (I don't do this in the parking lot at the mall, though). We've lived in the same N.W. neighbourhood for 8 years and I've NEVER heard of anyone here being broken into. You also see the odd bike on a front lawn for a day or two at a time in summer as well. The conditions would not be the same city-wide; there are eastern and inner-city parts of Calgary that are really quite dangerous now, both to person and property. That said, it is a mindset that seems to be uniquely Canadian. I work for a high-volume home builder and I turn over houses every day that come complete with a fully functioning alarm system. When my staff returns for our routine warranty cycles almost NONE of the native born Canadians have ever activated their systems. Mostly all the people who have immigrated from other cultures do...(Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle-Eastern, African). Very interesting I find.

As for health care (now you've really got me going!) - please! 6 months for an MRI here is only if you have an urgent concern; routine screening can literally take years. We have a dangerous shortage of family physicians in Calgary and at least 1/3 of our population does not have access to a doctor (my family included; our guy closed his practice after 10 years to make more money in "research"). Every year there are 2 or 3 people who leave emergency rooms after 20 hour waits and go home to die from coronary events or appendicitis. Walk-in clinics are a horror show with patients lined up 60 deep on a Saturday just to have basic medicines prescribed and there is absolutely NO WAY to get continuity of care. The payment of heath-care premiums ($1,800.00/year per family) is required here by law and still no access is available. Tell me how this is worse than the American system where the non-insured only get treatment for catastrophic conditions (through the county hospitals?). At least if I had the $1,800.00 in my pocket and it was legal I could drive down to Montana and pay a doctor to take a look at this knee...

Annette

 

[so_are_you]

The payment of heath-care premiums ($1,800.00/year per family) is required here by law and still no access is available. Tell me how this is worse than the American system where the non-insured only get treatment for catastrophic conditions (through the county hospitals?). At least if I had the $1,800.00 in my pocket and it was legal I could drive down to Montana and pay a doctor to take a look at this knee...

Annette

we live in AB too and for our whole family our premiums are $74 a month thats $888 a year thats the max. I was just wondering where $1800 was from.
my mom was in the same boat as you for her knees she was told months but she asked to be put on the short call cancellation list meaning she could be there in ubder 30 minutes if they had a no show
she got in with in 3 weeks

 

[ronandannette]

Sorry for the inaccuracy; $1,800.00 includes the extended heath care benefits (ambulance service, prescription drugs and a small dental policy) that we pay for through work. If you are employed in Alberta your employer MUST deduct Alberta Health Care premiums and remit them to the government.

As for the knee, I can't even get on one of our infamous "lists" without being able to see a doctor. Walk-in clinics are not equipped to provide what's called tertiary (third level) care, which is anything that requires follow-up and coordination of specialists, etc.


Annette

 

[so_are_you]

As for the knee, I can't even get on one of our infamous "lists" without being able to see a doctor. Walk-in clinics are not equipped to provide what's called tertiary (third level) care, which is anything that requires follow-up and coordination of specialists, etc.


Annette

I must admit there were pretty slow signing us up for AB medical were from bc and it took 7 months for the paper work for AB medical to be finished and changed over

we haven't had to work with specilists to much yet since we moved here thank goodness
our 3 year old has to see a ped cardioligist every few weeks and they got her started pretty fast
and we just found out last week she will need to see a lung specilist so I wonder how long we will have to wait she is going to the stollery childrens we ended up getting out family dr the first time shehad to go to the ER so far shes always been seen and treated super fast in the er
even when she had to get her first stiches last summer she was in and done and home with in 45 minutes

 

[Cdn Gal]

We never lock our doors, not even at night. We live in a small community but we don't have much to steal, and I always have thought that if they have to steal from us, then they need it more than we do! The only time we lock is when we go away on vacation. We have great neighbours who watch the place like hawks, so I'm not worried. In fact b/c we have been renovating our house, in the first 5 years we lost the keys and never replaced them! It wasn't until we went away for the weekend and a friend looked after the house (who locks EVERYTHING up) changed the locks and had keys made for us. Front and back doors, b/c we lost the back doors too! We have keys now...but...I would be hard pressed to say where they were exactly. Growing up we lived in the country and never locked our doors. Plus, we have a dog who would scare away anybody. Ironically though, we do lock our car. Also, if our house is locked how would family and friends be able to let themselves in and help themselves to whatever is in the fridge??

 

[MickeyMacks]

I'm too late for your project, but thought I'd chime in with my info from a small town in Atlantic Canada. I always lock my car, always lock my house at night and when I'm away and if I'm home alone during the day, the house is usually locked just because I haven't unlocked it from the night before.

I live in an out-of-the-way neighbourhood with mostly seniors, no flashy houses or cars to draw junkies looking for quick grab-n-sell stuff. I find crime is actually worse in rural areas here because that's where the drug problems are worse and where people tend not to lock doors.

We've had plenty of break-ins and attempts even on our humble little street, with tracks left overnight in the snow to everyone's doors, sheds and vehicles, so we all lock our doors. At the local hockey rink, people have smashed windshields and stolen purses during afternoon hockey games this winter (town of about 5,000 people).

How many people/pets are in the household has a lot to do with whether you lock the doors, though. There are a lot more single-parent and small-family households than a generation ago, when more of us left our doors unlocked. Most of us lived in families with both men and dogs back then.

If I had a bigger family (man and/or dog in the house!) I might not be so vigilant about locking the house all the time.

Hope you did well with your project!

Edited to add: Ironically, about 7 hours after I wrote this, a family down the street from my parents here in town had a break-in. The thieves broke into a locked house, took a purse with money and CCs, shotguns and other valuables from several rooms as the owners slept inside.

 

[sean-1966]

When my parent were still together my father was nuts for locking up the house. When the divorced and I moved with my mother we never locked the doors. In fact when we sold the house there was a problem because we had no idea where the keys were. Now that it's DW and me I lock the dfoor at night only. Although I have been known to leave my keys in the door.

 

[DutchsMommy]

We lock everything. Ah, Scarborough Just kidding - I think it is no worse than anywhere else and there have been times I have forgotten to lock up, but with a small son in the house I would rather be safe than sorry.

As for wait times in Emerg - one thing I did not see mentioned is that they triage patients as they come in - so if you have a potentially serious condition your wait will likely be fairly short - i.e. potential concussion as was mentioned when her son slipped on the ice. I know this is true as I have asthma and the few times I ended up in Emerg I was taken in very quickly. An asthma attack is considered right up there with a heart attack as it can turn bad very quickly. Generally I agree with this principle as I personally believe there are alot of people who go to Emerg, and Walk In Clinics for that matter, at the drop of a hat and if they have to wait because they have a rash or fever or other non-emergency situation then so be it. But....this is coming from the same person who thinks having to pay $5 or so every time to go to the Hospital or Walk In to try and discourage this behaviour is also a good idea (flame suit on )