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Generally Canadians try to do a bit more than survive. There are different approaches to being in Canada in winter.Extremely Cold?One should remember that most Canadians live within about four hundred kilometres of the American border. Very few live within the most continuously cold part of the country, which is sometimes referred to as the High Arctic.Having said that, winter conditions within that southern, relatively populated parts of Canada, aren't uniform. The biggest population concentration in Canada is in and around the Greater Toronto Area. A bit less than a fifth of Canada's total population lives there. Toronto can have dismal, penetratingly damp, windy, humid, lengthy winters, but they are not especially worse than in some cities in the Northeastern United States. It is about the same for the southern part of Atlantic Canada. It can snow a great deal, it is damp, but not much, if any, colder than New England. The Greater Vancouver Area has about 2,500,000 people out of Canada's overall total of somewhat more than 37,000,000. Then there is Vancouver Island, which has something in the order of 500,000 people, and some small communities on the coast of British Columbia's mainland. So, you have a substantial part of the Canadian population that does not experience extreme cold, depending on how you define what that is.Then, there is the rest. Montreal is Canada's second largest metropolitan area and Ottawa-Gatineau I think still the fifth, although it is only slightly larger than Calgary or Edmonton. Nighttime winter temperature can descend to -30 C., with again, penetrating humidity.But, after that you get into that part of southern Canada that has very severe, extremely cold winters. It is important to remember that the Prairie Provinces are farther north than much of Ontario or most of Atlantic Canada. Their southern limit is the 49 th parallel. By contrast, Toronto is below the 44 th.It makes a big difference. Then there is Northern and Northwestern Ontario, some small cities, more northerly and in winter, extremely cold.Why So Cold, Why So Barren?I have seen some Questions in Quora, puzzling over why Canada isn't populated the way northern Russia and Scandinavia are. The geography is not the same. Those countries enjoy at least a small remnant of Gulf Stream warming. Europe, all the way to the Ural Mountains, is mostly a rolling plain, with some mountain outcrops. The mild air gets through, a little bit.By contrast, Canada has a solid mountain barrier right up against the West Coast, British Columbia's mountains diving straight into the Pacific. Further inland, there are additional mountain ranges, which are a very effective screen against oceanic warming. Occasionally, westerly winds push air over the top of the highest mountains. The moisture drops out of the air as rain and snow as it rises up. Then, if the air reaches the top of the most easterly range of the Rocky Mountains, it falls down onto the southern Prairies, warming and drying as it descends and gets compressed. These are called “Chinook Winds”. They don't last. There is mildness for a few days, and then a plunge back into the deep freeze.That British Columbian barrier makes much of the southern interior of Canada far colder then it would otherwise be. Winnipeg is the coldest major city in Canada, and, in terms of latitude, it is a little to the south of London, England.Then, there were the glaciers. During the last ice age, most of Canada was heavily glaciated. The glaciers flowed south and scraped the topsoil off, right down to bedrock. This didn't happen in Russia, which didn't have the same glaciation, and Scandinavia didn't lose all its topsoil. This scraped clean region is sometimes called the Canadian Shield. Most of it has a brief summer, but, with no topsoil, you can't farm anything and you can't have pastures for farm animals to graze on.Winter temperatures on the Canadian Shield can get very cold, down to -50 C. or even worse. But, it is mostly indigenous Canadians who have found a way to survive there on a multigenerational basis, and the population is not large.And then, the mostly northerly part of Canada is the Arctic Archipelago, a large number of islands in what used to be a frozen sea. Climate change seems to indicate that, at least in the summer, the sea may be frozen no more. However, again, no topsoil and the summers will still be cold, although maybe not as quite as cold as before. This is intense cold that lasts most of the year, but very few Canadians experience it.The Canada Of Frigid, Winter CitiesOttawa and Montreal themselves are not much more than two hundred kilometres below the northern limit of agriculture.Then, there are the Prairies, the western provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. They used to be seen as profoundly rural. Rural people had their own strategies for coping with, or even enjoying, the extremely cold winters. But the Prairies are much more urbanized than they used to be. Winnipeg, my hometown, holds about 800,000 of Manitoba's approximately 1,200,000 people. Together, the Calgary and Edmonton metropolitan areas are equally dominant in Alberta. Any Prairie City can get below -40 C. at night, from December through February. Nowadays, the majority of Canadians face the extreme cold in an urban environment.The BasicsBe born in a place, and you may not think much about how it is. When I was a child, I did not think of Winnipeg as one of the coldest places in North America, the New World equivalent of Novosibirsk. It was just, my home, Winnipeg. When you don't see yourself principally as an inhabitant of an extremely cold place, it is not that cold.The human body can take a lot of cold, any reasonably healthy human. There are approximately 85,000 people of Filipino origin in Winnipeg. Many of them smile in January.Places like Winnipeg, Saskatoon and Edmonton, teach one a lesson about human life. Some outsider's impression of life in a frozen hell can be resolved by a few layers of clothing. A parka, long underwear, sweaters, boots, one of our iconic toques, and it is not hell. It is just life.Then there are the other improvers. The Prairie cities are very car oriented. However, there are wonderful things, trickle chargers and blankets for the battery, the plug in heater for the engine block. And then there is the ultimate, especially since so many urban Prairie-ites live in apartment blocks nowadays, the incredible, underground, heated garage.Most countries have some sort of nightmare in their natural environment. There is the hurricane, the typhoon, the tornado, the earthquake, torrential rains, floods and landslides, and also, droughts.Even a very cold night, or day, is nothing compared to those. Blizzards will obstruct your daily activities for a few days, but they won't knock your city down. The municipal plowing crews do their work, the private contractor shovels out the parking lot at your favourite donut and muffin shop. You line you car up in the drive through, and stretch out your gloved hand with cash, then, receive strong coffee, a bag of unhealthy but delicious baked goods, and your change.Looking at it one way, Canada is a rather blessed country in terms of natural disasters. Most of the country is a somewhat flattish plain, covered with grass, farms, coniferous trees and tundra. Much of the country is seismically dead. Hurricanes only occasionally reach a few cities in Atlantic Canada. We don't have California's furnace like winds, to fuel intense forest fires on the doorstep of huge metropolitan cities.Personal PlanningThere are different winter strategies that Canadians employ. The main one is get on with it. Urban Canada has two major seasons, above freezing or not. Canadians have different expectations of their cities, with snow or when not with snow. Neither is exceptional.Then, there are the winter likers, the skiers, the hikers, the snow boarders, and the lovers of outdoor hockey. Winter Canada is one place, where putting on a Balaclava mask means that you are really enjoying life, not that you wish to rob a bank.And then there are us hibernators. I have lived in tropical and subtropical countries. Canadians don't need the street. It is not a principle venue of life. Rather, there is your cozy home, with central heating, cable TV and searching for love in the social media.But, a hibernator can experience a certain type of winter joy. I remember being a kid in my Mom and Dad's home. Another -40 Winnipeg night. Very cold air does amazing things. It is very still. Lying in bed, I could hear airplanes winding up at the airport, maybe eight kilometres away, as if I was standing at the terminal. The same for freight trains, passing by on tracks nowhere near us. The Winnipeg ground would freeze two metres deep. That frozen ground transmits vibration so well that the trains would make my bedroom shake. To me it was the special nighttime joy of Winnipeg, inside and warm, but the magnificence of extreme cold all around you.And, then there are nowadays what I might call the Dominican Republicators. Many, many Canadians have identified their winter get away tropical places, sometimes a little distant from those places dominated by our good neighbours to the south. A frugal life as a middle class Canadian can turn you into a “snowbird”, enough pension and investment income to enjoy select, warm winter places, from December to March.An Immigrant Need Not FearWhere the winters are really severe, and urban Canada is, Canadians handle it. There is much good in extreme cold. It is humbling, but, you learn that a warm garment can keep you alive. You learn about your own endurance. You learn how to build your own little world. Or, go outside, and share your winters with others.You don't think about life in Antarctica. You are thinking of the snow plows, shovelling away the latest blizzard, and the drive though take out. You think about the excuse to stay indoors and watch as many movies as you like. It is sort of like Canada drew lots with the other countries, in terms of selecting its natural disasters, and got off really easy.Martin Levine

Short Answer: Yes.If you are referring to a single person adopting a child: It is more difficult financially, it is more difficult logistically (making all the arrangements and going through the process as a single person), it takes more of a single parent's energy and overall resources to raise the child. But what you are probably referring to, behind all of those other reasons, is that many countries/adoption programs do not consider single parent adoptions (or consider them only for a subset of available orphans).If you are referring to two unmarried people adopting a child: It varies, but I'd still say yes, it is more difficult. Many countries will not consider your application, and many young women making a tough choice about the future of their unborn child will assume a married couple is a safer bet.With some types of adoption, it is all about meeting certain requirements. Do you meet them, and do the home study and the other legwork? Then you get on a list, and after a while you become a parent. South Korea, for example, was a pretty clockwork system for our adoption of our son.With other types of adoption, you create a profile and a pregnant woman or her family selects YOU, in which case it isn't about more or less difficult, it is about one individual deciding that what you represent is the right choice for their unborn child. Maybe a young woman was raised alone by her mother and wants the same experience for her child, maybe she prefers a gay couple, or an unmarried couple, or a devout Catholic couple... you don't need the odds to be good, you don't need percentages, you need one birth mother to choose you.That being said, to answer your "more difficult?" question, we have to speculate what most young women would pick first for their unborn child (in an adoption situation where a choice is made, which is not always the case). The odds are not in favor for a single parent, in my opinion, though an unmarried yet committed couple might have just as good a shot for a U.S., Canada, or European domestic adoption.But when you wish to become a parent, your goal isn't to have good odds or good numbers. Your goal is to have a child and be a parent. You need A child, not good numbers from a variety of perspectives.If you are open to a child with special needs, a handicap, special medical needs (which may evaporate within a few years!), an older foster child, a child of any race or background, then in some cases the limitations I list above evaporate. (This may go without saying, but as a childless person seeking to adopt, it is important to remember that every child is a human being who deserves love and deserves loving parenting. Every one of them can have a happy, wonderful life.)

She followed and admired Magdalen Berns a .. ‘very opinionated’ TERF. Just to be clear the acronym was coined by other feminists in 2008 for this minority radical group, most feminists are inclusive of transgender women because they are women. Rowling at first said she followed Berns ‘by mistake’ when taking a screenshot but in her statement said she followed Berns so that she could contact her - why?Berns was responsible for tweets like this .. definitely not family or young person friendly for her 14.5 million followers …I do not blackface … a bit of moisturiser, primer, foundation and perhaps a dab of powder but nothing darker than vanilla.I do not get a sexual kick out of being transgender, it is fucking awful. For over 50 years I’ve suffered, I now feel calmer, content since I started my transition.. it just feels right.Perversions? I’ve been asexual for ten years, I wish I was engaged in any kind of sex, perverted (define!) or otherwise but I’m just not interested.How exactly do I fetishise the oppression of women?Rowling’s new book is about a male serial killer who dresses as a woman to get closer to one of his victims, he is not a crossdresser or transgender, whether Rowling has done this to imply that women are not safe with crossdressers or transgender women (or women in hijabs) is open to speculation, it’s certainly a recurrent theme of her safe places for women views. The nom de plume she chose was a man’s name, Robert Galbraith, for a feminist she seems awfully reluctant to use a female nom de plume; she claims Robert Kennedy was her hero and she wanted to be called Ella Galbraith as a child. How unfortunate that Robert Galbraith was a psychiatrist who loved to poke electrodes into people’s brains (financed by the CIA?) and one of his claimed successes was for ‘gay conversion therapy’. His single ‘success‘ was a gay man who had electrodes implanted, forced to masturbate to heterosexual pornography then made to have sex with a prostitute. Innocent mistake? Rowling seems to make a lot of ‘mistakes’ using social media and the internet. If you were a humongously successful author and were looking for a nom de plume would you run the name past your legal team just in case the name belonged to another author or someone controversial? Do you think that your publisher would insist on that to avoid being sued? Would you at least do a Google search? If that search had brought up …. Robert Galbraith would you think 🤔 perhaps not.This is a screenshot of Rowling’s Twitter page today .. not transphobic? but retweeted this to her 14.5 million followers …Without wanting to head off in another direction, Rowling retweeted this because she searched for it .. it would have helped if she actually researched what the players and clubs thought … Rugby players and officials oppose proposed trans athlete ban In the UK transgender women have been playing women’s rugby since 2003, I’ve searched but can’t find any incidents of serious injury. A friend assures me that the team she plays for would ‘crush me’ - I’m 1.7 m and 72kg.Rowling is a committed feminist who never writes under a female nom de plume, proclaims liberal inclusive ideals yet picks as a nom de plume a man who conducted unethical experiments on ‘gay conversion’, liked a Tweet of a woman wearing a hoodie which reads: “Straight white male” on the front, with “LGB Drop The T” on the back, deleted a tweet in which she said her love for Steven King had reached “new heights” and unfollowed him after King tweeted that “trans women are women,” liked a number of tweets opposing a ban on conversion therapy in Canada, followed a TERF and her obscenity filled rants and promotes transphobic commentary.Ironically the Robert Kennedy (her hero) Foundation who had given her a Human Rights award criticised her transphobic tweets, Rowling returned the award taking issue with Kerry Kennedy’s reference to “…the disproportionate violence, discrimination, harassment, exclusion, suicide, suicide attempts, homelessness, and mental and bodily harm suffered by the transgender community, particularly Black trans women and trans youth.“