Last time I was in Canada, I was too young to partake in adult pleasures... but yeah, I hear it's incredibly expensive. Especially for cigarettes.

But I was pleasantly surprised when I visited Costa Rica (damn, 10 years ago now) where beers were less than $1... youth hostels cost like $5/night, city hotel was a whopping $21/night -- and that included hot water!

I was there for like 10 days, and don't think I spent more than $600 for everything. Try that in North America! One night in Manhattan these days costs that much with a room/dinner/drinks, so there ya go.