The internet is a strange thing and you will find just about anything and everything on it. Living on a small Island, you can drive across, East to West in 6 hours top and go from South to North in 30 minutes, with the total population of one neighbourhood at 150K. PEI is mostly very rural with 2 big towns, Charlottetown 36K and Summerside at 15K, so you can imagine that we do not have the sort of development seen in larger cities in Canada.
So on the internet when I read news items at the bottom of the page there will be advertisement disguised as more news or general interests stories. The picture will show you an exciting urban development for seniors or top rated lawyers for affordable rates or a dating site for singles in PEI, alluring pictures with promises of varied sexual encounters literally next door. The pictures, for anyone living in PEI, are dead give away, you know this is a scam, none of what is featured would exist so blatantly.
Take the accommodations for seniors said to be very affordable. First the housing situation on the Island at the moment is at 0 (zero) vacancy. Rents on average for a 2 bedroom is $1650 CDN. which is not much in a large city like Halifax or Moncton in the Maritimes or even Montreal or Toronto, but in PEI for many this is near unaffordable. We have the lowest wages in all of Canada coupled with a high cost of living.
Houses for sale average about $450K and this is a huge increase from 3 years ago when houses were half that price. Laundered money from Asia changed that picture all across Canada including here in PEI and has created a real crisis in housing which our governments are struggling to address.
So photos like these appear in ads and will say that this is Montague a small town of 2000 persons 25 minutes from Charlottetown, such buildings simply do not exist anywhere on the Island. Wonder to who this is appealing and what is the message here.
Here we have advertisement for high powered lawyers in Charlottetown at reasonable rates. No one appearing in these photos practice law in PEI. Just generic ads and in fact these actors are Americans. Again who is the target population? The legal profession in PEI is very close knit and like the rest of this little island most lawyers are related to each other in some fashion.
The dating site for singles in Stratford PEI a suburb of Charlottetown, 9000 population is hilarious. Stratford is a mix of suburban and rural setting only 5 minutes across the river from Charlottetown. None of the people appearing in such ads are from the Island, not difficult to figure out. In fact having an affairs in PEI is quite possible and frequent if one goes by the high divorce rate, but keeping it a secret is the real hard part. The joke is that PEI is a lot like the American soap opera Peyton Place.
ACTUAL PICTURE OF MONTAGUE PEI
ACTUAL PICTURE OF STRATFORD PEI under the wing
What do these strange and misleading advertisements say about the people publishing them. They are obviously misinformed about this Island and its place in the Maritime, but do they care? They are promoting a globalist view of PEI, it is not different it is just like any large metropolitan area. We are not rural as a Province but appear in photo as just like any other place in North America, PEI could be Southern Ontario. Whoever creates those is interested only in selling a concept which is unrecognizable from its reality.
Larry Muffin At Home 
And I wonder about the success rate. It must be working for them or they wouldn’t continue to spend the money… or at least one would think.
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Looking at it this is for people who do not know PEI and would like to come and maybe settle. This is done to entice them with false promises.
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so? there are no houses for rent or sale? damn
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Whenever you write about PEI, I want to return! I think I told you I was in PEI in 1993, and I loved it. I am sure it has changed a lot, but hopefully the people are the same friendly, hospitable people that I remember.
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YOu will have to come and visit
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some people are not serious, doing generic ads like this without checking !!
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these ads come from American companies and are selling products to people who are uninformed.
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Sometimes I get the impression PEI is like the state of Oregon trying to keep its ambience but awful California types want to move in, raise the prices, and generally act bad.
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PEI as it is presented to the tourists who visit or people who are thinking of moving here is largely a myth. So you have to be flexible and accept that it is a very small place with a very small population, probably more people live in your neighbourhood than in all of PEI. It is a rural island with loads of poor people and the 1% of a handful of wealthy families who control everything. But this is true not only of PEI but most of the Maritime Provinces. New Brunswick is not much better and neither is Nova Scotia. But that is a fact of life.
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