

Yeah Canadian prepaid plans all seem to have the scammy expiring bullshit built in.
I use my phone basically just for maps and being reachable in an emergency. Best one in Canada I’ve found that actually works is $99 a year or $119 if I want data (which I do need). A couple of the “budget” options have the exact same plan, but I went with Freedom to not have to deal with Rogers bs. These have unlimited calls and texts, data is limited to 15GB / year, but it’s just goes to slow speed after 15GB at no extra costs. Very pricey for what I need it for still.
I used to have shitty prepaid plan sold by petrocan where the cheapest option was $25 for 3 months, but with very limited amount of data and the whole thing just didn’t work half the time (no calls, texts or data).
Comparing these to Nordics is pretty rough. We go to Finland every couple years and we get a package with SIM card and enough data and calls for the 2 to 3 weeks we stay there with 15 euros. You just go to convenience store to pick it up, no signing anything needed. Just need to bring a phone that’s not SIM locked.
Terry Pratchett Discworld books? From memory the ones about witches at least had a good bit of it.