I think we are here because we can’t speak! It makes sense that we cannot communicate as smoothly as we want at the beginning, but that’s the point of spending all the time and money on studying abroad, isn’t it?? Expecting a foreigner to be able to speak just like a native speaker and communicating without obstacles is impossible as it takes a while for words to come out naturally and for sentences to be structured grammatically. What is fundamental in communication is to try to understand others in addition to making effort in our speaking "good" English. Maybe your friend is not trying to listen carefully enough, I think...
Yeah, there are various reasons people are staying in Vancouver. Don’t worry anything at all. It is not necessary for people that we have to speak English to live in North America. English is not our primary language. Unless it is in the business, the lack of English is out of their concern. If they don’t want to communicate with them, they can do it easily. So, take is easy.