Anybody emigrated to Canada?

I’m seriously considering this. How was it? Any advice? There are so many unknowns I imagine. I’d like to hear your experiences, what was unexpected, difficult etc.

Family is the biggest magnet for me to stay in the Uk though

Jeremy Corbyn is the biggest push factor…

I emigrated from Canada if that helps. 😉

Just remembered: take a look at this thread.

Jeremy Corbyn is the biggest push factor…

Fair enough, he is such a pushy guy! 🙂

If you’re looking for somewhere right wing then Calgary is your place, it’s very conservative there and (until recently) it was doing very well financially as it was cashing in on the petro-dollars from the Albertan tar sands. I’m sure it’ll be a boom town again as soon as the price of oil goes back up again.

Vancouver is a bit like a Canadian Portlandia. If JC is your reason to leave the UK you prob won’t like it there.

Those are the two places I know most about. Everyone says that the middle two provinces are flat and boring and that Montreal has amazing culture but can be a little, well, French. Quebec as a province isn’t currently doing as well financially as it has in the past either.

Be warned though, there’s a federal election coming up and there’s a good chance that the NDP (left wing party) might well get in. Not ideal for you perhaps! 🙂

Ok the JC reference was a joke.

Ah, apologies, I missed that!

From my five day reccy trip I’m champing at the bit for my job offer

People friendly
Cost of living good (cheap compared to South coast)
it’s different
It’s not like the US

TV was crap
It’s a bit like the US

Really good if you like ice hockey.
Very clean.
MASSIVE.
Cold in winter.
Not cold in summer.
Most Albertans & BC folk are pro British & are dead friendly.
Most Albertans do not like the French much.

(I only went to Alberta)

I can confirm that most people around Toronto and Kawartha Lakes also hate French Canadians

Mate of mine married a canadian and now lives over there, near Vancouver. Pro’s of that area are that it’s not as cold as the rest of Canada, and of course it’s BC. Cons are that he doesn’t ride a bike.

And they don’t like the french much either.

My uncle went over there in the sixties and never came back. He lives in Vancouver which I think is a cool city, but they have the same problem that London has with massive amounts of foreign money flooding into real estate and making it unaffordable for anyone on local incomes. Our current central bank governor used to be theirs and he stoked a housing boom there too apparently…
With the drop in commodities their economy’s not looking too hot right now but I believe they were one of the few rich countries not to have a bust in 2008, in part because the central bank were much tougher on the banks and what they got up to…

Anglo Canadians who don’t like French Canadians are just a bunch of jealous, pathetic monoglots who hate what they don’t understand. 😡

Walleater off a here did it…..he’ll be on here soon saying how sh@t it is.

Do it it’s better than England 🙂

My PhD supervisor did it half way through my work (c**k). Was a year of ice storms and ultra low temps. He was back within six months. I like to think my ire influenced the weather.

I have nothing more to add.

My PhD supervisor did it half way through my work (c**k). Was a year of ice storms and ultra low temps. He was back within six months. I like to think my ire influenced the weather.

I have nothing more to add.

Can you do it some more please? El Nino is promising a warm wet winter at the moment which sucks for those of us in ski towns 🙁

My sister did it in 1982. Started in Edmonton, moved out to rural Alberta, now lives in Calgary. She came back briefly in the 90s but was back in Canada inside a year – make of that what you will…

Mrs_d & I visited in 2006, loved it. Didn’t see much of Calgary, but Canmore & Vancouver were very nice; Banff too, but if you’re staying inside the Banff National Park, you’ll need a car permit. I assume residents need them too.
The drive from Lake Louise to Calgary is amazing, but much better for the passenger. Kamloops gets seriously warm in summer – 38degC when we were there early August. Snow chains mandatory Oct-Apr in the mountains iirc

Anglo Canadians who don’t like French Canadians are just a bunch of jealous, pathetic monoglots who hate what they don’t understand.

I think you’ll find its more to do with quebec and its residents getting, what is perceived to be, more political influence and financial investment relative to their percentage of the population. The perception is also that the French Canadians don’t want to be part of the rest of Canada.

As for Canada being better than the UK. Utter nonsense. There are many many things I dislike about the UK. But I still think it’s the best place to live in the world.

Edward – immigrated to Canada and now live here in the UK.

Just some random stuff.

Lived in Vancouver for 6 years. Moved there with the company I used to work for. Immigration process was smooth for us as CIC was trialling a new format and the company applied via that. My brother has since moved there and is now a Canadian citizen. Form all the friends and family that have moved the process is straightforward.

Money goes a lot further than here, standard of living is much better (but then I did live in North America for 10 years so I am biased)

Realty in Vancouver is getting to be silly prices these days. Tax is pretty much the same as in the UK. I preferred Toronto to Vancouver… better job prospects in Toronto (again depends on your line of work), winters in T are tough. Vancouver climate is temperate, summer is proper, rest of the year sun and drizzle.

West coast if is laid back, food is great. Commuting in Van is a pain not really designed well but the Canada Line gets you around easy.

Education/Schools are great (we didn’t have kids back then)
Healthcare in Vancouver/BC was good – in addition to BC Chargecard(NHS) one had private insurance via the company including dental.
Buying a house in Vancouver (the process i.e. is a doddle).
Customer service actually exists.
Banking is not a nightmare.

Vancouver is great if you like the outdoors, culture wise I think Toronto surpasses Van.

Nothing beats BC Bud 😀

FWIW, ex GF’s best pal moved to Med Hat 25 years ago, went with her (Brit) husband. Got divorced, met Brad (Canadian) got married, kids, house etc. Comes back to UK every 5 years or so but can’t wait to get back to Alberta.

I’ve got relations in Alberta and BC most came over in the 70s with my great uncle. My other great uncle went over more recently and got his visa and citizenship because he was an artist (wood carving) although he’s retired.They live on the border with the US and pop over every month for cheaper shopping they also have a PO box in the US for cheaper postage from US online stores.

Wonderful place to visit we borrowed a second cousins RV and crossed the Rockies via Banff, beautiful country and the scale is hard to wrap your head around.

Half of my friends in London are Canadian. They all agree the UK is better for single young people (social life, career opportunities) whilst Canada is better for raising a family.
I’ve visited a few times but wouldn’t be able to take the winters.

Did it 10 years ago, lasted 2 years and came back. Toronto area. I had a good job where my seniority in the UK was recognised and they pretty much equalled my UK leave – 4 weeks in the first year, 5 the second (note that most people only got 2 weeks for the first 5 years of working for the company!). Company car, good salary, lived in Oakville which was a nice place to live but ultimately it was boring.
Yes I’d go yacht racing every Wednesday and some weekends during the summer – but Lake Ontario isn’t the sea. Yes I played ice hockey but we had stupid ice time as the kids got priority for the more sociable slots. If you wanted to ride a mountain bike you had to go to a dedicated centre as there wasn’t anything else apart from man-made trails (primarily for walking) round the creek areas or provincial parks. Road biking within Oakville was fine apart from all the traffic lights and all-way stops, get away from town and you risked being flattened by a semi or half-asleep driver with Tim Hortons in 1 hand and cel phone in the other!
Commuting to work was a pain in the ass, at least 40 minutes of heavy traffic either way, 3 hours on a snow day!
Very hot in summer (sometimes 40C) sometimes very cold in winter (we had 6 weeks where the temperature didn’t go above -5C and was down to -20 something at nights).
Found it very difficult to do spontanious things – for instance, going ‘wilderness canoeing’ in Algonquin required filing a route plan so they could check whether there was any vacancies in the only places you where allowed to camp. Camp sites (including provincial park ones) could be booked 3 months in advance so it could be very difficult to find something during the summer at short notice.
Most outdoory type things shut around Labor day and there’s little to do until you get snow and they don’t open again until May. One year the snowmobile trails were only open for 6 weeks so the skiing was pretty poor too.
Ultimately I could see myself ending up as just another immigrant where you were descriminated against job-wise for your lack of ‘Canadian experience’, gone would be the 5 weeks vacation and company car and I’d end up having little time to do anything else other that work. The final confirmation that we’d made the right decision came when one of the Indian technicians came round my house one evening and we had a long chat sitting on the floor (the furniture had all been shipped) about how he felt that he had been deceived into coming to Canada and things were nowhere near as good as he had been lead to believe.
If we’d had kids we’d have stayed as I thought it was a great country to bring kids up in.
Depends what you have here really, the UK has wonderful diversity in a relatively small space and if you tire of that there’s always Europe. Canada is vast – we saw nothing of the West (or the far Eastern provinces) as it was very expensive to travel within the country, no cheap Easyjet or Ryanair flights. We looked at having a long weekend spring break in Whistler – it would have been cheaper flying back to the UK and then taking a week or 10 day Package from there back to Whistler (at the time you could fly UK-Canada for £99)!
I’ve rambled on long enough, think very carefully – we were lucky to be in a position where we had kept our house in the UK and could cover the considerable expense to move back – it was much more expensive to get home. Other people (like the guy from India) felt they had been tricked by Canada’s active immigration programme and were now stuck there.