So been thinking about this for years. Started looking at Canada, but for various reasons it stopped. Ive got 3 kids aged 5, 3 and 1. Wife is a qualified paediatric nurse. I am a building surveyor/h&s consultant.

The UK is terrible and i didn’t want to raise my children in a country like this.
So for anyone who has done this a few questions,
Will I/we find work? How easy is it to go? Is age a factor?

They won’t let you in if you can’t spell it.

How old are you and your wife? Age is definitely a factor and from my very hazy memory anything over 30 is nigh on impossible without advance sponsorship. Others with much better knowledge will be along soon I’m sure to give you a better answer.

How old are you and your wife?

Without really knowing much about your specifics, I’d say it’s doable but would require a bit of effort. Assuming you’re over 30, you’d need a working visa/ temporary work permit (which would be sponsored by an employer for one of you) or to apply for permanent residency (which can take some time). If you’re under 30, there is still I believe a working holiday visa, which can then provide a stepping stone to make the rest of the process a bit easier.

The biggest challenge is likely to be qualifications and recognition of them. I have an expat medical friend who avoided having to retake all his medical exams by taking a role with a large teaching element to it (as I understand it); I also have a couple of Irish friends in the architecture/ building space who I *think* had to do some work to refresh their qualifications to Canadian standards.

Often in Canada the best bet is to find a firm that’s either international or has a bunch of expat employees – they’re much less parochial than average and understand why they’d want someone from outside the Canuck bubble. Trying to convince domestic Canadian firms that they should sponsor a foreigner is tough.

All that said, the quality of life is good; Canadians are a bit workshy by British standards, so arguably have the right attitude to work/ life balance. Summers are amazing; winters are long but ‘proper’ winter with snow and skiing. And with a British accent you’ll always be (regarded as) the smartest person in the office. What’s not to love?! 😀

Work in public transport and know a few people who’ve gone to Toronto who love it – significantly better quality of life. Your kids are a good age to go – decision gets more difficult once they have a few years at school.

Definitely worthy of further investigation I’d say!!!

Nicko+1 – There’s a few on here who have emigrated.  I will say though that everywhere has it’s frustrations and so moving to “escape” can lead to same rubbish different location.  The qualifications is very true.  sweamrs is an accountant (CA) while I’m a geologist and we both had to take additional tests locally for “equivalency” confirmation.  In some cases it was almost an English language test but some of the others it was proper learning that I wouldn’t want to add on top of job and children.

The whole process can take a long time.. I went visa – permanent resident – citizen and it was almost 9 years from when I first landed to having a Canadian passport.

http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp

I good friend went 3 years ago at 56 on a company transfer to Vancouver. He loves it, skiing in the winter, biking/hiking in the summer. It can be done but only really at +30yrs but only really with company sponsorship.

Thanks for replies – yea spelling it right would be a good start!

Im 34 and partner 36. Both have bsc hons. I’ll look over the link sweaman.

We are eligible for express entry not sure what that means though

Yeah wife & I looked into it at 41 with slightly older kids bit harder for us, but I have contacts out there for work, both of us bsc, I’m a biologist, wife is geologist, but we have a lot of equity in our house, which they weighted in our favour.

The UK really does seem to be on a downward spiral & I worry for my kids futures tbh.

Ill parents have put it all on hold at the moment tho.

Have a Canadian friend who has done all her physiotherapist training in Australia. Has now returned to Canada and is having to redo all her exams to be recognised in Canada. Could be similar for you. She snowboards, surfs, drives a big truck and has waist length hair, she’s hot.
No help just thinking while I wait for the floorer.
Good luck!

I’ve done it. Construction QS

Email in profile

Thabks plumber, sent you a pm.

Did anyone use an immigration consultant?

I did the CRS thing you sent Sweaman we got 447 our of a maximum 1200, which seems low to me

Did anyone use an immigration consultant?

No and I’m not sure I’d recommend it. I’ve not heard of anyone using one and it providing more help than hassle.
But then I was lucky as the wife was offered an internal transfer (so work permit sorted out for her by her company), and I work in a skilled are that has no formal qualifications beyond a degree, so was able to get myself sponsored by an employer.

As above, feel free to ping me if you want more info.

The UK is a fantastic place to live. I can’t imagine new wanting to live anywhere else. Ok the weather is a bit shite, but having spent a lot of time in and around Toronto growing up, I could never leave the UK to live there. And Ive had several opportunities to do so.

Interesting loddrik, what makes you say that?

I seem to think that scores not too bad

https://www.cicnews.com/2018/12/canada-breaks-express-entry-invitation-record-and-drops-minimum-score-to-lowest-of-2018-1211628.html

I’m not around until Monday but feel free to drop me a pm although can’t help with some of the mechanics.

We did use an immigration lawyer to go from visa to PR. I can find his name for you next week.  There are plenty of dubious characters in that field though.

The two month summer they have is great. Outside of that it’s just too cold for me. Yes our weather is crap, but at least it’s relatively mild.

Toronto is a good city but it’s now pretty expensive. I’m not sure there are more employment opportunities there compared to here.

As soon as you leave the cities over there the small towns really do feel like hicksville. All blue collar drinking, country music, pick up trucks and casual racism. I can speak first hand on this as my dad moved from Toronto to Lyndsay Ontario (only 50 miles north). In the UK towns still feel like they’re in the same country as the cities. People aren’t much different.

The Canadian towns outside cities just seem lifeless and full of teen parents who don’t have the education or ambition to leave.

Over here we can be in any one of a dozen countries within a couple of hours, try that in Canada.

Plus you really miss the irony, sarcasm and self deprecation that we all indulge in.

It’s why the rest of the world doesn’t really get Alan Partridge.

Check your industry average annual leave entitlement. Last time I looked it was about 9 days. 😳

Scary biscuits!

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-paid-vacation-time-is-different-around-the-world-2018-7

They don’t do cheese very well, if that ever becomes the deciding factor 😄

You do know the outfalls of the Toronto sewage works and the the nuclear power station are only about a mile from the abstraction point for the water supply?

Raccoons! Skunks and bears, but mainly racoons 🙁

Haha! These are good responses! We would aim to be in BC. We have visited there a few times and have friends on vancouver island.

The route that seems to have the fewest unknowns is getting a work visa. The problem with that is gotta get a job from here! And the employer needs to be suitably motivated to employ me (or the misses who is a nurse)

The PR route as an initial application seems to have many more unknowns. The issue i have is applying to live in a country and stating your province preference whilst having no idea if we can get employment…

By employment i mean find a suitable job, i know we will be eligible to get a job

“Everyone” (okay not everyone but a significant majority) wants to live in BC so it is both expensive and more competitive. (Although the Island might be an exception)

Getting a job from the UK without being an internal transfer will be hard. The Canadian firm will also need to prove no one in Canada can do the job (labour market opinion or LMO) so they’re going to have to be very motivated to jump through the extra hoops.

moving countries is hard work. you got to stick to it, and be fairly forthright.

“Everyone” (okay not everyone but a significant majority) wants to live in BC so it is both expensive and more competitive. (Although the Island might be an exception)

Because it’s as close to the UK climate as you can get and there are ex-pats everywhere you turn.

I’m told the island has the hottest real estate market in the country right now because Vancouver instituted measures to curb foreign investors speculating in the market so the demand has just shifted.

It’s strange… having worked around the world I can tell you 96.5% of people would give their eye teeth to be able to live in the UK. They look at all we have with envy. And as for Scottish Independence most are like WTF are you doing. But of course you won’t realise this for yourself until you move.

“It’s why the rest of the world doesn’t really get Alan Partridge.”

Another way to look at it, is why doesn’t the rest of the world ‘need’ a coping mechanism like Alan Partridge.

Gallows humour is something I hope to not every laugh at.

The UK is good at marketing itself though. Regularly bottom of the table at things like renewable energy targets, NHS cancer detection, Bike use…. yet somehow we spin it.

You will have to jump through hoops and come up against barriers that will need to be broken down, if you want it enough you will get past them, its not utopia so if there’s are problems you might bring with you have a think as they will get worse with no support network

Positives are great standard of living, great weather for 9 months{BC}, crime rate compared to the UK, no obvious asbo type behaviour and they don’t have spelling Police so you will fit in well

Negatives are Winter is absolutely shite after the 1st week, holiday entitlement is low{2 weeks to start}, and travelling is expensive even within Canada so you won’t travel much

Negatives are Winter is absolutely shite after the 1st week, holiday entitlement is low{2 weeks to start}, and travelling is expensive even within Canada so you won’t travel much

Depends where you move to..south west BC/south Vancouver Island winters are quite mild if you are near to the coast. The reverse is also true in the some areas are unbearably hot or humid in the height of summer.
Winter is also good if you like snow sports 😉

I took a huge hit on annual leave when I moved here 12 years ago but justified it to myself with the logic that if I wanted to ride Whistler, I’d take at least two weeks holiday from UK whereas now it’s only 1.5hrs drive away so can go for the day whenever I want 🙂
This doesn’t apply if you need extensive time off to fly back to UK for family reasons (I don’t…).
If you are a valued employee, you can often negotiate a better starting vacation allowance (an unpaid time off seems a lot more common over here as well).

They do have quite a few Bank Holidays though so in that respect, it’s many times better than the USA.

Deserter is definitely correct about travel costs though…for instance, a lot of the time it’s more expensive to fly Vancouver to Toronto than Vancouver to UK and there’s no equivalent of Ryanair or easyJet

I took a huge hit on annual leave when I moved here 12 years ago but justified it to myself with the logic that if I wanted to ride Whistler, I’d take at least two weeks holiday from UK whereas now it’s only 1.5hrs drive away so can go for the day whenever I want

Plus Canadians are very French in their approach to summer. As in leaving at 2pm on Friday “to get to the cottage” and telling you that “oh, next week I’ll be working from the cottage (which doesn’t happen to have phone signal or internet)”. It’s kinda taken as read, and makes it quite surprising how far a holiday allowance goes…

I moved to Nova Scotia (employer-sponsored) 15 months ago.

100% the best thing we’ve ever done. No regrets, close to the UK for visitors to get here cheaply on a direct flight, and a home big enough that you can accommodate three families.

Winters haven’t been too bad, but I’m bloody glad it’s started to thaw out this weekend