Tell us a little about yourself and family

I’m 36 years old and moved to Canada with my (Canadian) wife and two children (a girl aged 4 and boy 18 months) in September 2005. I had lived in the UK all of my life and my wife had been there 13 years since we married.

What were your reasons for moving to Canada?

There were lots of reasons for leaving the UK, naturally this is all my opinion/perspective and I know there are probably similar stories/gripes about Canada:

Cost of living/property: Every month the cost of living in the UK was becoming more difficult to cope with. I was fortunate enough to benefit from the latest property boom in the UK, buying a house on the south coast before it became commuter heaven. As the value of the property soared the government started talking about “rebanding” properties which had increased in value so that owners paid more council tax. What’s that all about? Does the fact that my house doubled in value make my family and I more of a burden on local government? Then there was a suggestion that Capital Gains Tax should be paid on primary residences in the event of a sale – it seemed that if an individual improved their situation, even through good fortune, the government wanted as big a slice of it as possible. This strikes me as “attempted robbery”.

In order to maintain a reasonable life style (by this I mean – eating good, fresh food, paying for good nursery childcare and extra activities for the children such as swimming lessons, gym clubs etc NOT eating out, partying etc), both my wife and I had to work fulltime.

Whilst the “cost of living” argument is a little tenuous and difficult to judge, there is no arguing that house prices are much cheaper here, we have just bought a 3,000 sq ft, 4-bedroom detached house on nearly 2½ acres 20 minutes from Halifax for less that a studio flat now costs in our old home town of Hove. This will have a big impact on our lifestyle as we will be mortgage free with some additional investment capital.

The last cost of living concern was how will my children be able to cope with the cost of living in the UK as they grow up.

Overcrowding: By UK standards I owned a good sized family home in a good area however from my decking at home in the UK I could see 38 other dwellings at the back of my house and more than that from front. I felt I was “suffocating” for want of a better word, there was no space. I’ll have neighbours in my new house, but none so close.

Industry: I feel the UK is on the road to economic disaster, nearly all manufacturing industry has closed down leaving England as a service oriented country, which is bad news as I always found “customer service” there dreadful. Even with the service industry, call centres are moving out to the sub-continent and eastern Europe where labour is cheaper.

Societal Culture: The yob/drinking culture worried us, maybe living in Brighton might have put us at the forefront of this, but the state of the city every Saturday and Sunday morning was terrible, lots of litter and evidence of vandalism.

There seemed to be a increase in what I would describe as “sick” crime in the UK. I know crime is everywhere, but more recently headlines like “12 year-old girls attempts to murder 5 year-old boy” and “85 year-old woman killed for fish supper” were on the increase. I find this oddly different from robbery and street crime, this sort of stuff takes a particular kind of evil.

How long did the emigration process take?

I woke up on New Year’s Day 2004 and realized I did not want to live in England anymore, having a Canadian wife made the process of leaving easy for us. I procrastinated for 10 months in order to ensure that I was making the right decision and was not simply suffering from New Year blues. I applied for spousal class emigration in November 2004, my application was returned in January as I had not taken a medical (followed the family class instructions rather than spousal – oops). I resubmitted immediately and received my visa at the end of May 2005.

Which province do you live in?

Nova Scotia

What differences have you noticed between Canada and the UK?

I can’t quite put my finger on some on of the differences, but a couple of early experiences in Canada illustrate a better attitude here:

1. My first Halifax Mooseheads hockey game – no obscene language/singing. The national anthem was played and observed with pride. There was plenty of alcohol on sale, you could take “into the view of the pitch” unlike soccer in the UK and yet no one was drunk…
2. My first trip to the local cinema – in the UK I remember seeing a troop of cleaners entering the auditorium with bin liners and brushes at the end of every performance to prepare for the next showing. Here at the end of the film, everyone (or the overwhelming majority) pick up there cups, cartons and other trash and take them to the segregated recycling bins.

What do you like best about Canada?

Open spaces

What do you miss from the UK?

Encona West Indian Hot Pepper Sauce and Red Kidney beans in Chili Sauce, but I haven’t looked that hard for them yet! Seriously nothing apart from my parents.

If you or your spouse work how easy was it to find employment?

As yet, we haven’t tried, preferring to settle our children and enjoy ourselves first, we are lucky to be a position where we are taking a year off. That said, my wife has been approached recently about working in her field (IT)

I was a teacher in UK and am in the process of converting my qualification and hope to start supply work soon.

How easy was it to enroll your children in a new school?

My daughter starts school in September, we turned up at her new school unannounced that we wanted to have a look around and said we’d be living in the area from January. There seemed to be no issues at all, they took our address and said that they would write to us!

How different is the education system from the UK?

Don’t know for sure. But I think it is a little behind the UK, not in content, but in time of delivery, Ellie will be 5½ when she starts school and I think this is good – what’s the hurry!

Have your children settled?

Yes – now. Ellie, strangely at the age of 4, suffered more than we did. Having attended nursery since the age of one she is socially advanced for her age and has missed her friends a lot.

Has your quality of life improved, if so how?

Not fair to comment really until we have jobs and a normal life. However (!) presently we spend the majority of our time together as a family so of course thing are better here!

How does the cost of living compare?

All I know so far is…

• I find food is marginally cheaper here.
• Property is cheaper beyond belief.
• Vehicles are cheaper.
• Motor Insurance is much more expensive.

I can’t compare this fully yet as we don’t work, or pay tax, so don’t know what our income will be compared to the UK.

Do you have any long term plans?

To get jobs which will allow us a really good work-life balance and let us spend plenty of time together as a family…

In retrospect is there anything you would change?

We chose Nova Scotia without visiting, our move was based on internet research and instinct, it’s worked out very well for us, but having not been here before we could not select an area to live and arranged accommodation after arriving. It would have been much less stressful to have a flat or house rented or purchased before we arrived.

Are there any final thoughts you would like to share?

You can never plan enough for emigration. Make sure you have all the correct forms with you when you land it will make things very easy!