I thought I would share with you our experiences of moving and living in Manitoba Canada. We actually live in Steinbach, a small city (10,000 people) some 60K west of Winnipeg, this is at the very centre of Canada. We as a family, my wife and three children aged 15, 10, 8. I felt that life was passing us by and we thought that the children would have a better future by moving away from the “Yob culture” that seems to be standard across the UK.

The whole process did not take all that long as I had a job offer before moving and we obtained work and study permits prior to landing, I would strongly advise you to get work offer before coming over, especially so if you have children.

I came over some 6 weeks before the family to find a house to rent, this was done by classified ads in the paper, rental was fairly straight forward but it did take 8 weeks to find a place which suited us. The wife sorted out all the school and health issues while I started my new job. We could not find a place to buy, we then purchases a building plot and built a house on it, this process went quite well with me acting as the main contractor and getting sub trades to do the work, be warned if you are not a hands on person I would advise you to settle for the best deal you can get and purchase a house you can move into, these Canadian builder will “rob you” if you are not careful, our whole house from buying the plot to moving in took us some 6 months. You can buy a lot more house here for you money than in the UK. One word of caution is that you need to live in, or close to a major city as the rural communities have very spars services, hence the property prices are much lower in those areas.

We have all settled in well, the children love their schools, the education system if much better than in the UK, the children are looked after well within the community, and they play sport in the schools and are involved in fund raising for various organizations in the area. I do not think that the health system is as good as the UK, waiting lists are longer and it is not as professional as the UK.

When you first move, beware of car salesmen, they have no sense of fairplay, they will take you for what then can get, do not be afraid to walk away and try the next man, buyer beware, We purchases our first vehicle at a motor auction which gives you the same protection as a car dealership, which is none ant a far lower price.
Beware of realtors, find a good one as they can be helpful, but beware. Our experience of all the trades’ people we have dealt with is that they will take all your money if you let them.

In Manitoba the weather can go for plus 40 to -40 in a matter of weeks, winter is cold but its dry with snow on the ground, our youngest son prefers the winter to summer, as long as the wind is not blowing -30 to-40 is OK,we can then go out on our snow mobile. Summer is hot and dry, but again if we have breeze it’s not too bad, all in all the weather here is much better than the UK, at least we do not get fog and rain, rain and more rain.

We feel we pay more tax here, there is tax on everything and it’s shown as a tax figure, it’s like being held up by a highway man every time you buy something!

All in all we are happier here, less stress work wise, less crime, drugs, no yob culture, are we financially better off?, no I do not think so, but we are much better of in quality of life, as I write this today, we have snow on the ground -15 with the sun streaming through our sun room windows and its warm in the house, central heating is OFF.

When we were considering our move we said if we don’t like it we could  always go back, but now , if we did I don’t think the eldest son would come with us (19 years old now) our two youngest would be back here when they would be old enough to live on their own.

Our children are much better off here, happier, safer and better educated.

My advice to you if you are thinking of moving, plan it right and go for it, you only live once.