colinzor

Hi all.

New to the forum found it while searching for information on moving to canada.

Basically im 26 from Northern Ireland, my girlfriend and I are searching for some info as we are possibly considering a move to Canada next year possibly ontario providing we get visas ect.

Ontario seems to be a good choice after doing a little research it has really nice weather (better than here anyway) i see this as a + for personal training and i ride a motorcycle.

Im hoping to find work as a personal trainer, given that Ontario possibly ottawa is a large city and nice weather with a big population, it would have a lot of chain gyms and all that so it sounds like i shouldn't have any issues finding work, could anyone provide a rough hourly rate if they are also in the field or how it works there?

My girlfriend has a degree in law so she may be hoping to find work in employment law or human resources which shouldn't be hard. Generally wanting to get some idea of wages/cost of living and basically what canada is like as a whole.
thanks alot for reading

Aviator

Both apply for IEC, work here for 2 years and enjoy. I would forget wages and cost of living as a factor, decide for yourself during the 2 years. Some folks live well on far lower income that others.

Cost of living should be equated proportional to disposable income, avoid comparing prices and wages between countries, the real cost will change as much as the FX.

colinzor

thanks for the reply, yeah well im really hoping for information on what the fitness industry and personal training is like for myself and how hard would it be to find work in within.

scilly

All I know is the following ...........

We met an English fitness trainer earlier this month who had been looking at emigrating here, but discovered that he would have to start right at the bottom again, the field is full so jobs are hard to find, and salaries low.

After 2 visits here, he has given up on the thought of emigrating, will continue in his well-paid job in the UK (assuming it lasts!!), and will visit Canada frequently. He was very dispirited.


As far as your girlfriend is concerned, she needs to find out whether her degree is transferable to Canada, and whether she would be eligible to work in either of the fields you mention.

i would point out that a law degree is actually a postgraduate degree ............. a student applying to a law faculty has to have a Bachelor's degree in another subject. Bachelor's degrees are usually 4 years, and a law degree takes another 3 years, followed by articling, passing a bar admission course and exam, and then get licensed in the province/territory where you plan to work. Thta license may not apply to any other province.

dbd33

There is, or maybe was, a poster called some combination of four and bells and London who is a fitness instructor in Canada. I couldn't find any of her posts but if you (or perhaps that very helpful moderator who lives in Hamilton) can you could try a PM. She's on holiday in London at the moment but will doubtless return.

Siouxie

Chuckle...... you rang sir?

Here you go http://britishexpats.com/forum/membe...slondon-87856/

dbd33

Ah, forgot the the, thanks.

The dbd!

iaink

Im confused by the OPs mention of really nice weather and riding motorcycles as a reason to want to come to Ontario.

Sure, there are maybe 2 months a year when the weather would be OK for riding a bike but other than that its either too cold, too hot, too buggy or too much grit left from the winter on the roads isnt it?
Besides, you cant "filter" through traffic, so its no faster, and you dont have heat or A/C, so its pretty unpleasant, and if you do find an open stretch of roads the cops will impound your bike if they catch you doing more than 50kmh over the limit. Then factor in that moose, deer and F150s have no sense of sharing the road with motorcyclists.

Maybe its just me and Im missing something?

While Im being generally negative, finding work with canadian law firms with a british law degree and no canadian experience is likely to be an extremely hard sell.

But as mentioned by Aviator, the working holiday IEC visa is a good way to give the place a test drive if its really what you want.

dbd33

While we're piling on the misery, the OP works as a fitness instructor; probably a short career ended by degeneration of the body, a modern day coal miner. In Canada fitness instructors are legally independent contractors so their employers are not responsible for damage inflicted in the course of the work. Support systems and healthcare for the disabled are better in the UK than in Canada.

colinzor

Thanks for all the replies.

I guess everywhere for personal training is generally going to be saturated as its quite a popular market so i expected that really but id just have to get in and make my own mark on it, pound the different gyms looking for a place to start training.

my girlfriend wouldnt want to practice law as such as she doesnt want to be a solicitor or lawyer shes more looking into the human resources side of things or possibly if she were to go into law it would be employment law but her degree is more a good basis to get into a job with. The part about riding bikes and weather i generally thought the weather there for most of the year would be a little warmer or dryer than the UK but i know you guys would get snow in the winter and mostly the 4 seasons but hell ill take warmer anyday its better than constant rain lol.

thanks for the link to the fitness instructor ill give her a PM she if she cant provide me with some info

bats

Aviator's suggestion is a very good one and probably the only way you'll get into the country anyway. Do some more research - especially regarding the weather!

Aviator

To get 'in' you pretty much need a job offer. To get an job offer may not be too hard, to get the job is another matter. An employer has to try and hire Canadian or PR first and demonstrate to ESDC that they were unsuccessful, before any likelihood of a LMIA/work permit would be issued. And they have to shell out $1000 to do so.

For a position in HR and as a fitness instructor, this would seem an unlikely prospect. The system has changed a lot in recent times and hiring foreign workers has become more costly and harder.

IEC is likley the only option in your given career choices.

Vulcanoid

Transferring bar memberships is just about the easiest part of that - the 9 common law provinces + 3 territories have interprovincial mobility agreements. Transferring can be a faff of paperwork, but it's entirely common to article and get called in one province, then move to another.

If she wants to go into anything that involves her law degree, the first question is writing the NCA exams which will mean it's recognized. (eg, while contracts are contracts anywhere in the common law world, constitutional & criminal are country-specific, so she'll need to take classes & exams). Then articling, bar, etc. Otherwise, she just has generic undergraduate non-Canadian degree.

JamesM

Personal training work is easy to find in Canada.

Paying clients on the other hand not so.

Most gyms retain trainers on low salaries/hourly rates and then they have to supplement it by building their clients out on their own.

The problem with the industry is half the trainers perhaps more have made up qualifications and there seems to be very little due diligence or clamping down on rogue trainers. Hence the market saturation.

jandro

It has really extreme weather. It was once rated the 2nd coldest capital city after Ulan Bator, Mongolia. Temps can reach -30s celsius. At the height of summer I remember it would regularly be in the high 20s and thirties with high humidity and sudden downpours almost every day in late afternoon reminiscent of the tropics. I hear there is smog in the summer as well. I preferred the cold winters though.