seamonsta

Which part of Canada did you emigrate to (or hope to emigrate to) and why?
We picked Toronto for the following reasons...
Multicultural,
Good Public Transport (Trams, tube),
More moderate climate (than Winnepeg for instance),
More work perhaps?
Liberal reputation,
Good transport links, direct flights to London, Birm, Man & Glas,
Good Shopping,
Nice Parks,
Near Niagara Falls,
Low crime rate compared to Van, Win,
Lots of museums/Art/theatre etc.
Heard very good reports from friends, relatives.

Was put off Vancouver because of isolation and drug/crime rate.
Was put off Calgary because of reputation for being right-wing, conservative and money orientated.

Liked sound of Montreal, but Je ne Parle Pas Francais!

iaink

I ended up in the Quinte region, about 2h east of Toronto, basically because that is where I was offered a job.

Turns out to be great, close enough to TO and Ottawa to visit for culture etc, but cheap property as too far to commute to the major centers.

Niagara is drivable...4 hours or so as is Montreal, although after visting with all my friends and relatives a number of times (8 I think, lost count though) I now have "niagoraphobia"

Some industry so there are jobs around, 401 for good access

Great lakes and scenery

Very moderate weather by non BC standards, lots of sunshine.

Low crime

If you like statistics (and lets face it, doesnt everyone) for the record back in 2000 when Ontario was still monitoring quality of life, the Quinte region was rated #1 a few years in a row, in the #1 province of the #1 country in the world. As the local slogan say "A great place to live"

http://www.qli-ont.org/spring2000/qlispring2000.html

Of course Canada has slipped in the UN ratings recently, but my region is still IMO a great compromise between facilities, scenery, property values and job availability, in fact I am kind of in two minds whether i should post this as I dont want to start a flood of newcomers to the area

http://www.greatplacetolive.com

Property starts at $50k for a handyman special. Nice places for $130k, up to palacial waterfront estates in the $Ms, but generally way cheaper than the big cities.

Not much in the way of mountains though, so skiing is pretty much limited to XC, and a shortage of GPs, but that is pretty much anywhere in Ontario.

I have never been one for big cities, so the Belleville area has everything I need most of the time, and if I want big city excitement its within reach.

One thing it takes brits a while to appreciate is that driving 200km for dinner with friends is really no big deal here. "Local" becomes a relative term in a country 5000miles from side to side.

I guess I got lucky

Iain

CalgaryAMC

Calgary:

Weather...
Baking summers. Cobolt blue cloudless skies and sunshine all year round, although it gets a bit nippy in winter. Can't remember the last time it rained. Downside is everything is brown and dusty for much of the year and the climate is a bit extreme compared to coastal BC or southern Ontario.

Local Geography...
On the doorstep of the Rockies. Shouldn't have to say any more. Although I'm not a big skier, my wife and I regularly just head out to Canmore or Banff to get out of town for the day. Not many places in this world where you can just go and have dinner in the mountains. Outside of BC I would say that Calgary is hard to beat if you want the great outdoors.

Economy...
Usual issues for immigrants, but the Albertan economy is the healthiest in Canada and taxes are the lowest in the country. That has nothing to do with Albertans I might add (much as they may think it does), they are just fortunate to find themselves on the western sedimentary basin.

Social...
Very low crime. Outstanding amenities. People are still generally very friendly. Good restaurant scene (oil tycoons like to fatten up). Very good public schools, a decent university, technical school etcetera. Very limited art scene.

The myth about Calgary being right-wing and money obsessed is overplayed. Perhaps I just don't notice it. Politics is really not a big issue for people. They just never talk about it.

Housing...
Still very affordable despite rapid growth. Lots of Disneyland-like neighbourhoods (which I love) with the full enchilada: man-made lakes, silly little quaint shopping streets etcetera.

International connections...
Calgary is still a relatively expensive place to get into and out of. If you are making frequent flights back to the UK it will get pricey.

flashman

You forgot to mention that you're close to Avril's home town in Napanee.

BTW are you going to take me up on the offer for a coffee at the Quinte Mall in Belleville?

iaink

Ah, the complicated Ms Lavigne, how could I have forgotten, and I said there was no culture here

Coffee, sure, I PMed you, technical difficulties my end.

Iain

End of thread hijack! As you were

crazydaisy

We chose Manitoba for several reasons - one was we didn't have quite enough points for the federal scheme (before they lowered them again) so we applied for provincial nomination. Second reason was the low crime rate, low unemployment and low cost of housing in the area and thirdly my dear grandmother was born 60 miles North of Winnipeg so it holds a special place in my heart.

quebirder

Don't let an inability to speak french put you off picking Montreal - although it's a great advantage if you can speak it, of course - because there are plenty of colleges and language schools aorund the place offering courses and landed immigrants are entitled to government sponsored full-time immersion courses of a very high standard (they even pay you to take these courses - not a lot, but it helps). Once you are living in a non-anglophone environment you pick up the language quite quickly and anyway, in Montreal if not in the rest of Quebec, there are predominantly anglophoine areas to visit/live in and most people are bilingual to some extent.

Montreal - gorgeous city, lousy roads, friendly p[eople, cultural scene takes a lot of beating, many european factoirs to life here that make fitting in pretty easy.

Don't write the place off because of language - that's not an issue unless you are one of those people (and there are some) who come here and decide they won't learn French.

Tiaribbon

IainK,

We will be neighbours at some point then. We've just bought a farm on the outskirts of Campbellford. We looked at a couple outside of Belleville but when we called about them they had just sold. Belleville's great - loved the giant mall just off 401, have got a placement for our daughter at Albert College (very impressed with it). Just got to fire ourselves up to travel there every day for 10 years once we finally re-locate permanently.

Where exactly do you live? How long have you been there? Sounds like you like it, as we did.

Tia

flashman

I agree. Used to live in Montreal many years ago and didn't have a problem as a unilingual Anglophone. Still visit whenever possible (and Quebec City).

Laid back lifestyle for a big city, great restaurants, cafes and street life. Terrific for girl watching. Montreal women really look after themselves and dress well. Although, at my age, I can only look!

oceanMDX

Wrong! That's a lot like saying that the British had nothing to do with defeating Hitler (as much as they think they had), they just were lucky that they were on an island so Hitler couldn't get to them.

Apparently, you haven't been in Alberta long enough to know what you are talking about on that one. It has everything to do with Albertans. Alberta was running very high Government deficits in the mid 1980s until about 1994. In 1992 it was suggested that Alberta introduce a provincial sales tax to combat the deficit. Albertans elected Ralph Klein on a platform that "no society ever taxed itself to prosperity". Instead of the sales tax, the Government cut spending by a whopping 20 %. Tens of thousands of teachers, health care workers and many others had their pay cut (or lost their jobs) to eliminate the deficit. The reason you don't have to pay a provincial sales tax (and enjoy lower taxes in general) today, is because Albertans were willing to make large sacrifices in the past. It's not that they were just lucky to have oil and gas resources. Nigeria has that too, but where are they? Does Lagos look like Calgary to you? Hello!

One of the reasons that you were able to move to Alberta and enjoy a comfy life, is because of the sacrifices made by Albertans in the past - just don't ever forget it!

oceanMDX

Talking about Alberta, check this out:

http://www.globalairphotos.com/large...ore/2003/203/2

CalgaryAMC

What?

I'm familiar with Alberta's interesting history. Alberta is the only Canadian province to have declared bankruptcy too. Or issued its own fiat money. Or had a premier with his own Sunday morning Christian talk show and a church. Sure, it's an interesting place, and for the first half of its life looked exactly like its neighbour Saskatchewan. Until 1949 - Leduc.

Since then Alberta hasn't looked back. And yes, it's 100% oil related. If the first half of its history, the non-oil half, is anything to judge by, Alberta today would be just like Saskatchewan.

Why doesn't Calgary look like Lagos? Because Lagos is in a corrupt country with over 100 million people. A better question, and one that a lot of us in oil ask, is why isn't Calgary like Dubai, with no income tax, free healthcare for citizens and all the other goodies.

oceanMDX

Comparing Calgary with Dubai, or Alberta with the UAE (similar in population)? You have to be joking, right?

Alberta’s per capita GDP (perhaps now the highest in the world) is way higher than that of the UAE – nearly double, in fact:

http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications...k/geos/tc.html

http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/...untry_desc.php


Alberta, Canada’s western tiger (with Calgary as its wealthiest city):
http://www.mapleleafcard.info/specia...ost_030423.htm

The UAE is currently looking at changing its tax policies, and introduce more taxes. Alberta is lowering its taxes.

There is no way that the UAE has a similar social safety net to that provided by Alberta for its residents. Does the UAE have a health care system that is anywhere comparable with what Alberta (and its world-class research facilities) offers its residents? Of course it doesn’t. Calgary was just rated #1 in the world for its health care:

http://www.canada.com/national/story...b-6688465c3652

Alberta losses 6-10 billion dollars each year in the form of equalization payments to the other provinces.

A petroleum engineer once told me that a barrel of oil in the Persian Gulf costs 50 cents per barrel to produce, but that oil in Alberta’s oil sands costs 15 dollars per barrel to produce. The UAE owns and controls its oil industry, so they get to keep most of the difference between the world price for oil and the cost to produce it. That difference is a lot smaller in Alberta since production costs are so much greater – and that’s not the fault of Albertans. Also in Alberta, the oil companies (publicly traded companies) are enjoying enormous profits, whilst the province only gets a faction of the revenues.

Perhaps we should nationalize our oil/gas industry like the UAE, and take all the profits, or is that a little too socialist for you and your friends in the oil industry?

You were asking why Calgary isn't as good as Dubai? What a joke!

Alberta has seen difficult times since 1949. Remember the National Energy Policy, or weren't you around then? Remember the Government deficits of the 1980's and early 1990's? Apparently not! Would Alberta look like Saskatchewan, if it didn't have oil? Perhaps, but Saskatchewan looks pretty nice to me. Albertans had to work very hard and had to make painful sacrifices along the way to make their province successful. The fact that you didn't have to share in those sacrifices doesn't mean they didn't occur.

The reason Alberta is wealthy, and Lagos is poor, is primarily because of their people! Then again, that's true anywhere.

CalgaryAMC

I am a professional energy analyst (my thesis was on OPEC pricing strategy) working in Calgary. I get paid for my thoughts on energy commodity pricing.

There is no value to be had pursuing this discussion.

oceanMDX

I guess that means you know everything then.

Okay now it's my turn:
I'm a self-made multi-millionaire, who made his fortune in Alberta. I retired at the age of 40, and live in Mexico in the winter and Canada in the summer.