Whingers? I remember viewing a house for sale in Vancover where the vendor was a old Britsh lady living alone. She told me when her husband and her first moved there from U.K. ( like 35 years earlier ) she cried every day for more than 1 year.
I could turn the argument round and say that those who "do well in Canada"
do so because they are not capable of loving their homeland enough and appreciate all good it had given them.

In that case they should never have left in the first place.

My point is that everyone has an opinion and shouldn't be told to keep it to themselves if others don't like reading it. I just can't understand what people expect to find on an open public forum like this. If someone seems very negative then that gives someone else the chance to be positive but not to say "don't bother posting if your going to be negative".

You're right to say make your own mind up. I can't believe anyone here would be so stupid as to allow any other person on a forum to influence significantly a life changing decision.

I agree Stephen. Canada has plenty of flaws (as well as positive aspects) but rose tinted, one-sided opinions doesn't really help anyone in the long run. It is just plain sense to consider the pros and cons of a life changing decision. Closing your ears to negative points of view is crazy

I think it's is like looking at moving to any town anywhere, Stories are good bad and ugly but it all boils down to the Individaul and their expectations compared to what they really want. Best bet is to start practising smiling and saying hi to strangers in your own town first and see how they greet you

But still a popular pastime of many wanting to emigrate, and also with those wishing to justify their emigration..

It's always so much easier when you choose to consider only the good points of your new home and dwell of the bad point of your old home..

I’d go to say that would appear to stand for about 30% of posters on here these days….

[QUOTE=stepnek]My point is that everyone has an opinion .


As a wise man once said to Me " Opinions are like a**eholes , everyone`s got one and they all stink" !


sorry

Phil

hmm - dont get me started on aussies! the ones i have worked with complained all the time about the uk and boasted about how they never paid tube fares, shoplifted and trashed the landlords property while living in self inflicted posed overcrowded accomodation- ie rented as two bedroom for two souplds and 8 of them living there.

Well I agree and disagree. This is an open forum and I'm very interested in what people have to say about a place I'm moving to (and now living in). I have to say that I've been generally disappointed with the way this forum is biased towards Canada, often by people who don't seem to know, and who are all too quick and eager to criticise Great Britain.

I do plan to write a 6 month review of my experience in BC, Canada, so will save contents of this to another thread. However I should say that I and my wife have felt very frustrated with the rose tinted nature of this forum. You'd be excused for thinking that everything about living in Canada was better and I really don't appreciate people putting down my country of origin. Of course there's some of you who'd immediately respond with "well go back there," and I think this is exactly my point. I choose to live here and want to see it for what it is, but I wish there were less people who just harp on and on about who great this place is, and how crap Britain is.

One comment that was raised some time ago, struck a chord. That was that many people expect to come here and experience a completely new life. Yet in reality 90% of the time they end up living a life very similar to their life back home. I think this is very true.

I guess it's different for each person, but if you're looking to escape your current lifestyle or problems, you may not be able to, depending of course on what these are. Canada is very beautiful and relaxed, even in the cities, but the harsh reality of living here is some way away from the impression that you might get from this forum.

Just my opinion, of course.

You've made several good points.

I think one of the challenges with a forum like this is that people are at different stages of the homesickness / culture shock / adaptation / integration spectrum. Some people are in the honeymoon phase, still enraptured with a new destination. Other people are experiencing disillusionment and are rejecting their not-so-new environment. Still others have emerged from the other end of that tunnel and have achieved a measure of adaptation. I think it's difficult for people who are going through one stage to really hear what people in another stage are saying.

^^^Bingo.

hi! exactly what i am trying to say too, in a way!
people do tend to harp on about canada being so very good, and the uk being very very bad--we all know that is not the case!
when i was in canada, my life was beginning to feel almost the same as back here, so on that point i agree totally.
its 6 of one and half a dozen o' t'other, basically! go where you want to go, but dont expect miracles!
and as for calgary blade talking about writing aerospace user manuals?????i dont get the faintest idea what you talking about, mate, but this much i do know--i could write a far better user manual than you, if push came to shove, having been in the business over 15 years!!!!

I'm sure you would, based purely on content (I've never worked in the aerospace industry).

I'd question whether anyone would be bothered to read it without the use of sentences and paragraphs.

Another variable is the respective personalities. It is evident from the attitude of some posters that they would have a hard time settling into heaven when the time comes (or the other place).

As a brit who has spent 4 years in Canada and who is currently living in Oz waiting for my canadian PR application to be processed I have observed a few things. A lot of brits are whingers no matter where they are. They expect their new country to be just like good ole england and are surprised when it isn't. On another expats website I read this woman in perth is leaving to go home because she finds it boring. This in itself is fair enough but the daft cow didn't think the beach would be such a bit part of life in Perth. Doh, it borders the Indian Ocean for bloody miles. What I am trying to say is go to Canada or wherever with an open mind. Don't expect it to be home, it aint, its a foreign country. Don't expect to be able to buy the things you bought in Tesco and make the effort. People will bend over backwards I have found if they think you are willing to mix and fit it.