deanjp32

Now then boys!!!!!!

livermanl

Cause your opinion of living in the UK for 8 years is better than my opinion of living in the UK for 21. Cause your opinion of Canada is better than mine and DBD who's total years in Canada is 27. You seriously need to start thinking about who you are comparing your views with...I guess that you know everything there is about Canada and the UK.

The comments you have made on Canada are all assumptions of your future life they are not based by the fact that you have felt anything.

Have you waited almost a year to find a job in the field of your work? Have you felt the feeling of i'm 6000 miles away from anybody that gives a monkeys? Have you bought a house, a car or even a months worth of groceries?

It may sound insignificant but this is life...I bet when you imaging your life in Canada you do not stop to think that it may not all be so easy and that every day is a lot more of a struggle here in Canada than it is in the UK.

Given the opinions of most expats i would say that it is certainly a lot 'harder' living here than it is in the UK...People may be better of financially but having winter for 6 months of the year is no picnic. Having summers surrounded by mosquitoes is no picnic if you react badly to them...

Saying all of this i still like Canada and i personally could not care which place i lived in but my preference would definately be england if every thing i have here could be easily transferred there.

dbd33

This whole line of "I've been there more often and more recently than you have" is, I think, unhelpful; no one can have been living equally in two countries for an extended period. Emigrants have a couple of advantages in comparing:

- they have immediate experience of the country to which they moved

- they likely have family and friends in the country they left

- they may well have business dealings in the country they left

- they have experience to evaluate reports from the country they left, they know for example what to think of a report in the Daily Mail or on the BBC

Emigrants also have the disadvantage that, even after an extended period they know more about the country they left than the one they moved to. Brits, for example, can detect nuances of class warfare in the UK, they know when they're being put down, they don't have the same ability to interpret inflections of "eh?" and they may not know that, for example, the National Post does not represent the mainstream view in Canada.

Then, of course, no two people experience either the old or the new country in the same way; a publican in the UK who moves to be a peasant farmer in Canada has a wholely different life but it's not because of the change of country. I find the "life wonderful here, come on over" type of posts to be unbalanced, they should be read in combination with something I might post during a January.

startwin

For what it's worth, I've lived here 33 years, and my opinion is very different from dbd's. Length of time here means nothing, it's your own personal experience that counts - plus where you have chosen to live as that certainly makes a difference to your overall opinion of Canada.

Having just read the 6 pages that have filled up with comments this morning, all I can say is I sure hope would-be immigrants do not base their decisions on what is written here. And Christma, saying you are going through the same stresses as people trying to emigrate to this country is ridiculous. You're just taking a break, not changing your life.

Life is what you make it.

Ruby Murray

Livermanl.....thank you! This is the post I've been imagining in my head to write back at Jules.....It's been needed and you did it...but no doubt he'll come back with some other high and mighty remark about how we know nothing about life in Canada!! Yep, I've been here 5 years in both Alberta and Ontario, so I too, know my stuff! I don't hate Canada....like DBD, I'm indifferent now and my preference would be spending the rest of my days back home in the UK...not here.

deanjp32

Totally agree but to be fair you wil have stresses in any move to another country regardless of whether all the paperwork etc has been done for you.

You still have to fit in and meet new people and adjust to the different culture of that country and that can be trying also not to mention the weather which no doubt is a shock to people that may have read about it but not actually experienced it.

Jules Europe

Firstly, You seem very fond of the word cause!!! The English language is far more varied than you make use of. Secondly, your 21 years of living in the UK has led you to the conclusion that both immigrants and gays are held in equal disdain by much of the UK populace!!! The exception to all this being of course, that lovely pink city of Brighton. You heard slurring voices on the train and at work mmmmm seems like your 21 years there has built up a very unhealthy level of paranoia if nothing else. You may well have done the right thing in actually getting out while you could.

You mention that nobody gives a monkey`s that you are 6000 miles away from the UK (or in your case Brighton) but why should they? Didn`t you realize that when you were getting on the plane??? Canada is hardly like going for a quick hop to France!!! As for buying a house and car thats the same the world over, whats so special about doing that in Canada? I think buying a months groceries may well cause me something of a concern. But if I am in Canada, maybe you can give me some advice on that one.

Now that you live in Canada, you have mentioned that you have 6 months of winter!!! Well did it never occur to you that living somewhere near the frozen north, that this may well be the case Surprise surprise............ common knowledge innit that much of North America gets hot summers and if you live near water you probably will get a lot of mosquitos. Oh dear!!! looks like you didn`t do too much homework on Canada did you.

By the way my opinions are fairly accurate assumptions of what life would be like for me in North America so I doubt I will get any nasty surprises. But if I do, I am sure you can give some useful pointers.

Finally, you say your preferance would be to live in England again over Canada (But I really know you mean Brighton here and not the bigoted UK as a whole) All I can say after your bitter experience of hearing bigots whispering about you on the train etc Would you really wanna come back? Is Canada really that bigoted? And what voices are you hearing in Canada? Or do we travel by bus now?

Jules Europe

Oh Dear Ruby................Surely your not hearing voices in your head as well now

And when you want to write to me please feel free. I am a shoulder that you can cry on anytime

dbd33

You have misinterpreted livermanl's comments, afaik he hasn't said that the UK as a whole is bigoted.

You've also misinterpreted comments that some features of Canada, such as the weather, are less than ideal as being expressions of surprise. Not liking so much winter doesn't mean that you didn't know it was coming. People don't like being drilled at the dentist, in that case not liking it derives from knowing it, not from being surprised by it. They still go to the dentist.

I fear that you've made several fairly inaccurate assumptions, not the least being that you're in a position to criticize another poster's prose style.

Novocastrian

While agreeing that length of time here doesn't make one's opinion sacrosanct, it does (or should) make it at least well informed. You say that it's your personal experience that counts and I completely agree with that.

I first came to live in the GTA 26 years ago and I've also lived for significant periods (5 and 8 years respectively) in the US and Germany. Canada (as represented by the GTA) is fine but certainly not "adorable", any more than any other place I've lived. Plusses and minusses innit?

I came back here 15 years ago because of a decent job opportunity above all else but I do not intend to stay here once my working life is over.

Not that I plan to return to the UK though, it'll be France next.

Of course I haven't actually been in Canada since June, so that should be enough of a reason to invalidate my remarks I suppose.

Jules Europe

I know he hasn`t...........only places outside of Brighton. As for how far these places stretch well that`s a matter for him to decide. So maybe instead of the UK I could have referred to this as areas outside of Brighton or areas in between Brighton and London or the south east etc All starts to get messy eh.

I knew winters in certain parts of Canada got down to -30 and for me that is shocking, so why would I be even more shocked when I got there?

Think you will find many postings on here are inaccurate assumptions, fortunately we have no proof readers to clarify whats correct and whats not. But then again, this is a casual public forum much like open chat in a pub or any other social event etc you believe what you want to believe and what you don`t like you walk away from. All quite straight forward really.

livermanl

Let me make this clear.

Growing up in a place that gets you to be respectful for all is a major bonus in my life. There are not many people in the world that can say that they TRUELY do not judge people for there differences.

If you have ever lived in Brighton you will see why it is such a remarkable city within a small amount of miles you have rivers, lakes, the ocean, the south downs then you also have over 400 pubs and clubs in one city. You can do tours of the sewers there that were built up 400 years ago, there are TWO universities so the foreign influx there is far greater than some of the bigger cities. Brighton has so much historical significants and the people that live there overlook it everyday.

So yeah I would want to move back to Brighton and I would also like to go back to my old job of designing signalling systems for the railways sorry it was a good job (do I go down in your estimation for that now?).

As for I didn't do 'my research' before I moved here, at which point in any of my posts did i say that i never knew it snowed at which point did i say i never knew about mosquitoes...I will let you know right now that my wife is Canadian so i personally didn't have to research too much as she just told me all about it, this is far more valuable than looking at pics on the internet.

You sir should really just keep asking questions about what life in Canada is like rather than commenting on what it might be like your opinions on life in Canada is as useful as a chocolate teapot.

This is my last post back to you because to be honest i am done wasting my time so bad mouth me all you want from here on in but i am sure you have gained me a lot more respect from the general people on this forum...

dbd33

It's not the same as a pub as, on this type of forum, many things can be proven by linking to an authoritative source. One can, for example, easily show how much snow a place typically gets by reference to a weather site. What one cannot demonstrate is how it feels to shovel that much snow. For that you gotta try it.

DaveLovesDee

When I came over, I knew my first job wouldn't be as good as the one's I was used to back in the UK, it's like getting your first job after leaving school. For pay (at least in Ontario), I'd consider 75% of what I'd expect in the UK as being reasonable based on this simple formula.

Minimum wage
Ontario $8.75 per hr - approx £4.40 per hr for most industries.
UK £5.73 per hour for workers aged 22 years and older.

4.40 / 5.73 = 76.8%.

Jules Europe

Firstly, I don`t have a bad opinion about you or indeed a low estimation of you whatever. Why should I? I don`t know you.......The truth is, I actually found your posting/postings some of the most amusing that I have seen on here in quite some time. So I hardly feel that I have a bad opinion about you.

Brighton may well be a remarkable city but once out it your opinion wasn`t so high of much else was it though? Especially that route to London

You never said at all that it didn`t snow there but why should you? when its like common knowledge that it snows in much of Canada. Its like me not mentioning to somebody that the sun doesn`t shine in the Sahara all pretty obvious stuff.

I do ask questions about what life is like in Canada and I am well informed on it. I know some of the important stuff like the climate and distance to Europe if I should ever get a bit homesick etc

Well something was achieved by me so called bad-mouthing you, as I have helped you gain the respect from people on this forum (in your words) Gaining respect is something important for you eh?