nikki dreaming

Personal tastes I guess havent been to Van, so cant comment

nikki dreaming

also, to add with 15% taxes, it is far from cheap to live here month to month

JanetM

Dont mean to be rude but I dont like Aberdeen or Edinburgh, I much prefer Inverness & Glasgow.
I know its a big move to upsticks & go to Canada but its our dream that we want to make reality.
I know the process is going to be hard work but it will be much more worth the effort of it all than giving in and going to a city that we dont want to live in

Oink

Have you thought of moving near Inverness & Glasgow? Simply curious what Nova Scotia/Halifax can offer that these places/cities don't?

JanetM

I would like to say a huge thank you to the people who have left genuine comments with advice & info but the rest of you who are just taking the mickey clearly dont like to see people trying to achieve anything in life and have to reduce yourselves to making fun of people who want better than you.

Our list of reasons for picking Nova Scotia is huge, better education for the kids being one of the top ones, activities, sports, lower crime rate than the uk, the kids want to live somewhere they can have real snow because lets face it everything comes to a standstill in the uk for for very little but in Canada its just another day and people carry on normally. We want to be in a friendly location and lets face that isnt what the uk is good at, as a family we enjoy camping and Canada is a whole lot of wonderful outdoors, we want to get away from the rubbish government that the uk has.

I could carry on but I dont want to start ranting

JanetM

Hi,
We dont want to live in a city, even the outskirts of the cities here are really out of our budget. You get a lot more house for your money in Canada.
We built our own house in Orkney we have a quarter acre garden and our house is worth around £160000.00 our site cost £6000 on the outskirts of cities a site is around £75000 and not even half the size of what we have. Even to buy a house in Inverness is expensive.

JanetM

With the recession in the UK a lot of building firms are going into administration and lots of skilled workers are struggling to find work because of it & jobs are more scarce than normal but other countries like Canada, New Zealand & Australia have skills shortages which can be filled with people from the UK and other countries.

nikki dreaming

This is an internet forum and banter happens, just take whatever info you need from posts and keep asking questions

Novocastrian

Don't confuse a bit of banter on here with an attempt to discourage you. But, please, please, please do a huge amount of research before you make a huge decision which could be the best or the worst you ever make.

Auld Yin

Perhaps it's because Halifax/Nova Scotia is not in the UK and Inverness/Glasgow are full of funny speaking Sassenachs who have chosen to live where they're really not wanted.

Greenhill

I heard Vancouver/Seattle (or whatever they call it) is "very similar to Liverpool but with more rain, STDs, gun crime and anger". I have neither been there or have any intention of going.

I also heard "Sushi might be an attraction but spending half your 'fat' pay packet to live on the 3rd floor of a concrete penis (dwarfed by bigger concrete penises) should make a rational mind 'think twice'; especially when the view from the window is 'Liverpool'."

What's the culture there these days? The internet, when searched deeply, said it offers the "80's culture of breakfast espressos, massive collars, cocaine up big-dollar-bills and those seedy car-keys-in-a-bowl parties".

I moved to Nova Scotia to relive the 1970's, so, probably, the same might be true for those who moved to the west coast but to relive the 1980's. Nothing wrong with living in the past though.

Sorry Nikki, this is more aimed at the umbrellaites, than you. Hopefully they'll be able to confirm, or deny, the reports.

Stonedog

You know what, I always believed this too, until today. Mr Stone got sent home from work this morning, his second day (he's a gardener), because it was raining !!!. A couple of the lasses he works with complained they couldn't work in it, so they all got the morning off

el_richo

The "mickey takers" already have PR/citizenship and experience of Canada so you have some catching up to do

In all seriousness, it's not really mickey taking as such, just friendly banter with some hidden, and valid, points with regards to the reality versus the dream.

It's always interesting reading posts from people who have never set foot in Canada yet they believe their dream is to live there because "it offers much more than the UK". The truth of the matter is that it offers "different" opportunities. Some better and some not so.

I also think people underestimate the impact the immigration route has on themselves and their family, and more so underestimate life and it's offerings in the UK. Mainly when they're at a low ebb or feel stagnant in their lives.

You could very easily be doing yourselves a huge disservice by not visiting NS, and other provinces if possible, multiple times throughout the seasons to get a feel for the place, people, opportunities, distance, cost of living, etc etc. An investment in your future i guess.

Fingers crossed it all works out for you but you need to set realistic expectations because more often than not, dreams can differ greatly from reality.

christmasoompa

As pp's have said, it's just friendly banter and not meant to be insulting. We do get a lot of people on here that don't seem to have done their research, seem to think that life in Canada will be cheap and crime free. When you point out that Canada's cost of living is the same as UK and that there are more murders per capita in Canada than the UK, they are often very surprised!

People are just trying to let you know (in that typical Brit 'piss taking' style) that life in Canada isn't a bed of roses, and to make sure you have realistic expectations. I'm sure you've researched (although you want to get away from 'rubbish government' so not quite sure why you've picked Canada ) and made the right decision for your family, which is great.

I think it's very useful to have those who have lived in Canada for years (as most who have replied to you have) give you a heads up - we've seen a lot of forum members return to the UK over the years having decided Canada's not for them, and often it's good for people to hear the negatives as well as the positives before they go.

Funky Florist

It would be interesting to know whether any quantitative research has been done on this. For example, x% of expats return from Canada after one year, two years, five years etc. Sites like this tend to be quite polarising - from the dreamers who want to go, to those who have had enough and want to come home.

It's quite hard to get a handle on how many go and love it, and how many come back to the UK.