Hi everyone, have just joined the site as we are at the very early stages of possibly leaving for Canada - my husband is a Canadian citizen but has not lived there since University in Thunder Bay - we have two children aged 11 and 14 both have Canadian Citizenship (this we got for them in 2002/3 able to do this from father).

What I would like to know is solid advice on House prices, Cost of living, Better lifestyle ect. (have looked at internet sites and nothing quite clear).

It seems that I have 3 against 1 when it comes to the thought of actually doing this, Looking at the British Columbia/Nova Scotia/Alberta areas.

Any help and advice would be extremely grateful.

Thanks

Diane

That's because it's not clear. It's not clearly cheaper or more expensive to live in Canada. Houses aren't necessarily cheaper. Saskatchewan's cheaper than London but Nova Scotia vs. Scotland? Dunno. The "lifestyle" isn't clearly better, it is if you value the pastimes of iced hockey and snow removal but not if you like football and drizzle.

And then there's work, if one of you has a skill in demand in Canada (not "in demand" in the sense of the government thinking it's wanted but "in demand" in the sense of a company writing and emailing with improved offers weekly) then a better material standard of living is probable. If neither of you has a job to go to then, well, it'd be like moving to Norway without a job to go to. For what you'd want to do that to yourselves?

I vote we make DBD a concierge.

In which case I'd revise my post to say something like "you'd be offering a better life for the children. Especially after they overcome their parent's poverty, the spirit of resentment permeating the household due to their father's forever feeling he'd been dragged to the end of the earth against his better judgment, and the estrangement from their grandparents".

All about balance, I am.

"for the childrens sake......"

Just wondering has this got anything to do with my post? or how i posted it - as i did not mean to offend anyone - i thought i was asking simple questions.

Thanks Diane

The joke is that a concierge is someone supportive of posters' desire to emigrate. I tried to answer your questions candidly but not, perhaps, with the tone a concierge would use.

Do you have, or can you get, work in one of those parts of Canada of interest to you?

Diane,

Forgive the humour, it's not the intent to offend. What Dbd33 is essentially saying is that far more information is needed from you before anyone can provide meaningful advice or comment. What do you do? Are jobs in Canada important for your financial well being? Do you like mountains/flatlands/ocean? Can you afford $100k house or $1m house, that sort of thing. Canada is a big country which makes general questions such as yours impossible to answer.

I would suggest reading the BE Canada Wiki which has a wealth of information on Canada, job hunting, living etc.

As I said in my first post - we are only thinking about it - as I think it is a big move for us - my husband teaches forestry and arbroculture at an FE College and I am an Office manager - the reason for Canada was that the three of them had Canadian Citizenship and Andrew would like to go back to Canada - and yes part of it is for the children as I look at the UK and think in 5 - 10 years time there is going to be anarchy.

I have always lived in Scotland and yes the thought of moving is scary - if we do go any further with this we would come out for a month in June 2011 and have a look around the areas I had suggested at that point I might be better equipped to post on the forum.

Many thanks

Diane

Don't run off, you can likely get useful information here, even if it is phrased with a bit of edge. Does your husband speak French? (I ask because I know a lumberjack who came first to Quebec).

It is sometimes difficult to appreciate the vast scale of Canada from afar. The BC/Alberta "area" is about the size of Western Europe (with a population less than Greater London). Within these two provinces the variation in climate, activities, opportunities, people, lifestyles, houses and expenses is almost infinite.

As others have said, the more you can tell us about what you are looking for, the more helpful our answers will be.

I know i rarely post on here, but i do lurk, they are right in there is an awful lot of information on here that would help you, several people have gone through the process and have kindly given their experiences on here.
I too find that some of my posts must offend because of some of the replies i got which is why i rarely post on here now, and i too am currently in Scotland...my Husband is very keen on emigrating, and I was a little uncertain, till i went out there and spoke to some ex-pats living in Cochrane, the one thing they all agreed on was, they had wished they had done it years ago!
I then spoke to my Canadian cousins in Calgary, the tip they gave me was to think of the size of the UK, then times it by 4, that will give you the aprox size of Alberta Province alone. He also said that anything north of Red Deer, can be incredibly cold in winter, and very few canadians want to go that far north.

I found that going onto google earth, and standing on some of the streets (via google earth) that you get a fair idea of what place can be like.

I hope some of that helps you

Hi Milkmaid,

Thank you and I will try the google earth thing - we have been going round in circles about this idea of emigrating to Canada My Husband and the children are positive about the idea and I am now coming round to thinking it would be a good idea - have been on a few web sites to try and get a feel for the type of living in Canada but yes all are different - all i wanted was for someone who had already had the experience of going through this process to give me some guidance to help me decide if this was a good move or not and yes I have also read about lots of people saying they should have done it years ago - so to me that meant it was a good move.

As for the Job and House situation - We realise that our careers are of no great importance now as we are mid 40's early 50's but will consider doing anything (McDonals here we come ) and if we sold our house here we would hope to have up to $300,000 to purchase house outright and still have money to live off until we found jobs.

Also Andrew can't speak french unless he's had a few drinks so i think Quebec would be out of the question.

Thanks

Diane

Hi Diane

Welcome to the forum. The vast majority of posters on here will be nothing but helpful. Paradoxically, some of the more ascerbic contributors to this forum are also the most knowledgeable! Something I realised pretty sharply. Roll with it and there's loads of good advice. Don't know Nova Scotia (I can barely spell it), but I can certainly recommend British Columbia; lots of trees to work with if nothing else.

A useful website for browsing house prices in the areas of interest.
Beware that HST is payable on new houses, I'm told, which is a significant premium when comparing with prices of others.

http://www.mls.ca/splash.aspx