Rich_007

Def not but the annual 'visible' decline of social standards in the UK is generally appalling and horrific for any right minded decent people.

Read my lips - "Canada is not Shangri-La".

And crime per head as a trend is falling in Canada, very simply it's a growing population with declining crime trends including violence, drugs related etc.

Rich.

MikeUK

This is a common theme in here…those still in the UK and wanting to be in Canada seem only to be able to see the good points of Canada and the unfaltering belief in the forever holy Quality of life…

Interestingly enough it often seems that it’s only the people currently living in Canada that spend there time pointing out that its very much the same old shit here…. I mean what would they know…..

And this goes on and on…. Each new month we see somebody slagging off the UK and amazing enough they seem to forget we have friends, family, and can read newspapers and may well know what goes on.. many of us watch the BBC, and some of us have even visited or have returned for periods of time in the last few years…

Me… I think its one simple issue.. justifying what they’re about to do… people like to push things into a black and white , good and bad , right and wrong category in order to justify a position that is in fact not that clear cut… most of these people are about to put their family lives and financial history to the test, many moving with no job to go to… they so desperately want to be right in their decision they’ll spend an irrational amount of time on a expat forum telling people who already know the answers what the answers should be…

And for most of us ‘here’ and the many that don’t even bother to come to the forum, we do like Canada and for many reasons, but if your coming here to avoid poverty, crime, drugs, social under classes well tough shit we have them here to …
By all means come here for a fabulous outdoors, a slower life style(in places), a full snowy winter, hot summers, miles of untouched land, and for those out west mountains..

Rich_007

So go argue against the crime stats (for example)...falling crime rates in Canada, and rising in the UK.

And that's just for starters.

Rich.

dbd33

The level of crime in a country as a whole isn't much of an indicator of anything. For example, posters here probably think of the US as being a country with a high level of crime, even a dangerous place, but most of it is not. Maine and Montana, for example, have almost no violent crime, much less than Ontario. Violent crime in the US and Canada is highly concentrated so someone who moved from say Bournemouth to, say, the Parkdale area of Toronto (just to give Scarborough a break) would be exposed to a much higher rate of crime than they were where they came from.

Canada's a big country and most of it is rural, rural areas always have low figures for violent crime. In order to compare fairly a smaller unit is needed but emigrants probably don't care about a fair comparison, only a comparison of where they are to where they're going. What the potential emigrant should look at is crime in his or her neighbourhood in the UK vs. the destination neighbourhood, an emigrant from, say, Broadwater Farm has nothing to fear whereas an emigrant from Bexhill might want to think a little.

MikeUK

and I'll call horses for courses.....

dig into those stats and I’ll think you’ll find that although the overall crime figure seem to be rising its due mainly to low level crime…
and that in Canada although the crime figure is much lower it is comprised of much more violent crime…
We went though this last year in this forum….. Crime in Canada runs at about 80% of that in the UK… but and the big but if your involved in crime here your much much more likely to end up hurt than you would in the UK…

Car crime and petty theft are virtually unheard of here… you can in some cities leave your open top car with the keys in the ignition and you wallet on the seat and expect to find it all in place on your return… but on Mondays local radio you’ll hear all about the weekends shootings and the rapes and beatings… yep domestic violence is really high here…. We don’t have burglaries in our area… we have house invasions.. less common but they knock on the door then force their way in at either knife or gun point and force you to dig out your valuables…. I don’t like either but I know which I prefer…

Guess what I’m here now.. and I was back working in the UK not so long ago…. I have both sides of the picture….

SANDRAPAUL

Where you get groups of people you get agro. No matter what colour, what language, what race and where you are.

Keep me away from groups unless on a day out to the zoo or a show.

SANDRAPAUL

Of course they analyse it to a point where it becomes sensless. Its the time factor during the pissing wait. If you come on the forum you must realise that people like you who move from one country to another would only do so if they thought it just might be better than what they currently have going for them. If they thought it would be worse they would not move unless they are complete idiots.... perhaps we all are in your eyes?

My wife could not give a shit about this forum and has told me so as it will make not a jot of differnce as to what she thinks, will do, and how she will react as she has confidence. Me I - I seem to have got cought up. My kids say that I have 'tendancy to drift off from the subject in hand and spend considerable amounts of time doing nothing', they mean this place.

Yet I do find from time to time some points of interest cause I am a sad old git.

One would not move jobs if one thought it would be worse. One would not move house or neighbourhood if they thought it would be worse. One would not move countries if one thought it would be worse.

So - yes you have to find faith and beleive you are doing the right thing.

You did after all Mike.

(A year ago I said to our agent what about getting a work VISA....the reply....you don't want to do that as time will pass quick enough! )

If I did it again I would look for work before if possible.

Rich_007

Mike, I totally defer to your knowledge, as my 'Canadian experience' is limited to 5 weeks, x2 recce trips, Vancouver and Okanagan, summer and winter BUT I did see a straight up improvement in manners, general civility, helpfulness, respect, tidyness, etc, kids able to communicate rather than grunt, teen servers who could dis.cuss the days specials rather than point at a board, blah de blah. All that day to day stuff is really important in the fellgood factor. Hope it's the same when we get over there in terms of everyday stuff. Yeah, we read the online media and some of the stuff is grim, depressing, miserable stuff but seems much more isolated (and as a result more stigmatised, e.g. Eastside Vancouver, you'd think was Beirut in the 70's. Mind you I bet even then they weren't crapping in the street in Beirut ?)


Yeah but I bet a greater % of this violent crime is criminal-on-criminal, so I guess less of it has an impact on the general population, makes it easier to manage from a law enforcement perspective. That being the 'gang' factor ?

Rich.

MikeUK

Yep I moved for a better Job... both times.. and also between those jobs moved back to the UK for another ‘better’ job....

But I don't agree with the “Have faith and believe� bit... I think it should be well researched.. and its that ‘selective research’ combines with faith and belief …I have issues with….

I must have said this countless times on this forum, and am now beginning to understand why some many expats.. just move on a leave this forum behind, Its that so many in the UK spend their time telling us how bad it is… posting up the latest drama from the UK when I can take a paper here and find the same kind of story in most of our cites ….
I find these days more and more times thinking “why bother replying let them find out when they get here� and I came to the forum because I had a friend keep telling me things about Canada that I knew weren’t true.. an it was one of these expats sites that was filling his head with nonsense. .and when I looked into it most of the nonsense was coming form those wanting to be but not yet in Canada…. I’m no expert…but I do live here now.. and I have done the move twice…..

And yet I’m still told to go look at the stats by somebody who has only ever visited….

seacreature

I'm not sure if that's true?!
Surrey BC recently reported the highest rate of car theft in the world!
It was twice as bad as the worst rate in the UK apparently.

To be honest, although general anti-social behavior IS lower in Canada, crime in general is probably not much different. Bad neighbourhoods in Canada will have high crime rates just like bad neighbourhoods in the UK. Much of rural and suburban England has a very low crime rate, it's worth remembering that.

SANDRAPAUL

Very fair point. Time to shut up then...

But the same could be said of anywhere. I am no expert on anything and I see a lot of crap about the UK written by those coming to the UK on other parts of the forum....

and you well know that I have only tried to get to the bottom of facts as portrayed by stats that don't always add up. And many do not agree with you about what you say about Canada.

So its a discussion that should attempt to get to some form of truth by bringing snippetts of information together.

As regards crime, polution, living in Canada, etc ect I have always put my hand up and said I know nothing...

or do you disagree with that?

MikeUK

I wish that was true... and to some degree some of it is...but unfortunately most of it isn’t.. a lot is domestic violence.. and the gangs too don’t stay in the “bad places� away from the public… we had a young boy from a good neighbourhood shot here in a drive by.. I think mistaken identify is being kicked around as a possible reason….

And my opinion isn’t just based on Toronto. I travel a lot with work and spend time in St John, Montreal, Edmonton and Vancouver… all have the same problems just the scale differs.. and I can quite happily say this is the same types of problems I saw in London, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford, Glasgow, Edinburgh.. and “add in� my last job the same problems I also saw in Munich, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan…granted I never saw these problems in Switzerland or Sweden. so there are places that do really have a better life.. or maybe I just didn’t look hard enough

MikeUK

its why I said some cities..

Gray C

DING DING. Seconds out Round 2

Rich_007

eeek - I know a guy who used to work at the main Swiss airport, the stories about the underworld, crime, drugs, violence etc were worse than the UK. Or seemed to be anyway.

Dunno how we can actually make sense of this forum as the angles seem to be so different all round.

Anyway I've made my bed (AKA life choice - PR - BC - rural) so will see how it pans out, would rather do and try and dare to fail than never have bothered.

Rich.