Hi,

My wife and I are currently discussing moving to Canada from the UK. I've always had a (probably somewhat idealistic) image of living over there. A friend of mine has lived in Vancouver fro around 16 years now and loves it but he doesn't have kids so probably has a different perspective to me. I'm trying to narrow down possibly areas so I can research jobs, housing etc a bit better.

So the ideal situation (which really should be what I'm aiming for otherwise I wouldn't be considering uprooting my family for it) is to leave in a reasonably sized 3-4 bed detached house in a nice peaceful pretty suburb or town with a commute to work of less than an hour by either car or public transport. We would like somewhere that is quite laid back and peaceful but also friendly and family orientated. Also near some suitably impressive outdoor space. We probably wouldn't have a car straight away and my wife doesn't drive but we don;t want to live right in a city so somewhere that has good public transport links, local shops etc in the suburbs would be great.

Kids are 4 and 10 if that helps.

I work in I.T. and know I could have a problem getting employers to recognise my qualifications and experience from the UK, luckily my friend works for an I.T. company and said he would ask the people there for their views on what sort of salary I could expect based on my resume. I saw an average salary quoted somewhere for IT professionals at around 70-90k but I'm not yet sure how realistic that is.

I like my peace and quiet a lot when at home, and am a big fan of the outdoors. But also like fun days out. I basically like to go for a fun packed day out but then be able to chill out in peace once I get home. Hearing other peoples music etc when at home is probably my biggest issue. I'd love to be able to live somewhere where I can read with the TV off in the evening and not be disturbed, and go for a run in my neighbourhood in the evening and feel safe.

For my wife being a housewife and not driving being able to make friends and have places to take the kids during holidays etc is highest priority.
Weather conditions aren't a massive issue although the supposed gloominess of Vancouver could be a negative, not sure how true this is though.

So far on the list is Vancouver, Edmonton (seduced by the River Valley and festivals!) , Ottawa, Toronto and Calgary.

I get the feeling all these places have nice and not so nice areas to live in, so I'm trying to get a better idea of the general vibe of each place, and realistically how much living costs are in each. I know Edmonton is cheaper than Vancouver, but then I hear a lot about Edmonton having higher crime.

For perspective in the UK we currently live in a 4-bed house, although we pay high rent for that and it's right next to a council estate so not an ideal location. However it is right next to the town centre which is good for the wife. I earn a pretty high salary but an paying a lot on debts from a few years ago, a lot of these will end next year hence starting to look into moving now with a view to actually doing it if we decide to in the next couple of years.

I know this is a really general question, but if we can narrow it down to 2 or 3 places then we can look at coming out to actually visit some.

To put this into perspective, Vancouver gets more hours of sunshine annually than anywhere in the UK.

Tbh, what you've described could be found in pretty much any populated area of Canada. Although it could also be found in most of the UK too.

This is my problem, I think a lot of the negative points I read about places, e.g. crime levels in Edmonton, are being compared to elsewhere in Canada and not the UK.

However given the choice I actually prefer proper full-on snowy winters than milder wet ones. If that was the only difference between 2 places I would go snow every time

Good point, although I am trying to figure out if all this is possible with a higher quality of life because it's Canada instead of the UK. Mainly due to scenery, cleaner air, bigger open spaces, people having less of an 'attitude' etc (it may help to know I live in Essex, although a reasonably "nice" part and we moved here from Kent 2 years ago).

Scenery, cleaner air and bigger open spaces could also be achieved in the UK though, with the advantage of not having to spend £25k or so to move there! Lake District/Yorkshire/Suffolk etc? Not sure about the 'attitude' thing though, you'll get that anywhere unfortunately, including in Canada. Luckily people like that are in the minority in both countries thankfully!

I guess if you can be a bit more specific about what you're after (and what you think Canada will give you), then hopefully everybody can help you figure out where will suit, or at least narrow down a province. Do you want coastal/to be able to ski/shorter flights back to the UK/French or English speaking (or both)/snow for how many months a year/how much humidity can you tolerate/do you want lakes/do you mind bugs, etc, etc?

You can compare the two with a bit of Googling, iirc the murder rate per capita in Canada is approx twice the rate of that in the UK, but petty crime is quite a bit less.

HTH.

This is a quick tour of Metro Vancouver. http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Vancouver

If you need to be within a hour's commute to downtown, close to transit and shopping and children’s activities, in a pretty family neighbourhood with big enough lots to afford peace and quiet you will be limited by your budget. It is doable, but not necessarily cheap.

I can't speak to finding a job or living anywhere other than Calgary, where we've lived for the last year since moving from the UK. However, I would think about the issue of your wife not driving. Public transport outside the city seems to be almost non existent and I'm not sure where in the city you could live and still get the peace and quiet you're looking for.

For peace and quiet I think you'd need to look at one of the satelite towns (eg Cochrane, Aidre, etc). I haven't lived in either of these (although we did think about Cochrane), but my impression is that they provide most of the facilities you need on a day to day basis, but not those of a reasonably sized city. However even with these towns peace and quiet is probably easier found outside the town centre, and this raises the transport issue again. Both Cochrane and Aidre (and a few other towns) are commutable to some parts of the city (but probably not all parts - I wouldn't want to live in Cochrane and need to commute to the south of Calgary as an example). If you do look seriously at Calgary I'd try to find places near CTrain (local light rail transit system) stations as getting about on this is much better than the buses.

For the great outdoors I think Calgary is difficult to beat; from the west of the city (Cochrane side) you can be in the mountains in about 30 mins, and I've seen more of the sun here than I ever did in SE England (especially in the winter). I don't have kids so not sure about the facilities for them, but there seems to be a reasonable selection of things to do. Like any city it has its share of crime - but not excessively so and not that seems to effect most people day to day lives.

Hope this helps & good luck.

I lived in Essex - a reasonably nice part (Maldon to be precise). I understand what you mean but I would echo Christmasoompha inasmuch as you can find that in the UK. It will likely mean heading North. I believe that's what we'dve done if we had not moved to Canada. (We moved here because my wife is Canadian so different circs from you.)

Lol Maldon is where we live currently. Nice town and everything is close together, plus Prom park is nice, but big drugs problems. We constantly had teenagers dealing right outside our house last year and we're in a 'nicer' area. The cars get scratched\dented regularly. And everyone seems very out for themselves.
Noise wise it is very quiet 90% of the time. But then when someone has a party from 2am to 7am it's much more noticeable.

Yes we could get the same by moving North, although I think climate would not be quite as nice, jobs are a lot harder to find. Maybe I just need a change from the UK. I find it hard to put into words why I'm up for moving to an entirely different country several hours flight away from family and friends but not a couple of hours further North. Although Yorkshire Dales isn't exactly the Rockies I think psychologically the space available across the whole country has quite an enclosing feel to it for me. I have this impression that whereas in the UK you have a big city or town and then smaller towns\villages around the outskirts in the countryside that are very expensive to live in, in Canada it seems the cities just spread out gradually so it's easier to find a good middle point. Certainly from a travelling to\from the centre point of view. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on this impression though

To get to work in the main town 9 miles from me I either have to get 2 buses over a 1 hour journey or drive and pay a fortune for parking. I'm lucky there's a park and ride option and my total journey is 45mins.


None of us really speak much French so English speaking preference for work\school. However the option for the kids to pick up good French can't be a bad thing.
Scenery wise we like both coast and mountains\lakes. Sports like skiing etc not really something for us but I would personally be up for snowboarding if the opportunity is there. I think a general attitude towards spending time outdoors is a bonus for us and the kids.
Time for flights back not a great issue. Always handy to be able to fly back direct I guess. A bonus not a necessity.
Humidity could be an issue - not sure if A\C is common in areas with high humidity like in the US?

Also what's the whole food issue I keep hearing about?

Calgary, Ottawa, Toronto all have public transit and tons of snow. Toronto probably has the best commuter public transit system with the GO train also lake Ontario on it's door step.

Might look into Toronto a bit more, don't really know much about it yet. Sounds like the public transport makes it a good option.

Purely personally, I wouldn't want to move anywhere and then have to rely on public transport. Great as an alternative option, but as an 'only' NO. What happens if the kids need to go to different places and you aren't there? A French girlfriend of mine had a great life, till her husband died, then she was stuck with 3 kids, no rural transport, and she couldn't drive. Until she learnt, two years later, her life was pretty dire. Public tranport is always the first thing that takes a hit in times of economic strictures, snowstorms etc.

I wasn't seeing it as an alternative to having a car altogether. But realistically it looks like it may take a while before we had a car after moving, plus my wife would probably prefer to use it over a car if she did learn to drive but the option was there. I think it's definitely one of the more important points in choosing somewhere but not seen as something we would want to rely on 100%.