Help required to learn about Canada for university project.
 

Hi everyone,

This is my first time on the forum, I've never really used a forum before so hopefully I've put this message in the right section and also don't make too many mistakes.

I'm working on the final year of my Packaging Design degree in England and am already in the process of being assessed for my PR Card. I applied in Feb 2004 and still happily waiting for my application to be processed, I seem to be quite a fledgeling compared to some of the waiting times people have been experiencing on the forum.

I'm hoping to go to Vancouver initially, but I'm quite open to going to Calgary, Toronto etc. For me it depends on where I can get a job in my chosen field which is Graphic/Packaging Design and IT (Web and Mainframe) I can also do Business Analysis type roles and I write filmscripts / stories in my spare time (that's why I though of Vancouver), so I may be able to do something with this as well.

For my university course, I've geared all my projects and my dissertation towards looking at setting up my own design / creative agency and also designing packaging solutions for the Canadian market. As I don't know anyone in Canada, other than one or two design industry contacts, I was wondering if could ask the people here if they wouldn't mind completing some on-line questionnaires I've created.

There are four groups of topics listed below with no more than 9 questions in. Ideally, if you could take part in all four, that would be fantastic but even doing just one would add a great deal to my endevours. Although the topics are quite specific, there are a number of general questions as well that could be of benefit to others as well.

Most people have just used short sentences, bullet points and quick comments, so you don't need to write too much if you don't want to.

The topics are :-

The use of toiletries (eg aftershaves, perfumes and deoderants etc) in Canada. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=1311703325

Buying home based office equipment (eg computers, printers, desks, chairs etc) in Canada. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=85386703298

Women and pastimes in Canada. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=82516703275

Soup as a meal or snack in Canada. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=27726703234

Although these questions are a type of market research (because I have to design for particular markets), I'm using them to learn a bit more about the 'Canadian way of doing things', and gaining an insight into Canadian lifestyles and culture for when I go over there. Hopefully this will go towards achieving more of the "Canadian experience" employers seem to be so keen on. To able to read the views of people who have actually experienced what it's like to live and work in Canada would be absolutly invaluable to me.

The questinnare's don't require you to provide any personal details eg names or address, only your gender and which age range you are in. This is so that I can analyse what different types of people think and if their are similar viewpoints across genders and ages.

I posted this on another forum site but only got a few responses, so I'm hoping that the poeple here will be able to help me in my endevours as I'm struggling a bit for some first hand information on Canada.

With enough responses, I would like to collate this information and then post it back onto the forum so that everyone can share in all the things I've managed to find out about these topics and Canada in general.

Thanks very much for reading my thread and I do hope you can spare a few moments to take part.

Robert.