Hi All,

Me my wife and are two kids (daughter age 6 & son aged 4) are wanting to emergrate to canada. This will be a couple of years off yet once my wife has finished her nursing degree (July 2014) and gained a years experance. I myself am a Bus Inspector in public Transport.

Im just looking for as much help and advice as possible and the best people to ask are expats.

The questions we have are.

1. How difficult is the application process for emergrating and what sort of time scale could we expect from start to finish?

2. How do you rate education in Canada compared to the UK?

3. How diffculit is it to gain employment as an expat?

4. Is getting a morgage in Canada just as much fun as getting one in the uk?

5. How would you compare the standard/cost of living in Canada to the UK?

6. Are Canadians happy to mingle with expats or do you tend to find a divide?

7. How do you compare the healthcare in Canada to the NHS?

8. Is it difficult to bring to bring Family pets with you from the UK i.e two dogs?.

We are planing a holiday to Canada for when my wife finishes Uni so we can explore the country and hopefully find were we want to emegrate too.
Any suggestions welcome both positive and negative.

Thanks,

Moby79

Read the wiki on this site.

Welcome to British Expats! As Aviator mentions, every aspect of immigration is covered via Wiki on the blue bar at the top of this page. There is immigration info and about the different geographical areas, housing, education .....it's all there, and should give you lots more ability to find what's best for you and your family. Happy reading and best of luck!

And to add to the excellent suggestion of a good read of the Wiki, a search of the forum will also throw up numerous threads on all of the questions you've asked.

Happy reading!

The best thing to do is what has already been suggested - read the wiki - then come and post any specific questions you might have after that.

To help, here are a few links to be getting on with

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Catego...an_Immigration

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Category:Canada_Financial

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Catego...da_City_Guides

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Catego..._Topics-Canada

http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Category:Canada

+1

As per the rest. Read the Wiki. Then maybe come back with specific questions. Many people have added to the Wiki over the years to help people such as yourself. It's a great reference source.

The first thing you need to do is see via which route you can apply to immigrate to Canada. No point in looking at much else until you have identified a clear route into the country.

For starters I doubt if the FSW 1 route is open to you.

Are there ticket inspectors in Canada?

If Moby79 gets his way there will be at least one

Skytrain have them now in Vancouver, but don't believe there is a shortage of them.

I thought it was the transit police that checked tickets on the skytrain in BC?

See above.

I find this is a pretty big "it depends".

Car insurance - higher.
Clothing - lower.
Produce and fresh food - mostly higher.
Real estate - lower.
Cars - higher, but also generally are larger.
Petrol/gas - lower.
Alcohol - higher.
Packaged foods - lower.

So I think the kind of life you lead decides more if the cost of living is higher or lower than the UK... having lived in both countries I find it pretty much evens out, not sure I could pick one country to be slightly higher or lower.

Yes it probably nearly evens out.

It's difficult to include or comment on real estate as that completely depends on location (in both countries).

I think this depends on what your buying and what your getting, there is of course Old Navy and stores of there like. But on the other hand I found found certain bands of clothing to be much more expensive in Canada than the UK. In the UK I tend to shop at TK Maxx and I find the Canadian equivalent not nearly as good for choice and value.

I'm not a driver so can't speak about the cars and insurance, but house insurance seems to be quite a bit higher too. My house here - detached and bigger than the one in Bristol - cost less than half on the exchange rate then (8 years ago) but the insurance premiums about double, maybe more.

Public transport (where it exists) is quite good.

Groceries can be significantly less if you're willing to spend about 20 minutes extra a week paying attention to prices in the flyers. No coupon cutting, just a case of that supermarket offering many items at half the cost of the other one and then in reverse the following week.

When I told work colleagues I was emigrating, one of them - think early Alison Moyet, with shapeless dress and boots - told me she liked Canada because people didn't care what they looked like.

So true.

So under normal circumstances you might not want to buy things in Walmart - although they do have decent stuff as well as rubbish. But they do have perfectly decent casual wear and if the idea is to fit in, you won't look at all out of place in their jeans and T Shirts.

And since they sell Wranglers and Levis for $20 to $30, why pay more?

I've seen 'labels' in Sears and The Bay where the clothes were more than the same things in, say, Debenhams or Lewis's but they were just as likely to have good quality stuff for similar prices.