Hi everyone! Sorry this might be a long one! My wife has the opportunity to move to Canada with work and we are seriously considering this. We have twin 4 year olds, a dog and are a married same sex couple. The salary would be between 92 - 110 thousand Canadian dollars and we would be able to bring 130k (pounds). We are thinking Toronto is the best fit but we would like a decent sized house and garden, some views, easy access to countryside and a really liberal vibe with good schools. Happy to travel an hour or so to reach Toronto. Does such a place exist?! Would we be able to afford it financially? Any other area suggestions (could do Ottawa and a number of other places in Canada). We are going out for a visit soon but would be so helpful to hear any thoughts from the experts (we are as far from that as possible!). Absolutely any thoughts or advice very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi, and welcome to BE.

Would the salary be the same if your wife worked from another office? Just that the salary will go much further in other areas, so perhaps a consideration. Can she be based anywhere or is there a list of offices to chose from? Those in the Toronto area will be along shortly to help you I'm sure.

Assume she'll be going on an intra-company TWP? If so, another thing to check is that she'd qualify for Permanent Residency just in case you decide you want to stay permanently.

Best of luck to you.

Thank you very much! Salary would be in line with the area so likely a little less for somewhere less expensive than Toronto. There is a list of offices but basically seems to be options of Ottawa, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec and lots of others. We had narrowed down Toronto as our favourite but not sure we can get what we want in terms of lifestyle / being able to afford it! My wife only needs to go into the office once a month. Thanks again.

Each location would likely be able to offer you what you are after, based upon your first post.

What do you like to do that would be affected by your location? That will enable others to provide suggestions.

Thank you! We enjoy doing lots of things with our children so family friendly would be great. Being somewhere liberal and tolerant is really important with good school options. We love space so a big house and garden and ideally able to access woods, countryside and so on. We currently live in Brighton UK and it offers a good mix of city life and culture and we can be in open countryside in 10 mins. But we need to be realistic about what we can afford or whether this is cloud cuckoo land! Toronto fits on paper but we don't want to and couldn't afford to live in the centre. Thanks again.

If your wife only needs to go into the office once a month then maybe live much further out which will help considerably with affordability and space, plus access to countryside. We live in a rural area about 25 mins from the small city of Guelph. My husband probably goes downtown Toronto about once a month also - he drives to the GO train station in Oakville (about an hour) and then takes the train (about 30 mins). Its a relatively stress free way of doing it, not something you would want to do every day but every now and again it's a good option.
Guelph is a city that serves a predominantly agricultural area, as a result it's a bit rough around the edges but has some tremendous restaurants and micro breweries focusing on local produce.
There really is no substitute for coming to take a look for yourselves.

Wanting a big house and garden is likely to rule out Vancouver (if you wish to purchase) but all your requests are likely to be met by all of the other locations you have suggested.

I used to work in a law firm in downtown Calgary in which half of the staff were in same sex relationships so I do not believe your request for somewhere liberal or tolerant will rule out many places in Canada.

What do you hope to do in the countryside? What do you mean by countryside? Countryside in Canada and countryside in the UK are two very different beasts, and how you interact with them can be deceptively different, depending on where in Canada you are.

It is an exciting opportunity. I realise that most of your questions are involved in deciding whether or not to make the move, but I would start a step further back and ask why, overall, would you want to move to Canada and why would you want to leave the UK and your life there? What will make a move to Canada a success and what are your red lines for calling it a day.

If you have already pondered these things, then I wish you and the family all the best for the adventure that awaits.