Hello,
I am 28 and currently living in Ireland with my girlfriend. I had been been living in Sydney, Australia for about 4 years previously and have been back in Ireland about 6 months. Due to my aussie girlfriends hassle with getting a visa in Ireland we are thinking of moving for a year to Canada. Getting a 1 year working visa should not be an issue for either of us. I have good experience of working in the IT sector, support/testing/project management, and my girlfriend is an experienced account manager.

Basically I am wondering where to go to and what the big cities have to offer? I always liked the sound of Vancouver in terms of climate and what the city has to offer being on the water and parks etc.(like Sydney) We still both lead an active social life and being Irish, of course I like to go out and enjoy myself at night. To be honest my knowledge of the other big cities is limited.

So hopefully some of you good people can offer some advice on what Canada has to offer! We are looking to get things moving on this as soon as we can.

Thanks.

From what i see on all other posts it seems that the east coast is the place to be! From what I heard before, Vancouver had it all in terms of jobs and lifestyle. Had a look at some job sites and it seems there are very few jobs there and especially no IT jobs......NB,NS and Ontario seem to have all the Jobs!!

There's quite a lot between both coastlines too, you know

I've not been to Sydney (at least, not the one in OZ) but have heard many people say that Vancouver and Sydney have a very similar feel and lifestyle.

I've been to both, and I'd agree with that statement.

A BE member, who has lived in Australia and who now lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island, has stated that Vancouver is like, say, Melbourne, and Victoria is like, say, Adelaide.

The reason I bring up Victoria is that it seems to have developed into a bit of an IT hub in recent years.

Roykeane, job sites are by no means the only source of information about job opportunities. I suggest you read the series of BE Wiki articles on job hunting in Canada.

that's for that info Judy and jonboyE. I had heard the same about vancouver in terms of it being like sydney and that appealed to me. It's good to be by the water. I suppose the lack of jobs that were being advertised scared me a bit! I will look at other job seeking options now too.
Also whats the story with vancouver and vancouver island? As in, is it distance or is it just a local term for a certain area of vancouver?

Cheers