ABD79

Aaah, just realised that this post was from you. As you'll see, I swallowed my pride and replied in a polite and naive way just in case you were serious. I see now that, again, you were being rude. Sorry, but I don't get my kicks out of making fun and being rude to people. This is the fourth or fifth time you've taken the time to reply to me in a negative, condescending, mocking or rude manner. I'm kindly asking you to stop please. I am only looking for answers to my questions. Not a "put down" contest. So if you don't have an on topic answer then would it be ok if you just don't reply please? I mean that with absolute genuinity and kindness. Many thanks.

christmasoompa

Sorry, but you don't get to dictate who replies to you, or in what manner.

Please take a step back from the keyboard, as you seem to be taking things a bit too personally - the post above was just a bit of sarcasm, it wasn't rude or putting you down at all.

Ditto the comment about paragraphs (which I agree with FWIW, your posts are very hard to read), it wasn't rude at all, just pointing out that you'll get more responses if you break your posts up a bit so people don't just skim over them.

British banter and sarcasm are the norm around here, it's what makes BE great, particularly for expats who are missing that type of humour. But it's not personal at all and hopefully you'll see that in time and realise that Dorothy (and others) have actually given you lots of fab advice.

Any insults or abuse, and rest assured the mods will always take action (hit the report button on the post in question in case we don't see it).

Hope that helps you work BE out a little - if you've not already read it yet the 'newbies' sticky thread is essential reading.

HTH.

ABD79

Thank you, it's just there was a series of comments by her that I felt unnecessary. And while I'll take things thrown at me to a point, there does come a time where I'll say something back. Tonight being that time. It was just too much for me. I can take good humour and banter, but not when it's done in a way to mock, put down or criticise in a way that does come across rude rather than constructive. Life is far too complicated and tough sometimes, without a stranger trying to take advantage of your tolerance which I felt was the case given the number of comments that aren't necessary until I finally bit back. But that's genuinely not me. That's not how I like to live or be towards others. And I'll go with it for so long, but only for so long before I need to say something. I do appreciate your last comment though, it was both polite and comstructive. Many thanks.

ABD79

Just re-read this and clearly you misunderstood something I said or took it out of context because I made no reference whatsoever about anything she has been through. If you look you will see that I replied in a very supportive and kind way. I, at no point, said anything untoward about anything she has been through.

caretaker

I say go for Alberta, (but I'm Canadian so biased).

Photoplex

Siouxie

Because she went to the trouble of explaining her move to Australia, what life had been like in the various places she has lived in Canada - and lastly, and most importantly - she conveyed to you the loss of her son.

Anyway...

Sometimes it takes an 'outsider' being a little blunt to make someone realise that perhaps they are obsessing about things - even things that are least likely to happen. It's not the regulars being mean, they are stating what they are seeing from your posts. I know that sometimes the written word can be misconstrued, so perhaps take it on board that the majority of peoples comments are them trying to be helpful, not trying to be contentious.

As I said in my post here - what's perhaps more important is deciding whether you could be happy in Canada and whether your children will settle, rather than the very small chance that someone, somewhere, has a gun - or that there's a spider.

Forums can be funny places but this is one of the better ones. We genuinely care and try to give advice that will be helpful to someone contemplating the move - and if sometimes the comments aren't quite what you were hoping for (or even off topic) you really should take them on board - after all, these people have made the move (often with very young children) and can offer you the best advice possible - life experience.

Best of luck with whatever you decide..

Pollyana

Just to add to that - ABD79, you mentioned the forum "family" earlier; with the amount you have posted lately ypu are becoming part of that forum family, people are remembering stuff about your kids and where you live etc. Like it or not you have been drawn a little into the community. And if you do end up moving somewhere then the BE community may well become even more important to you. When most of us emigrated we turned to BE for support, whether it was on how to deal with cockroaches, bears, snales, wolves, spiders or co-workers, BE friendships ahve got many of us through some very very dark times.
Some of us have met in person, some will only ever be cyber-friends, but we all value these links, and all know that we can turn to our forum friends when we need them.

Chill out a bit more, and read some of the dafter fun threads -they are just as valuable as they will give you a taste of the whole life experience in another country, rather than just concentrating on the scary bits

spouse of scouse

Why would you bring up the number of times someone posts

Just wanted to point out that if you meant it as an insult, it wasn't a very good one! Dorothy's been a member for over 11 years - if you keep posting at your current rate you'll be hitting 50,000 by then. Which is great, especially if you've spent as much time helping other people as Dorothy has.

jerryhung

I don't know if you've noticed <snip>, but folks here have gone out of their way to help you, give you advice, offer you perspective, be kind, be nice, be helpful.

As to your responses to Dorothy, they are ick and off-base IMO

Danny B

Here is my advice:

Don't move to Canada if you don't like snow or cold weather. (Vancouver Island is the exception)

Don't move to Western Australia if you don't like the heat. Don't move to any part of Australia if you don't like creepy crawlies.

old.sparkles

I wonder do you even look at who you are replying to and if you have read any other comments from them that might contradict what you are about to type and whether or not you consider that their comments are rude perhaps it would be helpful to take a step back and re-read what has been written before replying just so you see the big picture and not just a reflex response to one line in a post that perhaps you have taken out of context which if you stepped back and looked at all the posts made as a whole you might realise were other members trying to be helpful to you and that it is all one community, we are all in this together whether that be planning a move or giving advice from the perspective of moves already made but also realising that asking the same question multiple times and ignoring advice given isn't really helpful to your situation and will just add to your own levels of confusion about the possible moves your family could make so maybe it would be helpful to only ask a question once, listen to the advice given and then if needs be ask a follow up question so that you get the best picture possible for you to base your decision on because you need to see the whole picture to make that decision it seems with as much information as you can gather freely from forum members, both positive and negative, and don't forget you can supplement that information with what s available on Wikipedia, google, youtube, and similar and then you will have the widest perspective on what emigration could mean for you and your spouse and your children whether that be god or bad or indifferent, only you can decide on what is the best, in discussion with your spouse obviously and perhaps from other family members also since moving to another country can put a strain on relationships with your family and friends, and also take into consideration that they will not be able to play such an active role in your children's lives, or yours, if you do decide to make the move - obviously based on the most information you can gather because you want to be the best mother and make the best decision for your children who are obviously your life but you also have a fear of spiders that impacts highly on the decision to move to Australia so therefore are now considering Canada which I do not know much about but you have been given lots of helpful information from members who currently live in Canada as either natives or as expats, as well as helpful information from Dorothy who has views on both countries even if you do not particularly like her posting style or the fact that she pointed out that very long paragraphs with few breaks are difficult to read and follow the information given and likely to lead to you talking round in circles which is why I suggested that it may be better to ask a question only once and then build on that response or the many responses that you may receive from the forum members again remembering that what can seem negative is equally helpful when it comes to making a decision and you can check out a members posting history to see if they have a balanced view on how things are if you click on their name and look at the drop down menu then you can see that you can see the option to see other posts made by a member to see if their view is overly negative, overly positive or whether they strike a good balance to provide an overall realistic view of what it can mean to move to another country.

By the way, happy reading and do you know brianw?

Steve_

Bit late to this one but honestly I've got to say moving to Calgary at the current time is not a terribly good idea imo. First off, the exchange rate is total crap.

The economy in Calgary went down the crapper when the price of oil fell and I'm starting to get pretty worried about it because the NDP seem to think they can just go on spending. There is currently 12 million sq. ft. of empty office space downtown - which is more than the total of downtown Vancouver.

The general idea the NDP seem to have is that they can spend spend spend and at some point the price of oil will go back up and save them, but I see no real signs of that happening, I think there is a good chance this is a permanent slump and oil prices will never recover markedly.

The NDP keep spending because their core vote are the government employee unions. So now there is a gigantic deficit and imo after the next provincial election in 2019, taxes are going to absolutely skyrocket. There is already pressure to raise residential property taxes as Calgary has very high property taxes on offices, which scares away any possible tenants.

So in this backdrop, the city wants to build the green line LRT which will cost billions, finish the ring road, which is costing huge sums, and finish the flood mitigation which is also extremely expensive.

I can't see it ending well honestly, even if you've got a job offer.

As far as healthcare goes, day to day it's better than anything in the US because it's so much cheaper, but as soon as you get referred to a specialist the wheels come off. I got a referral to an endocrinologist the other day - appointment is in October (after much nagging). ENT specialist phoned me up, appointment will be "sometime" in 2019. And bear in mind there's no private option like there is in the UK. Even if you think you can go to the US and speed it up, in reality you can't because AHS won't act on the recommendations of a foreign physician. Say it turns out you need an operation.

So AHS are already struggling quite badly.

Also, just on a basic level, winter effectively lasts seven months of the year here, at least by British standards. October and April are around the level of a British winter and everything inbetween takes some doing to get through.

TBH I've been thinking about moving because Alberta seems to me to be approaching a cliff edge at a rapid clip. Some of the ideas being spouted by politicians are just stupid, e.g. getting tech companies to move here. Why would they move here and even if they did, they are barely going to scratch the office space problem.

And now it looks as though there is going to be an NDP govt. in BC that opposes the Kinder-Morgan pipeline which the NDP govt. in Alberta supports. I'm sure that won't cause any problems.

What I do know is that the population growth estimates for Alberta were and are total fiction, they just assumed the population would keep on growing at a rapid clip forever and there's actually been a net loss of population the last few years. Without oil and gas, God knows what we're going to do. Another thing I keep hearing politicians spout: "diversification". Into what, exactly? You can only make so many series of Fargo here.

Pollyana

Such a legend he gets his own paragraph!

ABD79

This is my point EXACTLY. You have just proved exactly what I've been saying. You've taken it upon yourself to purposely write something without any full stops, which I never did, to try and make fun, be rude and assert your authority because you're one of the "community" as you said who obviously "hangs out" here and enjoys belittling newcomers. I haven't "gone round in circles." I have simply tried replied to reply to everyone who has answered my question! I asked a question about bears as someone mentioned them first, and I stated that bears don't scare me. Somebody mentioned first that the schools don't have fences, I said I was surprised and a couple of people responded and I replied. Somebody mentioned that Canadians had a lot of guns so I looked in to it and was shocked to see the news reports of increasing gun violence and how calgary's gun crime was "increasing rapidly at an alarming rate" as one Calgary newspaper, among others, highlighted. Should I not ask about this when I have a family of three very children? That guns are rife, schools are unfenced with open front doors, crime is on the increase and it's basically only a matter of time before a disaster happens? I'm not to ask about that? You think I should just pack up my children's belongings and blindly whisk them off to a country I haven't done any research on?
I have looked on other sites as well thank you. I am well versed in how to use the Internet. I THOUGHT that by coming in here I could ask questions freely, as they came to me, and chat openly without judgement or criticism because this is, after all, just a forum. I had no idea when I first posted here that people used this site to fill some of their day, that they actually had "friends" here and that it was a "community," as you said, of people who group together and will be sarcastic and judgemental, even criticising the way somebody constructs their paragraphs, or lack of, all for a joke at their expense. So enjoy your life here. Clearly this forum means a lot to you, and the rest of the people who have taken it upon themselves to be judgemental, rude, belittling and used me to assert their (and your) authority as "regulars" of this "community." Clearly this isn't my world so if you could just stop now that would be great. I don't want to waste my time having to reply and defend myself. I have a full and active life and some forum isn't part of it. I simply came here for a bit of advise on relocating. I just can't understand for the life of me why your obsession with posting on this forum, like a couple of others here, would run THAT deep that you need to be rude and judgemental. Help regarding relocating if you wish. If you believe I'm "obsessing" about my research on a country and the safety of my family prior to a life changing move then keep that to yourself. Save your time and don't comment on it. Why would anyone use up their life commenting on such things? And finally, it's also clear that there's a strong pack mentality here. It's quite scary that this is what you enjoy...seeking out someone and basically attacking them. So please, for your sake and mine just leave this alone now. Do something much better with your time and allow me to do the same. Thank you.
P.S. As you will note, I purposely left out the paragraph breaks just for you. There's no need to comment on it!