After some advice.

I have lived in Canada less than a year ago married 3 kids now. the last 2 kids were twins and one had the potential for severe disability so we moved back, my family is more tighnit than hers and we needed the help.
I have PR through trade pipefitter in alberta not sponsored by province so free to move around.
I took up driving after last price crash in 2015.
did oilfield driving In Hinton and other areas then hauled concrete in mixers before we left.
the mixer job was seniority so I can't go back they have hired a lot since.
wife isn't keen on going back to Berta as it was what she always knew and that's same reason I think of leaving Doncaster again.
were both in our 30s so next move is final one plus I have a pension to build so better settle.
less time away the better but I know what trucking is like.
I would like to hear from people in scotia, new brunswick or PEI.
we are happy in either province but would like the one with the better chance of an employer giving us more family time.
what's everyone's top choice of employers in each province any first hand experiences welcome. especially if your still there and they are hiring or will be in near future if we moved it's 12 months away.
affordable housing attracts to east and we are not interested in upselling so will be home for life. also a few acres wouldn't go a miss but I know I can't have everything I'd say max budget is 200k.

P.s admin I had this in trucking but the forum is quiet and despite it being job experience related I do want tales of people who are happy in the East as a family.

HI

1. First question, did you or your wife take out Canadian citizenship?
2. If no, Since the date of your "landing" have you resided in Canada for 2 years in the past 5 years? If not, you don't meet your residency requirement and it will mean difficulties in returning to Canada.

From his previous posts it appears OP’s spouse is a citizen.

HTH.

Aye wife is Canadian kids have duel. PR card is good till 2022, also as I understand it PR is good so as long as I am with a Canadian outside of country. I just need a permit to return if card expires which i get from consulate but as it stands no drama.

I know trucking hours are easier in UK but we enjoyed Canada a bit better for some reason.

Have you thought about Saint John? I mean NB ...Not St. John's NS.

It always seems to have a lot of work going on of the type you are mentioning. As it's on the coast it doesn't get the same horrid clammy summers we get and it gets nowhere near the snow and arctic freeze in winter.

I would sooner live in NB than Alberta, but I just didn't have good memories of Alta.

Might be worth considering- good luck!

cheers for your reply. Saint John's is in the hat then, where are you now?

Right at this VERY moment Saint John! I have come for a weekend break and It’s fun. Normally I am in Fredericton where I’ve been for the last eight years.

Give me a report on the market please. My SD and MIL miss the Jean-Talon one in Montreal.

It might be worth taking a moment to clarify which St John's you have in mind. Saint John is in NB, St. John's is in NL. I have yet to discover a Saint Johns in NS but i may be wrong.
NL right now is having a tough time and you its not easy/cheap to get off the rock, also the weather can be hard going there. Having said all that I want to add its also a great place!

We live in NS and you can get property with acres for 200k outside of Halifax. It is family oriented here. We live just north of the airport and I work in Truro which is a little town I really love. When you say you are looking for an employer to give you more family time do you mean shorter working days, more vacation, more consideration that you have a family?
For most 2 weeks vacation is standard but you can negotiate more. I have always had three weeks. The company I work for has a great work life balance culture, but not all companies are that way, depends on the leadership.

it will be vacation time mainly but if there are haulage companies doing shorter runs 2 weeks out or less (haha) that would be great but in trucking that's like finding unicorns.
I wouldn't go newfoundland although I have worked with some top people from there.
it's between NB and NS.
anyone living on these places notice much crime, as the wife would be on her tod for a while at times.

Very little. You'll find that people out in the sticks or smaller places will talk about some places as if they are full of no-go areas or like Bedford Falls becoming seedy Pottersville in It's a wonderful life.
Our realtor suggested we avoid a particular street when we were house hunting but if I transplanted it to Bristol it would be very desirable.

Levels of anti-social stuff is much less than I experienced back in Bristol too. Occasional reports of break-ins tend to involve garden sheds and the theft of tools rather than the house.

did you eventually buy rural or in city? do roads in sticks get ploughed much? what's difference in cost of living, having space is a big plus. is it a lower cost of living to be in city then buy land for recreation or just get an acreage half hour away from town.

I imagine a lot of that would vary wildly. I'm close to downtown but far enough away for it to be very quiet (almost a country village feel) but I'm 5 minutes walk from the city hospital and we get priority ploughing in the surrounding streets. School areas get that too. Sidewalks at least one side as well.

Go out a bit further and the major road is ploughed. There are properties close to that road with land so that would be okay. But minor roads or where the property was set some way back from the road that is ploughed, you could either be doing it yourself (dbd33 in Ontario does) or hiring a contractor.

I see complaints in the newspaper from people who live half an hour out of town about property taxes being high considering they don't necessarily get the 'in town' services like ploughing, water etc. But that could just be that some people like complaining.

Ha...now there's a coincidence and right on cue Cost of living in southern ontario

Apologies Bristol I did a good summation of Saint John and the market last night but then dinner was ready, I didn’t push Send, and I lost it...hate it when that happens! I will redo tomorrow...

OP I think Bristol and I live in similar areas within our cities. I wanted to be near Downtown and I can walk home up a big hill from my office in 20 minutes, it’s 4 mins, during C19 by car. I have a great big garden for the City, I hear very little noise, Harley Davidson’s clearing their throats on the breeze...but am far away enough to enjoy having neighbours but not have my life impacted by them.

I couldn’t live in rural Canada. I couldn’t even bear it for a weekend. I’ve lived in a few rural areas in other countries, but Canada is too big for me and the lack of people is scary. It suits some - and if it’s for you, it’s a good country to do it in.

I quite fancied the idea of a little summer something on a lake when we came here, but the reality of a six month winter with freezing rain and deep snow soon scotched that whim. I spend all summer trying to get ready for next winter, and I only have to plough the drive...

Crime is not something to consider. My husband works away for months at a time. I walk the dog for miles without thinking about it. There is drug crime here, but that is an exclusive section of people who bother one another and tend to leave the rest of us alone.

You may not need to. If you go to the message box and look down a little there should be a little restore text feature. If you click it, stuff you previously typed reappears.

It's possible that it may not if you typed something after but I have seen it restore text that I already used so you may get lucky.

It's quite handy when you type something, decide not to post it and then, later, decide you want to say it after all. Not sure if it's on a tablet though.