A Little Bit of Help...
 

Hi all

Apologies if I seem a little lazy with not trying to wade through the threads here (or the net for that matter) but Im hoping someone could give me a little help and advice.

My partner and I really fancy a move to Canada and after visiting the Expo in Glasgow and doing a little research myself quite like the look of Ontario, particularly somewhere like Guelph or Burlington. We plan to narrow some potential places down to a handful and visit later in the year as theres only so much you can get from the web. Is there anywhere else we should consider? Is there anywhere suitable for a young family of 3 (and hopefully soon to be 4!) in the Greater Toronto Area that is pleasant, affordable and family friendly or should we stick to a smaller town/city?

I'm fairly clued up on the Visa time frame and costs but Im wondering about my employment chances. Firstly I am a CA (ICAS qualified) with nearly 3 years post qualified experience in practice. How easy is it to become Canadian qualified and how would one go about it? Also, is there plenty accounting/audit based work outside of the GTA (ie. in the places we plan to live)? Im a little concerned that Id have to seek work in Toronto's centre and commute as I do just now but to be honest its part of the reason I want to escape! As much as I love big cities to relax and explore (NY is a hoot) Id rather not work in the middle of them.

I have about a million questions but Im rambling and I'll probably be lucky to get a response at this rate! Id greatly appreciate to hear any views and opinions and look forward to hearing from at least some of you!

Thanks in advance

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Hi, and welcome to the forum.

Can't help with info on the areas you've suggested (but doing a search of the forums is bound to find some useful previous threads), but are you aware that 'the list' of 38 occupations in demand is changing soon?

It was announced earlier this week, and nobody knows what occupations will stay on it or be removed, so just in case you weren't aware you may want to get your application in asap in case they take accountants off it.

Best of luck with it all. :)

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Hi christmassompa

Yeah I know the list is likely to change soon but as we have only recently began to take to the idea of the Canadian dream seriously I would never want to rush into such a bid decision (and cost) just for the sake of a little gamble with "the list" and to ensure that we can make it in. But, from what I can gather, accountants/auditors are still in demand. They take years to train and I doubt that the countries needs will have been satisfied in the last 24 months (fingers crossed!). Im assuming that you pay for the application up front?

If things did go down the pan with regards to the skilled workers list we would be very open to the provincial route in any case - assuming that doesnt change too much with new laws. We have visited Halifax in Nova Scotia and really liked it. It might be a little too laid back and quiet for me but I could see myself being very happy there.

I'll check the searches to see if I can find anything but still very much open to any further advice and opinions.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

In fact apologies, Ive found some answers on the Wiki which I was rude enough not to read an hour ago. Sorry!

Looks like I would just need to take a final exam to get up to speed with Canadian accounting/auditing practices. Excellent!

Suppose now my partner and I just need to decide if Canada is for us, if Ontario (South West of Toronto-ish) is the place to live and whether we should get the finger out now or risk the skilled workers list changes.

Another question for any accountants out there, I see that your stereotypical Canadian is hard working and doesnt like slackers (fair enough!) so is your average accountancy firm comparable to those in the UK? The firm I work for is a fairly large Scottish firm but I rarely have to work overtime (and I mean rarely) and always do a 9-5. Ive always avoided the UKs big 4 as the hours they work are frankly a joke. I dont mind grafting and putting a shift in but not 8-7 working days with unpaid overtime every day of the week. Has anyone got any generalisations to offer on the Canadian accountancy scene (as well as financial accounting jobs within larger organisations)?

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I dont mind grafting and putting a shift in but not 8-7 working days with unpaid overtime every day of the week.

Wait until you find out you will probably only get two weeks vacation per year.

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:lol: I already know about that. To be honest, it isnt an issue for me. I actually find 4 weeks to almost be too much and regulary have to waste days at the end of the year or else loose them.

Canada is renowned for being laid back and family orientated and I guess I just want to know if people generally stick to the 9-5 days or is there an expectation of employees to do a heap of extra hours because firms cant set budgets/fees properly and someone has to pick up the slack (as is the usual way in the UK)!

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Actually Auld Yin, seeing as you are in the GTA, have you been to the likes of London, Guelph or Burlington? All will be a huge change from Falkirk anyway (Im in Scotland).

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Funny, I find the 47 odd weeks a year that I have to work a waste. I'd much rather be doing something else.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I would add Waterloo-Kitchener to your Recce as they are just down the road from Guelph.

I have spent 3 days in that area and if I had children it would be where I would head. Nice affordable real estate and a reasonable amount of amenities.

As always the key is where you can land work and what it pays as to the standard of living you will have.

With regards to Canada being laid back. Half day Friday's seem to be the norm where I am working in what some would consider a "pressurised" sales environment.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Yes. I've been to all three and more. All are decent places to live and raise a family. Good amenities, schools and recreation facilities. Yes, I've been to Falkirk also and change is the operative word. A prior post mentioned Kitchener-Waterloo which, as you probably know, is the home of the famous or infamous Blackberry and also a good place/area to live.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Add Georgetown, ON to your list, I lived there for a couple of years and it's a nice small town with good facilities and a community atmosphere.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Canada renowned for being laid back? I think someone may be pulling your leg.

As for your choice of areas, I'm Canadian and grew up in the Burlington area and can highly recommend it. We lived in the northwest of the city (Brant Hills area) for our last 10 years before moving to Australia and there are good schools, transport, amenities, etc. Now, if you're looking for laid back ways Australia is more likely to tick your boxes. Anyway, I digress. Burlington or Guelph, yes. London is not GTA and IMO not a particularly nice place to live.

As a matter of fact, we're discussing moving back to Canada, to Guelph in particular in 2012 so our daughter can attend veterinary school at the university there.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Thanks all for your help!

Fair enough Dorothy, just what I've read! Australia is a definate no no for me.

Alan, all I'm saying is that I wouldnt miss the 2 weeks holiday Id lose in the UK but of course, it'd be a different outlook in Canada.

In short, 2 weeks holiday isnt an issue for me. What is an issue is working long hours and not seeing my family. The firm I work for is a bit of a rarity in Scotland and the UK in that Im out the door at 5 and absolutely never work a weekend. Accounting firms in the UK generally expect longer hours in so far as budgets have to be met. It's kind of an unspoken requirement and if you left at 5 on the dot it wouldnt be long before you're out the door.

As I wrote before, I am not averse to working hard when required (at year ends for example) but it would be a serious issue if say a 35 hour week wasnt the norm. I have worked for my current employers for 5 years and it is time for a change (I actually start a new job at Lloyds in Edinburgh soon) but I love accounts preparation and there are very few places for me to go to that dont demand silly hours.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Hi,

Its worth checking out transport wherever you decide to move to. If you end up taking a job in Toronto the Go train is ideal. Check out the Go train timetables for destinations etc. The travel could add considerable time onto your 9-5?? working day depending on where you live. I think I worked out if I worked in Toronto I could end up leaving the house by 7am and getting back after 7pm. Depends where you live.

My OH will probably end up in Mississauga and this is why we are looking at Guelph and surrounding areas area as well. We have family over there but their town is just a liitle too small, we need a bit more going on especially with the kids.

Good luck.
BMM69

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I'm sitting in Guelph. It's a pleasant small town surrounded by fields and dominated by activities related to the university. It's just too far away to commute to Toronto. I'm at a loss to see how it's comparable to Burlington, which is a dormitory suburb of Toronto.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Thanks BMM69, appreciated.

At the moment Im leaving my home in Falkirk at 7.40 and getting home at the back of 6 (I work in Edinburgh). It isnt too much of a hassle to be honest except for regular shabby train time keeping and cancelations but I certainly wouldnt want to be away from the wee man for much longer than that if possible.

My ideal situation would be finding a cracking area such as Guelph and working there or commuting to one of the other nearby towns/cities if there is accountancy based work there rather than travelling to Toronto every day. I really like the idea of having this huge city very near to me for fun and games but keeping most of my life to the smaller towns/cities.

As Ive not been to the area I guess Im scaling things up from my current Falkirk/Edinburgh life in Scotland which is why I might sound a little naive in wondering whether places like Burlington, Guelph, Hamilton and all the others mentioned above will have the accountancy based opportunities that Im looking for or whether these are largely commuter only towns. At the moment Im living in a town which cant have any more than 50,000 spread over it and working in a city with at most half a million in its immediate vacinity (though it is one of the UKs financial hubs).

Thanks for all the help so far though, very much appreciated and any more advice and opinions would be great.

ps - dbd33 - I guess that's why I'll need to do a lengthy visit some time soon to see whats suitable myself. Ive heard a lot of good things about Burlington though the other half really likes the look of Guelph. Thanks for the input though!

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

What are the good things about Burlington? Note that it's not that I have some great hatred for Burlington, rather that I'm not able to distinguish it from the rest of the sprawl, I don't think there's any there there.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Well, I've read a few good things. It's probably all sales pitch! :lol:

Like I say, I'll just need to see for myself when I come over for the full on research trip. Exciting times though!

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

When you do your recce book in and go and see some finance recruiters in those areas. Whilst I hate recruitment consultants they'll be able to give you some advise on work opps. Also keep on eye on Workopolis.ca to see what come's up in those areas- the jobs won't always advertise salary but when they do you'll be able to build a picture over time of what to expect.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Thanks James. I was having a bit of bother finding a decent job site so hopefully this'll help build the picture.

In fact, really big thanks. This site has a whole lot of jobs in all the ares mentioned above that I could do so quite encouraging.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Expect to meet lots of "serious issues" in Canada then. I have no idea about the accounting profession, but I cannot imagine many occupations in Canada where a 35 hour week (7 hours a day) is considered the norm (outside of part time work). Both my kids in school put in a 30 hour week:p:rofl:

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Fair enough and thanks for the heads up. I read somewhere that North American businesses tend to operate to a 40 hour week. Are we talking 8-5/9-6 here or are people like machines and power through their lunch?!

Ive found out a family member of a friend moved to Canada some years ago so my pal is trying to get some more details on the average working day.

If it's longer days and less holidays I guess it will come down to just how much we hate the UK just now (a lot) and how much we fancy/need a change. Im probably being very guilty of looking at things from a very black and white UK view point - there's a lot more to moving than the hours you graft after all.

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I don't think I've worked in an office in Canada where people took lunch, in the sense of leaving their desks, they do eat but it's not customary to stop typing while eating.

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I love how we are almost discussing eating habbits here :lol:

If thats the case then it shouldnt really be a problem. An hours lunch is too long for me here in the UK. I just sit on the net wasting it doing hee haw. If working through it all or taking a half hour and finishing at half 5 or something is regular then the "longer " working days wont be putting me off.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I'm not an accountant and they may have a more whimsical, happy go lucky, approach to life than other office workers, but your view of working life is greatly at variance to that common here. I don't think you're putting the company first.

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I don't really understand what you are trying to say but that would take some changing on my part as that is very much not the UK attitude to work!

At the end of the day I will always put my family and spending time with my year old boy first. If the general working environment of Canada will present some sort of obstacle to that then I suppose it isn't really for me.

As I said earlier I just dont see the fun in regular 9 or 10 hour days (not including commuting time) where I would only see my son awake at the weekends. Living in a beautiful country and experiencing a different way of life is one thing but if I cant do that with my family then its frankly a little disappointing.

I'll graft as well as anyone during my contracted hours - I just get a little tetchy when it comes to regular unpaid overtime thats all ;)

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

When I'm working on site I do a minimum of 84 hours a week (7 days x 12 hours), in reality more like 100 hours.

Now that I'm back in Calgary, it's down to a much more relaxed 50-odd. I'm at my desk by 6:30am and usually leave around 6pm.

Early starts are very much the norm here. Most people are in work by 7am.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Cheers for the info. It's something I'll have to weigh up and consider. Its not enough to put me off but it would be a massive change. Probably more than the move itself :lol: What do you work as? If you dont mind me asking.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I do think you'd need to prepare yourself for working longer regular hours than you're hoping for. I think a 35 hour week is only for those pretend workers in the public sector... ;)

I'm a contracts manager for an oil & gas consultant.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

That's fair enough and I appreciate the warning. Like I say, it all comes down to the pay off you get from working longer hours and whether we, as a family, think it would be worthwhile.

All I can say is that even an extra hour to my current day here (which is 7+1 for lunch) would result in me not getting home until about 7 which as it stands would mean genuinely only seeing my son awake for 20/25 minutes in the morning from Monday to Friday. That isn't enough, I value my time with him over anything else and I wouldnt be happy with that life unless the weekends were something truly special. A 40 hour week is very much acceptable but regularly creeping over that would be an issue.

Scotlands suspect train service has a lot to blame for the longish commute times minds you. Hell on Earth springs to mind :lol:

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

In a nutshell that it's unprofessional to take the position that " I will always put my family and spending time with my year old boy first". Employers cannot prevent you from having children but conveying the idea that your first loyalty is not to the firm is very much a career limiting move. If you want to see the child awake on weekday evenings then you should think in terms of taking work home so as to be able to combine working and viewing.

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:thumbup:

8-4, 5 weeks holiday and a 20 minute commute. Life's not so bad here.

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Are you for real?! Sorry if I feel you are on a bit of a wind up here.

I suppose you can argue that it is unprofessional but I really hope that your particular outlook on life isn't one shared by Canadians in general as in my opinion this sort of attitude is inconsiderate, almost incredulous, and not to mention being poor parenting (in my opinion of course).

Perhaps you are just trying to wake me up to the reality of the situation but my particular view point on working life is that I am doing an employer a favour by working for them rather than them doing me a favour by employing me. If this outlook on life needs readjusted then fair enough, I'll look into it. I wasnt really expecting working life to apparently be so extremely different to that found in the UK. It's certainly contrary to most of what Ive read and enquired about thus far.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

Thank God! I thought Canada was turning into a military zone for a minute there...

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You seem to have a decent job and you live in Scotland. Why would you want to go through all the hassle and expense of moving to somewhere without the security of a decent job, take the wee man out of Scotland's very good schools, have to eventually stump up tuition money for higher ed., live in an urban sprawl of sub-divisions, box stores and strip malls, suffer brutal winters and hot, humid and mosquito infested summers, live next to people who will barely talk to you just because you fancy it? On the other hand it could be the move of your life, the making of you and a real chance to give your family, especially the wee man, a decent quality of life. And they don't really have proper pubs in Scotland anyway so you won't miss that.

Re: A Little Bit of Help...
 

I am for real and would point out that the opinions of "Canadians in general" are, by and large, irrelevant. In the workplace your competitors are going to be other immigrants so it's the degree of commitment offered by recent arrivals from poverty stricken countries that should be your benchmark. You need to seem more driven than they are.

The quality of your "parenting" is not, of course, a matter of interest to your prospective employers. It should not become necessary for your employer or co-workers to know of the existence of the child.

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I think dbd's offering you a reality check - the corporate world here is just as competitive and cut-throat as anywhere else, but without some of the security that European employment legislation provides employees.

Holiday allowances are often less than you'd be accustomed to, and hiring/firing is a fact of life. His heads-up is realistic in terms of the work environment that you're possibly going to be exposed to in the GTA.

It's different in a smaller city where competition is less intense, and it's also quite different as Jingsamichty mentioned in the public sector, where work practices are heavily influenced by unions.

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You must be gutted you'll have to use holidays and take time off work to do this :p

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I do understand what you are saying and I apologise if I seem a little lackadaisical about the potential hours or rude.

I am certainly not work averse but on the other hand I am certainly not desperate. If another foreigner wishes to do silly hours then fair play to them. I have a limit to my working day in mind and will stick with that. I just value family life more than I do any job. I hope I dont come across too poorly with that attitude.

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I do have a decent job and I will hopefully be starting a nicer one in a month but Im just feeling the doom and gloom of the UK and have done since before the recession. Maybe its Falkirk FCs fortunes on the pitch thats doing it... ;)

But, as you say, I do see it as a chance to get a decent quality of life and to experience something new. Im not expecting some playground where fun's to be had at all times.

Saying "I fancy it" wasn't meant to be taken quite as it sounds :lol: Just a bit of banter. We are very keen on the idea.