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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I love how we are almost discussing eating habbits here

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.

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.

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

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.

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 What do you work as? If you dont mind me asking.

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.

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