PLEASE HELP ME
 

Being in the family business ie running convenience stores around London you get to see people from all walks of life when standing behind a till, and my overall thought is "Time to Leave".

The UK was well on it's way to being a giant council estate well before the influx of refugees and asylum seekers, who nobody wants on the european mainland so they thought it best to shove them off onto that island that will welcome all with open arms.

New housing estates going up pretty much in every town in the UK with between 50% to 70% of the housing going to local authority says alot for where the UK is going as a nation. (I know the figures because my brother has worked for a number of local authoritiesl)

I didn't really give much thought about moving to Canada until we had our baby. As alot of parents out there know you look at life quite differently after the birth of your child.
Like many people, I am sick of living in the UK and am looking for a move to Canada.

I have family and friends in both BC Kelowna and Surrey and around Ontario (Brampton, Mississauga, Markham and Oakville) and am a bit stuck as to which province to consider.

My question is out of the two provinces which has a higher standard of living? taking into consideration, taxes, groceries, petrol, clothes and all the other essentials for everyday living.

Cheers everyone

MSS

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Hello MSS,

This is a topic that comes up with some regularity. Well both topics actually. The fact that the UK is going to the dogs -- to which some people respond that Canada is a breath of fresh air after the UK, other people respond that Canada is no better and no worse than the UK, and still other people repond that Canada is a dump compared with the UK. And the other question of whether this part of Canada is better or worse than that part of Canada (with the comparison between BC and Ontario being a rather popular one).

Never having lived in the UK myself, I won't get into the comparison between countries. Never having lived in Ontario or BC, I won't get into that comparison either. However, the most recent iteration of that discussion has been taking place in this thread.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

So let me get this right, you are fed up with the influx of refugees and asylum seekers and now you are going to become an immigrant yourself in Canada?
Unfortunately you live in the worst possible town in the UK if you don't like Eastern Europeans, I suggest you move within the UK as Canada also has it's own share of problems.

Do some research on Prince Edward Island, you may like living there.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

It is what it is Danny B...

But thanks for taking the time out to respond...

MSS

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

There are plenty of Eastern Europeans and other "unwanted" people in BC too. So many coming in, in fact, that my employer is going to pay for some of us to learn Polish, Albanian, Vietnamese or Arabic. I have had to give some of my collegaues a crash course in Islam, so that our dealings with some families respects cultural norms. Exchange council estates for welfare housing and private sector crack shacks, add the new rental assistance for those with large families and low incomes and you have the same housing issues. There is little or no infrastructure to support refugees and asylum seekers in BC, and as in the UK, many end up begging on the streets or turning to drugs/crime. Sound familiar? So do join the Canadian influx of newcomers, asylum seekers and refugees, understanding that over here, you are no better or worse than them and no one is going to distinguish you from the rest because you are a Brit. You may have a bit more space around your house in rural areas, but the world is no longer the exclusive domain of those claiming entitlement by birthright.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

As far as I can tell, Canadians are pretty tolerant of immigrants and have sympathy for refugees and asylum seekers, as any decent human being should. I don't think you'd like it here. My team at work consists of two Canadians, one English, a Serbian, a Russian, an Iranian, a Korean-Canadian and a Taiwanese. We all get along fine. This isn't an unusual mixture.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

What makes you select Canada - the world's biggest multicultural state and in fact the country that invented the doctrine of multiculturalism. If you have a problem with people from other backgrounds then you're going to hate urban Canada. Maybe if you move somewhere north of the Arctic Circle you might be ok, but then you should know there are some people there who also are not white.

The vast majority of Eastern European immigrants have every right to be in the UK and move here within the law. The houses that are being built and are going to assisted housing schemes is because properties in the UK are approaching terminal price velocity and this is the only way people get buy a home. I think your overall thought should be "learn more about globalisation".

Canada has every problem the UK has. There is just as much crime there, and urban and suburban property inflation. You can walk for hours in a Canadian city without hearing much English spoken.

There's not much in this world that irritates me as much as a British immigrant leaving the UK whining about immigrants coming to the UK. Talk about hypocrisy.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

I was having this conversation with my mother just the other day. I can't believe the arrogance of some (by far not all) english who moan about immigrants and decide they've had enough of it and instead become an immigrant. I have a housemate who is exactly like that. He is constantly on about how the immigrants come here and take the jobs from the British. So he's on about going to Australia. Go figure!

The problem UK have is the fact that no-one wants to take the jobs that are available for non-educated people. Jobs such as bus drivers, taxi drivers, factory workers, cleaners etc have to be filled one way or another so the eastern european people come here and snap them up.

Just recently I was told that there is now a school in Prague where they teach eastern european drivers to drive taxi in London.

I am an immigrant at the moment and I can say - the grass isn't greener on the other side of the fence. If you move for the wrong reasons you will never be happy. You have to move for the right reasons to make it work.

Good luck in whatever choice you make.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

I don't really have the energy to get into this one - but the OP stated he had potential issues with refugees and asylum seekers. That is not always the same as a legal immigrant - in any country. Having an issue, humane or not, with refugess or asylum seekers does not automatically make one a racist/bigot/hyprocrite - and this thread is about to go down that route.

However - both the UK and Canada are not that different in the needs and demands put on the welfare state.

Did the OP say he was against multi-culturism? Read his thread again. His main beef seems to be the increasing rates of local authority housing, ie, a bigger percentage of the population wanting or needing welfare assistance. Now whether he has acknowledged the horrendous house prices or not, that is his issue, or how I have read it.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Isn't it worse? Refugees and asylum seekers are usually fleeing persecution and are often lucky to be alive. To resent them for this seems to be lacking basic humanity.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

Which is completely wrong. Immigrants to Canada should expect to live by Canadian social and cultural norms. Not expect to import their own.

And I hope that the course you were taking makes it clear that some foreign "cultural norms" (such as inferior status for girls and women, or punishment for those who choose to follow a different faith or none) are completely unacceptable in Canada.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

Really? I don't see many people living according to First Nations customs and traditions.

Yes, you're right. I am being facetious.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

Thing is, did the "First Nations" have generic cultural norms? Today, we understand what we mean when we say Western cultural norms, and we do not mean, as JAJ points out, cutting off people's hands for theft or banning women from driving cars. Our cultural norms are what made our countries, and it to these countries that these people want to move.

Now any fool should be able to work out that if we dilute these cultural norms, we dilute the very reasons these people came here in the first place, in many cases to escape intolerance at home.

Also, and crucially, it is rarely the ethnic minority groups of immigrants that drive the multicultural agenda, but Western progressives.

As for the point made by an earlier poster about refugees: the poster clearly stated that it was time to leave the UK because of immigrants and council houses, neither of which are anything to be ashamed of.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

Oh my goodness.:confused: Many (not all) immigrants to Canada clearly expect to live by their social and cultural norms, because there are laws to protect their right to do so. Things that are illegal here - like female excision, religiously sanctioned abuse of women and child sex go on all the time, well hidden, but they are there. If you think I have the authority to challenge these traditions when I go out, you are very wrong. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali will give you an idea of what is going on here now. I don't agree with everything in Ali's book, but her analysis of how things really are from the immigrants point of view is interesting.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

Totally agree. Yes, yes, yes.