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.

Re: PLEASE HELP ME
 

:)

If you have a problem with immigrants, perhaps best staying away...

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

It's one of those things, if you mention immigrants being a reason for leaving in your post, everyone jumps on your back

Lets get something completely straight, "I don't personally have a problem with immigrants or refugees" my problem is the system here.

My point was that the infrastructure in the uk can barely support the people already here let alone the influx.

Guys this wasn't meant tobe a political statement, just the observation of a shop keeper who interacts with ALL.

Every person has there right to something better in life but it's all well and good if that life is pursued with the support of a goverment, anything less then that makes you a burden to your fellow man and causes resentment, not through any fault of your own.

We all have different experience with different people, my family has been in the UK for 35 years and the abuse we put up with in the 70's is nothing compared to what we put up with now from local kids to the recently arrived.

Is this what the norm has become (I hope not), but this country is to small for you to get away from it, no matter which city you move to.

I know the grass may not be greener on the other side, but the grass isn't even growing on this side.

Just my pennies worth.

Sorry for the misunderstanding......


Anyway, back to my original question...

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.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Let's face it, anywhere is going to be better than Slough

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

This morning I drove into town with the top down on my car but put it up as I left the highway. I do this because driving into Toronto in an open car offers a Bonfire of the Vanities type wake up call. If the car is open there is nothing to prevent the skanky meth whores from leaning in and they do so in droves. I fear things leaping from their Winehouse hair. I steered around them and parked. As I left the car park a crazed beggar spoke to me. I ignored him as I ignore them all, an average of 42 per day since I started counting. "**** you" he said, as they usually do "****ing acknowledge me". I walked on, "I'll ****ing pound your ****ing head into the ****ing..." I didn't hear what as I was then within the ambit of the next beggar and he was louder.

"Gone to the dogs" I chuckled. "What a dump".

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Actually I'dve said that Slough and the GTA could be twin cities from an urban sprawl and architectural perspective?

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Come friendly bombs and fall on Vaughan.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Come on - admit it! You got this material from the Ontariotourism site!

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Around here it's a lot like Sydney, the King's Cross bit of Sydney.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Never been there. Probably never will go there. If it's anything like London's King's Cross I get the picture. Or certain parts of NYC I've seen. Worse was New Orleans though. Certain parts of Vancouver none too pretty either.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Yep, Slough is crap, admitted:o, but I won't here anything about the architecture Atlantic Xpat...

Haven't you seen the new tesco's?? LOL

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Slough is where "The Office" was filmed wasn't it.

*Trying to get a picture in my head of Slough*

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

I love Nawlins! Yes, it's dangerous but it's special. The problem with Toronto is that it doesn't have charm or beauty to offset the roughness, it's like Chicago in that regard, a mass of unremarkable houses and flats some with drugs and guns, some without. There's no garden district, no French Quarter, it's more Algiers (LA) than New Orleans.

And yes, one King's X seems much like another.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Tesco's in Slough:

http://route79.org/journal/?p=32

The Royal Ontario Museum:

http://canada.archiseek.com/unbuilt/...ion/index.html

Advantage Slough.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

My god is that before or after these guys had a go at it?

http://www.controlled-demolition.com/

That is bloody awful.:eek::eek::eek:

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Imagine Chernobyl after the reactor went ping!!!

My mum was born in Slough fortunately for my sister and i she had the sense to move away. Horrible!!

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

erm ok then I'll take Slough off my "places to visit list" :rofl:

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

And very, very, expensive.

Toronto has a long history of bland buildings and has a kind of architectural inferiority complex, thus any weird thing can get built here so long as the designer seems important and it costs a lot. I'm trying to find a picture of the AGO which is built on stilts, presumably in case of flooding on McCaul St.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

you wouldn't be talking about this thing would you?

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

That's the one. Thank you.

Does Slough have anything similar?

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

no such luck just one big grey concrete expanse. i think the only grassland left is in the middle of the countless roundabouts.

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

omg thats a crazy looking building

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Another one that gives meaning to the phrase.

"Someones taste is all in their mouth." :eek::eek::rofl::rofl:

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Guys.....

BC or Ontario

LOL

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Neither, ALBERTA.:p

Re: A moan and eventually a ?
 

Alberta;)