Not being on here for a while but I know how good it is for searching out info. I appreciate any help or advise you can give.

We have lived out here in Saskatoon for the past 10 years and have PR status. My eldest son has applied to attend Waterloo university commencing September 2015. If he is accepted we intend to move out there as a family. The main reasons are to support my son whilst he attends University also it would be a lot cheaper than if he stayed in residency. There are other reasons why we wish to move away from here as well. Saskatoon is a wonderful city and we have enjoyed our time here, but it is time to move on. Below is a check list of things that we see as positives towards this move.

Better climate
Cheaper house prices
Closer to UK for family visits - Direct flights
More things to see and do - Niagra,Toronto special events, USA within driving distance, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, places we have not seen before.
Better road/driving conditions.
More advanced culture/society
My passion is coaching youth soccer. I know the game is more advanced in ON so this will be less frustrating than over here in the prairies.

My concern is that we don`t see many negatives and we are wondering if we are missing anything. We also have a 11 year old daughter who we feel will have no problem settling in as she is a social butterfly. The only pain for me and my wife will be to find new employment. We do not need to earn big money as we are financially comfortable and debt free. We just need to earn a modest income, I currently work as a shipper/receiver for a trucking company. I have my Class 1A licence but would ideally not like to go back on the road. If I did I would only wish to do local work and not long haul. My wife works as a care worker for the elderly and is qualified in various aspects of her profession. I am sure my wife would have no trouble finding work.

We as a family visited the area last year (25 years anniversary at the Falls) and stayed in Hamilton and spent time in Toronto. Whilst we were out there we were impressed with the feel of the place and were ironically contemplating moving there. Funny how things turn out.

If we are missing anything or you have any advice for us, please post.

Thanks
Peter

Nothing to add but best of luck!

Thanks caretaker. I obviously know were
Regina is, but Oliver?

Have you really looked/researched house prices in Ontario, particularly those within commuting time to the GTA. I have family in Saskatoon and my limited knowledge of the Saskatoon real estate market suggest you're quite off base thinking homes are cheaper in Ontario.

It's in southern BC, in the Okanagan Valley. It is considered to be the "wine capital" of the region because of its many vinyards.

Sounds similar to the reasons we will be heading that way in the next few years. We eete stunned by the property choices in what we hope to be our budget, so much cheaper than where we are to where we want to move, taxes do seem higher though.

the only downside we saw was more traffic, but people were on the whole more aware of the road around them.

If they are moving to the KW area (Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, or any of the smaller towns in the area) the GTA isn't relevant.

Although I don't live in KW any more, I did spend a decade there while in university (BA - University of Waterloo, MA - Wilfrid Laurier University, PhD program - McMaster University so no, it didn't take me a decade to do undergrad ) and am there regularly to see friends who still live in town so if you want any specific info about the area, or the university, just pop me a PM and I will be glad to help out in any way I can.

Thanks for the reply great to hear from somebody who has spent time there. I am just trying to get a picture of how life will be once we move there, which I feel will be a formality. We intend to buy property near to the main campus. My son does drive and has his own vehicle. Question is, do students who live close by use bikes to travel into the campus on a daily basis? The area does look ideal for biking and the weather should be conducive all year round. Is Waterloo very much a bike friendly university or not?

Thanks
Peter..

Er? Cycling in winter? People do but very rarely. What do you think the weather will be like?

Tomorrow in Saskatoon it is -15 (-26 with windchill) and in Waterloo it is showing +3. Having lived in the prairies for the last 10 years we are more than capable of dealing with a change of climate. The weather is the least of my concerns, I am trying to get a logistical picture of how the campus works.

OK I was trying to be helpful you know! That is not typical weather for Ontario in December and you seem to think that cycling is possible all year round. Well if you don't mind cycling in snow, slush, and ice then I suppose it is.

The +3 weather is very much the exception rather than the rule at this time of year.

Good Lord don't do that! The majority of the housing near campus is in the student ghetto and you do not want to buy there. Trust me, just don't even think about buying there. Hell, as a grad student I didn't like living in the student ghetto with all of the undergrads so you would hate it if you are a family. Do you really want to wake up to empty beer bottles on your lawn or to have your wife go out at night and find drunk students (sadly, both male and female) pissing on your lawn?

And keep in mind that Wilfrid Laurier University is three blocks down the street (University Ave.) from the University of Waterloo so the students from both universities live in the same area.

The main student ghetto is roughly bordered by Westmount Rd., University Ave., King St. (Weber St. might be more accurate actually), and the area south of where Weber and Albert St. meet north of the Laurier campus. While that is the main student ghetto there are also significant student areas close by (ie. the area between Albert and King south of the Laurier campus, roughly down to either Erb or Bridgeport) where nobody in their right mind, other than undergrad students, would ever want to live.




Some do, some walk, some drive. I owned a car so I either drove or walked. I tended to drive to UW, which had plenty of parking, and walked to Laurier which has far less parking.

And keep in mind that a bike isn't practical during the winter.

From my understanding the public transit system in KW is decent (as I said, I owned a car so never used it and only heard about it from friends) and buses go right on to the UW campus. As I was finishing at UW there was a push on to get a bus pass included in the ancillary fees that students pay meaning that every student had a bus pass (their WatCard, UW's name for a student card, was to be used as their bus pass). I didn't pay any attention to that initiative but, so far as I know, it was passed so that students now automatically have bus passes.



The weather is in no way conducive to bike riding year round. Waterloo gets far more snow in the average winter than the Greater Toronto Area does.



I'm not sure what your criteria for 'bike friendly' would be but there are bike racks all over campus at which one can lock their bike.

But keep in mind what I've said about the weather as I think you have the wrong impression about the climate in KW.

Yeah but we are having a warm spell in southern Ontario right now. While it is not -15 in Waterloo today, it is going to be -15 (with wind chill) there New Year's Eve or New Year's Day.

Waterloo got a good dumping of snow a couple of weeks back that amounted to nothing more than flurries here in the GTA. Trust me when I tell you that Waterloo gets a fair bit of snow. It is nothing like the Prairies, but it gets more snow than the Toronto area does.

Keep an eye on the local CTV News station's website over the next 2-3 months to get an idea of what the weather is like in KW:

http://kitchener.ctvnews.ca/local-weather