Moving to Ottawa
 

Hi all,

Well, it would seem that we have decided that Ottawa may be a good place to go! :)

We have booked to visit next month, staying in a B&B outside of the city. Just to get a feel of the place before making concrete plans. Just for 5-days and then return to the UK (we are just waiting for our PR!)

We have an 11-month old son and have been told its a wonderful city to raise a family. Also, my husband is a sr. software developer. Again, we have been told thats quite in demand (by a friend in Ottawa).

Does anyone have any tips or advice? Thank you!

Re: Moving to Ottawa
 

None other than it's a lovely city. I'll be there myself as soon as our house sells. :D

Re: Moving to Ottawa
 

What type of thing did you want to know?

Love it here, although love it a lot more in the spring/summer/fall. No kids for us yet, but would think it is a great place to bring them up.

Hope you like the cold. For me it is not so much how cold it gets (just wear more clothes) rather than the length of time it stays cold for. You are not out of the worst of it until April, consider March to be like a UK winter rather than spring. No daffs until mid-April as far as I can tell.

IMHO:

Best things: very liveable city, easy to get around by public transport, car, bike, good access to nature (e.g. Gatineaus), enough bars/restaurants/cultural stuff/places to go out for most people (although Toronto it is not), don't see much anti-social/crime stuff going on, good ratio between house prices and salaries compared to lots of places, nice English/French mix if you like that type of thing, Montreal and some nice parts of New England not far away, NHL hockey if you're interested in that, some cool festivals in the summer (e.g. Blues Fest).

Worst things: loooong winters that can be bitterly cold (for a Brit), people can be a bit too low-key (govt town), not a huge city so not a huge job market either, requirement to speak French can impact on some careers if you don't speak it, not as cheap to fly in/out of as largest Canadian cities, be prepared for people from Toronto/Montreal to look down on you as an Ottawan (although don't listen to them), you'll probably need air conditioning in the summer - gets very sticky.

Re: Moving to Ottawa
 

Well it's been voted the second best place to live in Canada this year.

We've been here for nearly a year now. We're enjoying it a lot. The fact that Quebec is right across the river is great. It's an ideal place to live a good family life.

I don't want to scare you but has your husband looked for work already? Software development can be in demand but it depends in which area. I know C++ programmers aren't getting work at the moment but XML, Flash, FLEX developers are. It's best that he starts looking as soon as he can.

Re: Moving to Ottawa
 

Be aware that such jobs in Ottawa may require a high-level security clearance, which you're unlikely to get as a non-citizen: my Secret clearance took six months and is only a limited one which doesn't give access to 'Canadian eyes only' documents... that's fine for what I do, but would probably be a big problem in a government-related job.

Re: Moving to Ottawa
 

Hi all,

Thank you for all these really useful tips and hints. :)

Kind regards,