George-Ang

Sounds to me like you just never got the upmarket big flashy place you wanted, maybe down sizing or trying an area where people who live in places are REAL and not wannabe's. did you ever look at www.mls.ca and see real prices and properties. and NOT DREAM ONES. people like you realy do pee me off, you have it all there and are headed back here, well i hope you live to regret it, NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER. for a defeatist. like you. enjoy the UK.
Julius get yer head out of yer ass and look at Canada not BIG FLASHY HOMESTEADS. jealousy gets you no-where.

Snowqueen
Try looking at the Quinte area of Ontario, you would be quite suprised at house prices, and the stunning beauty of it.
http://www.greatplacetolive.com/

iaink

Leave Julius alone! Its real easy to throw stones when you havent had to "live the dream"

The truth is that emmigrating is not for everyone, but until youve tried it you just dont know how you and your family will react.

If I was Julius I would have tried to hang on longer, but he was in an intollerable position, and took a brave decision to move back for the sake of family unity. Give the guy a break.

As Billy Connoly said..dont criticise till you've walked a mile in the other fellas shoes...by then you are a mile away, and he hasnt got any shoes...so you can do what you want.

Tiaribbon

LOL!!! Sorry but who knows what the future may be..............

No I honestly wish you well and hope that you do find all you are looking for in England - but who knows you may actually miss Canada in a few months time AND you may even go throught the dreaded culture shock again, LOL!!!

macadian

Could not agree more. Have been living in Toronto since I arrived in August last year. Do like Canada despite the 'McGuilty' Provincial government and 'Ottawa Liberalism'...but we can't have everything.

Moved to the Quinte area in Late February and looking forward to country life. Some people thrive on City life...others, like me, hate it.

As the Irish say, Dublin is not Ireland...and Toronto is not Canada...or anything like it.

Best of luck

daisymoll

People are still allowed to voice their opinions Iain!!!!! Five months is simply not long enough and maybe he did have to move back, who knows but people can say what they like.

MAybe some people could do it a bit more diplomatically and a bit less personally!!

Glaswegian

Sadly your experience is the norm. Few people are interested until you have landed (there are exceptions but we wont talk about those ). Mr G is in IT was also very senior in the UK. His initial experiences in Canada dont make good reading for those looking for an IT job. They are well documented in the archives so I wont repeat them here. The summarised version is that its taken him 3.5 years to get back to the level of work he used to do in the UK many years ago - so a big step back career wise. We have been here for 3.5 years and he is on his third job - the only way to move up it seems.

Basically dont trust anyone with a vested interest in getting you to Canada. Take what recruitment agencies say with a pinch of salt. Yes your skills may be in demand, yes you might earn a good salary if you were Canadian - but sadly you are a PR. It matters.

I dont mean to be full of gloom and doom. We are glad we came to Canada and would not go back now. The kids wont even consider a holiday back in the Uk in case we stay there. They have more opportunities here. I could go on for ages about why we prefer it here but most of it has been said before.

We are in Calgary now but our initial plans were for Oakville (to live) and Toronto (to work).

Its not a lost cause. Work is hard to find but its possible. You might be one of the lucky ones with a job before landing.

Feel free to PM us with anything you want to ask privately. We will do our best to help you.

Mrs G

Judy in Calgary

So true.

When we first arrived my husband got a job with a small contract company that was doing work for a large company. His colleagues in the office considered it a big deal when we became Canadian citizens, took us out for a celebratory lunch, and gave us gifts (handsome wallets to hold our Canadian passports ). Within a few days the big company offered my husband a position working for them directly, with perks that he didn't get from the small contractor.

Glaswegian

Well we all know that never happens - you wouldn't expect us to believe that citizens are treated differently from PRs would you?

Mrs G

iaink

"I hope you live to regret it" is hardly helpfull. Julius has been a valuable poster here, and has been very open about the problems hes faced, so its a bit rich to have someone who knows nothing about it calling him defeatist. Is that an opinion, I dont know. No offence intended to anyone, but my opinion was it was out of order.

daisymoll

I do agree that people shouldn't get personal.

Fluffy Boogie

True, we all should be able to give our experiences. While one person may have had the best of luck in their dreams for Canada, another may not have. People need to re-evaluate their dreams and what they want. Most people picture a house in the Muskokas with a bustling city nearby for the nights they want to get down and boogie, and then bbq by their own private lake in their own log-cabin .... alas, only a handful get to really experience this, and most of them are retired and don't care for a night-time boogie.

As a Canadian, I do feel sad knowing that for some it hasn't worked out - have we failed in some way? No - its just that everyone's taste is different.
We always want more and when we don't get it we resort to starting point 1 and then try to relive that feeling as it were, and end up being disappointed too often.

My advice: try your hardest and if you've done that then there is nothing mroe to do. I admire those who have tried their hardest and have come to love it and I respect those who have tried their hardest and still long for the home they knew as a child.

Live and let live, wherever that may be.
Fluffy

SimonG

[QUOTE=George-Ang]Sounds to me like you just never got the upmarket big flashy place you wanted, maybe down sizing or trying an area where people who live in places are REAL and not wannabe's. did you ever look at www.mls.ca and see real prices and properties. and NOT DREAM ONES. people like you realy do pee me off, you have it all there and are headed back here, well i hope you live to regret it, NO SYMPATHY WHATSOEVER. for a defeatist. like you. enjoy the UK.
Julius get yer head out of yer ass and look at Canada not BIG FLASHY HOMESTEADS. jealousy gets you no-where.

George,

Some nice posts in the past. Unfortunately your way off the mark this time.

I look forward to reading your posts when you arrive in the great white north.

I think snowqueen was wanting to hear the pro's and con's and I know you where not the only one to shoot down JS.

The truth is that it's nobody's place to have a go at somebody about how long they tried it for. I would say at 5 months I couldn't have made that decision, for me it came at 18 months. But I'm afraid when you know in yourself, you know, wether it's 5 months or 5 years there comes a point when you have to make a decision on what is best for your family.

I would like to have found this website before we moved over here. It probably would not have changed our minds about the move but we would have been prepared for some of the knocks we have taken.

Everybody has an opinion, that's life, but don't have a go when it doesn't match yours, especially when you have no experience of what you are talking about.

My experience of Canada is not good but I wouldn't try and put anybody off.

To snowqueen, good luck with your move and I hope you get plenty of hints and tips to help you deal with the pitfalls ahead.

snowqueen

Thanks SimonG.

My post was indeed aimed to get opinions of all colours and I value them all equally - while we obviously have our dream, its important to be realistic. At the end of the day, we'll have plenty of info, thanks to this site, on which to base our decision. It's all part of doing the homework! (though it might just make me more confused! )



[QUOTE=SimonG]

julius smith

hmm......well, thanks a lot for all the varied comments here! i have honestly tried to portray whatever i felt about, not the whole of canada or its peoples, but just that segment of macrocosm where we happened to land. i dont understand why my views have so irritated some people--what i saw or felt, i said, thats all. and its not as if i am the worlds most pessimistic person--i too have positivity in my being! i have too have seen many positive things here, but during the short time we have been here, the negatives outweighed the positives, and our family situation did not help much either! i decided what to do as a last resort in a way, as the final decision was going to be one of those no-win situations, but i feel i made the right decision at the right time, rather than let things linger on and on, till the point where it would have been difficult to go back--for god's sake, its been tough enough as it is. comments like those whereby someone has said i should take my head out of my a_se are neither helpful nor conducive to the discussion, but everyone is welcome to their own views, and in which way to voice them. if it wasnt for people like iaink and others who have provided some semblance of support, forums like these would be a sheer waste of time.....thanks, iaink!

Iginla

I have yet to knock your posts yet I feel that you made a couple of sweeping statementsyou failed to explain so I'll ask again:

1. On what basis do you say that there is no spirit in canada?
2. On what do you base your statement that Canadian healthcare is worse than the NHS on?