Firedup

Hi everyone. I'm starting to research a move to Canada with my family ,with a view to move from Scotland in 2020. I have 3 years to work until I can retire from the fire service. My wife is a payroll manager in an accountant office and I have 4 daughters currently 7 ,8,13 and 19. Although I suspect the oldest won't want to move. We are looking for Canada as a destination and ultimately a place that's great for the kids to grow up ,I'm not necessarily looking for employment as I'll have my pension income.plus we can have rental from our current house/sell it. We love the outdoors and activities with the kids. The kids themselves centre mainly on dancing. Jazz. Tap and ballet. They also enjoy horse riding. Myself I'm heavily into photography. I realise Canada is vast but would appreciate help in narrowing down our search prior to a few fact finding visits.

dbd33

How are you going to get a visa?

Hurlabrick

As dbd said, your first (and major) hurdle is do you qualify for any of the routes required for permanent residence or can you or your wife qualify for a job or other sponsorship routes.

I suggest you start reading here:

Quick Guide to Canadian Immigration : British Expat Wiki

Firedup

This is partly why i'm starting to research now, I'm open to suggestions towards the several ways of getting a visa.
I do have distant relatives who would be prepared to sponsor me as they know i'll be financially OK.
Obviously may wife may look for jobs, or even i may succumb to that.
I have the option of going to university myself.
We also are toying with the idea of buying a business/ franchise where my wife and myself may work, but have not looked too far into this.

My background is 6 years avionics technician with Fleet Air arm followed by 24 years of Fire Service where i'm currently a crew manager (Captain in Canada) and have been an instructor in several disciplines such as fire behaviour, Road traffic collision and most recently Swift Water Rescue (i'm a qualified with Rescue 3 International, so i may find employment with this company)
My main aim was for my retirement . i'll be 50. but if i have to work then i'll just put that on hold.

christmasoompa

Hi, welcome to BE.

As said above, check your visa eligibility first, if you qualify for PR now via Express Entry (and are scoring enough on the CRS) then that's great, and then you can apply for PR and go wherever you choose. Whereas if you're not eligible, or you are eligible but wouldn't score enough to get selected, you'll just need to go wherever you can find a sponsoring employer so might not get much choice in location.

At least you've got plenty of time, if you're eligible now you can apply now and get it sorted, if not then you've got time to job hunt.

Best of luck with it.

christmasoompa

P.S. it's highly unlikely your relatives would be able to sponsor you, which relatives and which province are they in?

PB65

Minor point but my understanding is the OPs oldest daughter at 19 could not be included in any application as a dependant under current rules. Even if the rule ever reverted back to under 22 for dependants given the OPs 3 year outlook it could be a close thing.

DandNHill

Considering the length of time it takes to get PR and then the flexibility with the 720 days in 5 years would it perhaps make sense for the OP to not just be looking in to this but when he finds the right stream to actually apply? Unless of course it's job dependant...

Pulaski

I am not familiar with the Scottish highschool system, but I suspect that moving the then-sixteen-year-old between education systems may be "a challenge". Some children take such moves in their stride, but it really messes up the education of others. Either way, the impact of such a move on a sixteen-year-old shouldn't be underestimated.

Firedup

My eldest daughter is unlikely to come with us, she's about too flee the nest and work in Spain.

Firedup

at the time we are looking at My 2nd eldest will have finished her standard grades at school (high school certificate) and be looking for college.

Pulaski

If you were responding to my post, I was refering to your thirteen year old, who will be sixteen in 2020.
I am not sure how that would map to the Canadian education system, because I don't think sixteen year olds go to college in Canada.

johntheScot

Canada is a very expensive place to live don't know how you will get on trying to support a family of 5 on a fb pension without working. correct me if my numbers are out to lunch but you make say 36k in the uk you pension out at 2/3 salary say 24k that is $40k before tax

you say you can get income from renting or selling your current house, will you not need to rent or buy a place to live in canada? depending the location you choose here and where you live in scotland the costs could vary.

there is a great lifestyle to be had in Canada but it takes a lot of $$$ to fund it. You may pay $1k a year per kid per dance class plus have comps expenses on top of this. all of a sudden you are paying 10k a year for kids activities. I work with may people who easily spend that and a number who would near double that.

I am always astonished as to what these activities cost and the amount of cash parents spend here.

if your idea of the canadian dream and lifestyle extends to winter sports like skiing a lift pass to sunshine is $99 a day for an adult so there would be an easy $500 day for the family.

julesb79

My family are originally from Canada (granddad moved to UK as a teenager, cheers granddad) The only relatives i have left out there are his siblings and their descendants. I looked into it and unless the relatives are your grandparent, aunt/uncle, parent, sibling or offspring of a parent they aren't recognised as being able to sponsor you unfortunately.

DigitalGhost

What is it with everyone sending their kids to dancing lessons these days?