dbd33

I'm afraid you're ranting at the wrong chap. I don't much follow events in Canada (if any). I see Trudeau mocked as Mr. Dress Up now and then but that's about all I hear of news from Canada. The whole merit of the place is that nothing ever happens so there's little need to pay attention. As an immigrant, I was glad to see the conservatives trounced at the last election but I didn't get personally involved.

I'm quite strong on the BBC's failure to report on Johnson's rampant corruption, but, if the same is happening here, articles about it wouldn't be well enough written for me to struggle to the end of them. Perhaps this stuff is of interest on the Toronto Star's talkboard.

vagabonding

not ranting at you and sorry if it came across that way. I personally think people would be insane to move here from the uk if they have a good job/lifestyle etc. it would be near impossible to replicate here with the outrageous cost of living and at some point there will be a reckoning with the housing market.

dbd33

Agree, yes.

Mordko

Fair enough, its your opinion. I disagree. Cost of living is a little bit higher in Canada. Salaries are also higher. Cost of housing depends on specific location in either Canada or Britain. Six and two threes. Predicting the future of housing market is notoriously difficult.

Some of this is due to GBP dropping. That happened for a reason. UK is going through a period of uncertainty above and beyond Covid.

Apart from purely economic considerations, there are other factors. I think the general culture, sports and school systems worked A LOT better for our kids in Canada than in England. And crime levels are higher in the UK, which aligns with our experience. Canada is also more diverse and more tolerant.

vagabonding

let's be honest it isnt a little bit higher its substantially higher. Food double at least, cheese quadrupled lol, car insurance 3 to 4 times, cell phone costs triple...housing....the most expensive in the world relative to incomes and most big global banks call it the biggest bubble in the world. Yes less crime per capita but more gun crime and horrendous drivers and double the car accident fatalities per capita.

just off the top of my head 2 litres of milk at tesco is 1.30 or 2 dollars. Here its 4 dollars. A cauliflower is 50p or 90 cents whereas its 4 dollars here. Food is astronomical as is everything compared to the uk.

Mordko

Basing generic conclusions on personal anecdotes is always risky.

Here is a slightly more comprehensive comparison: https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-livin...United+Kingdom

https://www.propertyguides.com/canad...off-uk-canada/

Former Lancastrian

And yet I wonder who posted this in 2007

The main thing now is that we are having a bit of reverse culture shock. London is extortionate and we have been looking at places and can't believe the prices to rent. After travelling through some extremely poor countries I have really started to appreciate our life in Canada/ cost of living and what we had, and really how lucky we were. Nice place to live, good jobs, a family cottage to go to whenever we want. We are very close to my fiance's family which we miss, and now were here in London (my family are in the north) and its miserable, expensive, and all people (my friends) want to do here is get pissed.

The twist. I spoke to my old boss in Canada, and he is pretty much offering me a job back. We don't know whether to stay here or go back now before we put down any roots. We would eventually go back to Canada as its a much more affordable and better place to raise a family, but the plan was to go back in 3-4 years. We wanted to move back to London because its more vibrant, more holidays and travel, but it seems like its been a case of the grass being greener when it isn;t.

vagabonding

Yes Canada back then was much more appealing. Since then its changed dramatically and London is a different beast to the North of England. The cost of living here has increased dramatically. The comparison calculator is generic. Given there is much more competition in every aspect of life from internet, groceries, insurance etc the reality is that its exponentially cheaper in the UK to Canada as a whole

Moses2013

But isn't that the same in every major city? It's miserable, expensive, and all people (my friends) want to do here is get pissed. At least that is what I feel with any city, be it Vancouver, London, Paris, Dublin, Barcelona, Munich etc.

I recently took the car ferry to from Dublin to Cherbourg and passed Brussels which is rough as hell and any larger city in France is the same. As soon as you escape the madness it's a different world and speaking to friends who live in Munich, they seem to feel the same way as you about London.

Tirytory

You must live in way different part of Canada to me; we live in the whitest, waspy ish small town. I also find the racism subtler, and I’ve come across a few examples recently, not directed at me. I now worry that my kids are going to leave this rich, privileged enclave and realize that the world doesn’t work like this.

Mordko

People will have different experiences. Mine was as a minority and an immigrant in both UK and Canada. Still, I find it hard to believe that anyone who is even superficially familiar with mass media in both countries and general attitude to immigrants would consider UK as more tolerant. And diversity… That’s just stats. Look at the percentages of foreign born Canadians and Brits.

dbd33

Diversity is highly regional though. Nowhere in Canada is has as diverse a population as where I grew up in the UK and in both countries there are places, Brampton, Bradford, Cornwall, Cape Breton, for example, that have homogenous populations. That said, in one of my daughters' high school classes no two students had the same combination of passports so I'd say there was adequate diversity to gain an impression of, at least, the francophone world.

getoutofbritainquick

When I first moved to BC a unit of electricity was 6 cents per kWh when we left it was around 18 cents for the average home. A rise of 300% in 15 years. Just imagine when everyone uses electric vehicles - not sure Canadians are ready to give up their trucks, RV’s and Sports Recreational vehicles.
I don’t think the installed electrical capacity in BC or the rest of Canada could cope with the increased demand in any case. Just look how badly Site C has been managed!!!

getoutofbritainquick

Utter garbage, we made most of money from the UK, investments and hard work. We moved from the South East of England when prices were high and low in Canada. It’s called playing the market (but that’s not why we moved to Canada in the first place). We moved to Canada when the £ to Cad $ was high and moved back vice versa.

My wife and I both had good jobs in both countries. Please don’t judge what you know nothing about.

Quite frankly since we returned to the UK we invested most of our capital and didn’t spend that much on property for the ‘amazing sea views’ in the UK. We also have good guaranteed pensions from both countries - so what?

You are obviously out of touch with what is going on in the UK, Cornwall is currently one of the most sought after places to live in the UK. I think there is a very good reason for that.

As for your comment about local people not be able to afford property, isn’t that what’s going on in Canada on a grand scale? It’s the locals asking the selling price so they can’t complain can they?

There are plenty of affordable homes in this part of the UK, just not in the highly desirable locations - go figure! Seems a lot of people want to live in expensive areas just like Canada.

From what I have seen since I have lived in Cornwall is people often don’t won’t to move and look for decent paying jobs wherever they may be. That’s their choice - we had to move, so I don’t have much sympathy. I wouldn’t exactly call Cornwall poor either. Like any other county in the UK it has its mix of wealth. I don’t see homeless or drugs everywhere here like in Victoria or Vancouver nor do I see massive environmental destruction everywhere I look.

Kent, where I was born used to be wonderful until it got invaded from the London overspill. It’s been going on for years. It’s the same the world over.

mogscat

We also considered Calgary and Fredericton when we moved here 2 years ago. We could afford a nice house in Fredericton. In Calgary, we could not. House prices aside, the cost of living here does not seem that different overall to that in Gloucester,UK, where we lived before. Some items are very different in price but you need to look at the overall picture. Don’t come to Fredericton just for the cheap(ish but went up a lot last year) real estate. Don’t not come just because of the price of groceries.
Happy to help if you do consider Fredericton further.