Dave n Ailsa

Hi I'm Ails, My hubby Dave has been posting for a few days now and you guys seam a helpful bunch! Anyway, we are going through the should we shouldn't we roller coaster ride and now just have our heads in a mess and don't know which way is up or what we should do!!! I'm sure you have all been there.... so here's my question... Can you give a wee list of the good and bad points you had for deciding to leave the UK and head to Canada? Might help us decide....!

So far we have...

Scotland- Good

Friends and Family are here
It's what we know
Kids are settled at school
We have jobs


Scotland - Bad

"grey" weather
High Taxes to pay for "lazy bums" to not work



Canada - Good

Better Weather (is this true??)
Lower Taxes (is this true??)
More house for your money (Is this true???)
Higher Wages (is this true???)

Canada - Bad

No Friends & Family
Big Hassle to get there

MarkG

Personally I prefer Canadian weather, but when the temperature drops to -40 you might think otherwise. Also, if you do like Scottish weather there's always Nova Scotia, which was cold and wet most of the time I was there .

House-wise, in many areas you'll get a nicer house relative to income, but Canadian houses probably need more maintenance than British houses (e.g. typically being made from wood). Also property taxes often seem to be higher than the council tax in the UK.

Wage-wise, I'm pretty sure I'll take a pay cut. But since I can buy a house there for cash and couldn't even buy the cheapest two-bed terrace around where I live, that's less of an issue.

I'm no expert on taxes, but I believe my girlfriend pays a similar amount of tax in Canada to what she'd pay in the UK. The main benefit is that the Canadian government seem to do a better job with the money... I don't mind British taxes so much as I mind paying them to a government who are a total waste of time.

dingbat

Scotland- Good

Friends and Family are here
It's what we know
Kids are settled at school This is a major plus.
We have jobs This is the biggest plus of them all
Scotland - Bad

"grey" weather
High Taxes to pay for "lazy bums" to not work

It's exactly the same here.


Canada - Good

Better Weather (is this true??) No, but there are distinct seasons everywhere else but BC. Here you have degrees of rain and then moderate heat waves.

Lower Taxes (is this true??) You are joking.......

More house for your money (Is this true???) True. But they are made of wood and paper in the West.

Higher Wages (is this true???) Ha ha ha ha ha ha....
Canada - Bad

No Friends & Family
Big Hassle to get there. Planes are amazing. They fly.

Atlantic Xpat

Can't really add anything to dingbat's comments except to re-iterate that taxes in Canada, couple with probably a lower (initially at least income) will put you at best the same, at worst less well off than in UK. The single largest economic benefit of moving to Canada is bigger house for less (unless you are moving to Vancouver or Calgary). This of course assumes that you have a lump of equity to convert to CAD$ to help buy that big place.

There are other, very good, reasons to move to Canada it pays to go into the financial aspects of it with your eyes wide open!

AX

or4ngecrush

[QUOTE=Dave n Ailsa;4416063]Hi I'm Ails, My hubby Dave has been posting for a few days now and you guys seam a helpful bunch! Anyway, we are going through the should we shouldn't we roller coaster ride and now just have our heads in a mess and don't know which way is up or what we should do!!! I'm sure you have all been there.... so here's my question... Can you give a wee list of the good and bad points you had for deciding to leave the UK and head to Canada? Might help us decide....!

So far we have...

Scotland- Good

Friends and Family are here
It's what we know
Kids are settled at school
We have jobs


Scotland - Bad

"grey" weather
High Taxes to pay for "lazy bums" to not work



Canada - Good

Better Weather (is this true??)
Lower Taxes (is this true??)
More house for your money (Is this true???)
Higher Wages (is this true???)

Canada - Bad

No Friends & Family
Big Hassle to get there



Hello,

Canada is the second largest country but has less people in it than the UK, so that really means you can't generalize Canada as a whole. There so many different provinces and they have their own quirks and have different weather, wages, house prices etc....

Yes wages are higher possibly in Vancouver for example but so is there house prices, and NS has cheaper houses etc.. but then their wages are lower too and there are less jobs "swings and roundabouts"

What a big hassle to get from where to where? I mean if your family were in Glasgow and you ended up living in NS then it's not really a hassle but then if you were somewhere else in Canada and your family lived in Skye then yes it would be a hassle.

Take into consideration where you are now and what your lifestyle is e.g.
if you were in a lovely house in Scotland and had great jobs then moving to Canada isn't going to make it better just different, or it could even make it worse as you may have to start at the bottom of the house/career ladder and it can be as expensive as the U.K.

The weather is so diverse and if you like certain conditions e.g. snow then yeah you going to love living in places where it snows for 6 months at a time, or maybe you prefer the sunshine then there are places that cater for that too but some people dont like the heat as it's more humid than say Scotland, but then again you cant generalise Canada as a whole and if you had an idea of where you wanted to go then maybe you could start thinking of the pros and cons etc..

That was just the tip of the iceberg


I actually don't think it's as black & white as "Scotland vs Canada"

Think about it:


hope it helps

Emma

Dave n Ailsa

We were thinking of BC - and by big hassle I was meaning the whole immigration, waiting for ever thing, rather than the physical getting there....

You guys are making me want to stay put.. Why did you all leave the UK and go to Canada?? What was your reasoning?

R I C H

As Or4angecrush said, it's a big country and difficult to generalise - Dingbat should have said with regard to BC the Lower Mainland/Vancouver and Island have degrees of rain etc. Come to the interior (approx 4.5 hrs east of the coast) and you'll not see rain for months. Summers are dry and hot with no humidity.

or4ngecrush

You could always apply and in 4 years time you may know what decision your gonna take then. As you would have done a lot of research in the meantime.

I'm not trying to put you off just being realistic

emma

zmartin

We're also hoping to move out to BC and, with a bit of luck, are seeing a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel with respect to the length of the time the process takes. We applied Nov 04, AOR Dec 04, 90 day letter was dated 1st Dec 06 meaning they should start looking at our application from 1st March 07 - in theory.

For us, our decision is made because we want a better quality of life, we want the bigger house that we'd struggle for here and we want to get away from the chav, gun-wielding society that Britain seems to be heading for, oh and we lurve the snow so we're aiming to be near the mountains. It'll be neat to call Whistler our local slope as opposed to the plastic thing we currently go to!

If the length of time it takes to move out there is the one thing that's putting you off (and I agree that it's a pain in the bum to be told you have to wait 21, 36, 42+ months) then maybe emigration isn't for you. If you really want it you'll wait or you'll find another way to get to where you want to go quicker.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

Zoe M. xx

or4ngecrush

Hi Dave and Ailsa,

Can I ask where your living now?

Thanks

Emma

NessieOggy

Cheers Rich and or4ngecrush! It's true that the coastal areas of BC do have mild temps in the winter and a fair amount of rain, but I would expect that at sea level. In many parts of the province there are 4 distinct seasons to enjoy!

Oggy

MarkG

I believe you'll find there's plenty of gun-wielding crime in Canada too, though it's probably easier to avoid than the UK. Also, if 'Trailer Park Boys' is to be believed, there are plenty of gun-wielding 'chavs' .

or4ngecrush

And we all know where thats filmed






I'm heading that way......lol

Dave n Ailsa

Glasgow

or4ngecrush

Easy for flights then lol