iaink

Not sure what occupancy reates are like for rental accomadation. From personal experience the complex I lived in was never too full, maybe 75%? From the comments of others Calgary has a lot of empty places now. Could be that rental market is weak because property costs are still attainable for "ordinary canadians" so people rent for a while but then buy, rather than the UK market where many people have no choice but to rent.

Just a thought if you are planning on living on rental income.

Glaswegian

It's cheaper to buy than rent if you have the choice in Calgary.

goatee

hello this is mrs goatee
we moved to saskatchewan from banbury oxfordshirein feb 2004
and YES your expectations are correct
i was a financial adviser Pru and Barclays and then recruiter for financial advisers for big banks and we found FS in UK collapsing with 1% stakeholder etc and house value had rocketed so we took the money and ran

becareful of going to ontario, bc, alberta as they have lots of same issues as uk , thats why we chose rural area.
try and come over for a while and visit a couple of provinces , go where your family are and maybe somewhere rural , canadians take the piss out of sask and maitoba but at least everyone here has great houses, land, lack of traffic, lakes and cheap amenities whereas in the cities they all rush off to to feel " grown up" and cosmopolitan , its like the old myth of Londons street being paved with gold they are working themselves to death but cant admit its not as glamorous as they thought

we dont regret anything aboutour move and are amazed how son has fitted in at school

best of luck get in touch if you want help
kathy and lee

Glaswegian

Saskatchewan sounds more tempting by the day .... any IT jobs out there?

I can't weld, but I could probably reprogram your vcr to do it for you

goatee

Mr Goatee says I must say

about living in cities
Canadiann cities are nicer than most and he knows as he has travelled a lot
i think he is afraid i have triggered 500 angry emails by my comments
what i meant is the reasons you give for moving from UK going to another populated areas may just be more of the same
and if you want to keep expenses down rural provinces would help with that

each to his own!!!!!!

mrs ( in trouble ) goatee

also we moved to get away from m40 , a 50 min commute became at best 90 min at worst at least once a week 5 hrs
where we are now most accidents seem to be from people putting car on cruise control and falling asleep and crashing into a telegraph post and killing themselves , in town its just small shunts as most traffic is just 40km hr
having said that on canada day a native woman who had already been done for drink driving and didnt turn up in court for it
so was banned was driving and smashed into the back of a car at a junction and killed 2 in that car and 4 in her car
apparently she may get life for it , i cant believe the others in the car with her didnt know she was banned they were all from the same band ( nation / tribe) would you get in a car with her?
kids here drive at 16 but do seem to take drink driving seriusly i think the schools drum it in
the mid 30's are the ones who drink and drive
you could look at www.leaderpost.ca
we read all the local papers we could find on line before we moved
tip
rent before buying
do you know about west niles ?

Glaswegian

Why?

Very true.

Alberta sometimes seems overcrowded and over regulated, verging on the anal at times.

We have West Nile too - personally it's less scary than the tornadoes, bears, wolves, cougars, rattlesnakes, poisonous spiders and scorpions we have in Alberta.

Then again, I haven't known anyone to die of any of them either .....

oceanMDX

I've never heard of a scorpion in Alberta. Rattlesnakes are pretty much limited to southern Alberta and the population is low. As far as poisonous spiders in Alberta are concerned, I've never heard of them causing a problem except for a few that came with banana shipments. Bears, wolves and cougars are almost never seen in urban areas.

Glaswegian

You'll find them out at dinosaur provincial park. I'm told that the sting is equivalent to a bee sting.

It is and they usually avoid people if they can. However most of the Alberta population lives south of Edmonton.

We allegedly have the ubiquitous brown recluse in urban areas and black widows are native to Alberta - there hasn't ever been a recorded black widow fatality in western Canada.

One of them took a wander through Glenmore park in Calgary with her cubs sometime 2002/3 - she was persuaded to leave by city police with helicopters. Banff has more of a bear problem - one of the bears at Calgary Zoo was captured attempting to raid a bakery in Banff.

Someone in Shawnessy in 2002/3 was surprised to find a cougar asleep under his RV one morning. I remember it in particular because I walked my kids to school that day - the teachers had formed a line across the sports field and the school was in lockdown. They found and tranquilised the cougar. It was returned to Kanaskis after some dental work.

I couldn't decide if it was coyotes or wolves I saw in my first month in Calgary pulling apart a deer as I drove out along 37th Street - it's hard to tell at a distance. Both deer and coyotes are common in Fish Creek provincial park which cuts through the south of the city. The closest wolf packs to Calgary exist in Kanaskis, although research by the University of Calgary has shown that they travel to as far away as British Columbia, eastern Idaho and Montana.

The most recent deadly tornado in Alberta was at Pine Lake on 14th July 2000 - it touched down at a trailer park and killed 9 people and injured a further 136.

In 2003 there were 14 West Nile related deaths in all of Canada - I don't know how high the count has gone so far in 2004.

On average 500-1500 deaths are reported annually in Canada due to influenza or influenza as a complication of pneumonia.

Adding the carnage on Canada's roads to the list of life threatening dangers, I'm still more concerned about death resulting from known dangers than the potential problems caused by West Nile virus.

oceanMDX

Can you find any references that state scorpions can be found out in the wild in Alberta. It's a new one on me.

Regarding cougars and bears in the cities, yes, there have been visits - but they are very rare. Although, maybe now that cougar will be referring all his friends to Calgary for their dental work in the future. The price certainly was more than fair. We can also get the odd moose in town. Deer are more common. You won't see wolves in Calgary - coyotes yes, wolves no.

By the way, the hurricane that hit Edmonton about 17 years ago that killed dozens of people heavily damaged my house.

Gray C

Thank you everyone for your prompt responses, your comments have been very useful, interesting and enlightening. I did not think my comments about British BMW drivers would spark such interest. I did not realise that the driving mentality in Canada could rival the UK. I still believe that it cannot be worse than trying to negotiate the Thelwall viaduct on a cold wet Friday evening (and that is in the summer!). It often takes me 1.5 hours to travel 40 miles to get home (Not much fun) and that is not taking into account the dreaded viaduct.

I was also interested to read about Canadian wildlife and climate challenges. It all goes to making life interesting.

I was pleased to hear from some of you that it would be possible to have a relatively comfortable lifestyle by working part time and utilising the possible rental income as well as my UK Income. We really would like to create some quality family lifestyle, which unfortunately I do not get now with work and commuting. We are living in the typical UK "Rat race".

As for where we would like to live (assuming we are successful with our application) I must admit that we had not considered living in Saskatchewan, Manitoba or Calgary, but as I said before, we are open minded and will consider anywhere where our daughter can get a better lifestyle than here in the UK.

Someone said it would greatly increase our chances if either one of us can obtain employment prior to moving. How realistic is this? I would not be looking for anything too technical or high powered and would accept, and like, a stress free occupation. Does anyone know of a company that I could register with that may be able to offer me employment via a telephone or email interview. I know it is a long shot, but if do not ask..........

We like the outdoors and love walking (Peak District and The Lakes) so a rural or semi rural location does seem very appealing.

My wife and daughter are visiting Brantford next week for a couple of weeks, so hopefully she will get a feel for the place when she arrives. Unfortunately I have never visited Canada, but like many others no doubt, are relying on all the good reports from family and friends who live there or have had extended visits. At the end of the day, we want to leave the UK to get a better lifestyle and if we do not get into Canada, we intend to move to either France or rural Spain. We are all very adaptable and tolerant to change and feel certain that we will be able to integrate successfully.

Again I would love to hear from anyone with regard to their experiences in moving from the UK and especially with regard to any pitfalls or problems they encountered, that hopefully we may be able to avoid. Hindsight is a very important thing.

Kind regards

Graham

mikejw

Hi Grayc
we are due to get our visas in the next couple of months and like youselves receive a small income from the U.K.
This is not enough to live on but will take the immediate sting out of the job market,so i can do something i want to rather than have to.
We are heading for Nova Scotia near Halifax.
Originally after extensive research into Canada,its climate,cost of living, access to cities,transport,you name it we looked into it from the net and books etc we decided on southern Ontario.
We decided not to go out'west' as we thought it was too American in its culture.
We went out last Oct and travelled all around,from Toronto down to London over to Cambridge,Stratford,Brantford and the lakes for 3 weeks.Trouble was reality didn't match the research and it just did't hit the spot for us at all.I even met a fella whille we were taking our kids to the park who offered me a job in a completely new field but it just wasn't enough to swing us.
Plan B.
We flew to Halifax and felt at home straight away.Whilst it doesn't have the job market of Toronto,has just about everything else and in our case is job done.Take a look,sounds as if it may be an alternative answer.Pm me if you want further details.Good luck.
mike.

Glaswegian

Do a search on google:
http://people.uleth.ca/~dan.johnson/...corpion_dj.pdf

The Northern scorpion (Paruroctonus boreus; Class Arachnida, Order Scorpiones, Family
Vaejovidae) is the only species of true scorpion found in Canada. It is found in 12 U.S. states,
from northern Arizona (K. McWest, pers. com.) to southwestern Canada (Gertsch and
Soleglad, 1966,1972; Hjelle, 1972, Johnson and Allred, 1972, Tourtlotte, 1974). In southern
Alberta, it is found in dry, eroded riverbank slopes (usually not north-facing), where it inhabits
rock fissures in sandstone or shale, or in narrow cavities under surface stones.

mikejw

Hi Grayc
we are due to get our visas in the next couple of months and like youselves receive a small income from the U.K.
This is not enough to live on but will take the immediate sting out of the job market,so i can do something i want to rather than have to.
We are heading for Nova Scotia near Halifax.
Originally after extensive research into Canada,its climate,cost of living, access to cities,transport,you name it we looked into it from the net and books etc we decided on southern Ontario.
We decided not to go out'west' as we thought it was too American in its culture.
We went out last Oct and travelled all around,from Toronto down to London over to Cambridge,Stratford,Brantford and the lakes for 3 weeks.Trouble was reality didn't match the research and it just did't hit the spot for us at all.I even met a fella whille we were taking our kids to the park who offered me a job in a completely new field but it just wasn't enough to swing us.
Plan B.
We flew to Halifax and felt at home straight away.Whilst it doesn't have the job market of Toronto,has just about everything else and in our case is job done.Take a look,sounds as if it may be an alternative answer.Pm me if you want further details.Good luck.
mike.

oceanMDX

Thanks for the info, that was an excellent paper.

MikeUK

Quote� We like the outdoors and love walking (Peak District and The Lakes) so a rural or semi rural location does seem very appealing.�

Canada does have some great outdoors, but you don’t have the degree of access to it that you have in the UK, plus the wildlife is a little bigger in places, If this is a point of interest than you’ll need to think about your location and the provincial parks associated with it… there is no such thing as the country footpaths you’re used to in the UK… free access is only really available in the wilderness and the provincial parks..which are great but limited and you have to pay to get in… about $7-$10 for a day pass… roaming the great outdoors in Canada is more of a dream than a reality.. unless you live in the northern areas or BC… the industrialized farmed southern areas are much more restricted…


P.S. I fly a paraglider and as such spend a lot of my time keeping an eye out for hills with free access....