Nampom

Interested to know why everyone decided on Canada in specific, has your expectations been met?
Would you choose Canada again if you had the choice?

bats

We fancied a change and New Zealand is too far away.

Eventually.

Maybe not, we'd have stayed put.

YoshiPal2010

Wife wanted to give it a go.

No!

Over my dead body!

Zoe Bell

Didn't want to stay in the UK and too lazy to learn another language
didn't really have any expectations
yes

Danny B

It looked nice in the pictures, it has exceeded my expectations and I would definitely choose Canada again.

Paul_Shepherd

I liked Canada's strong historic ties to the UK...so in someways doesn't feel "foreign"

I love the lifestyle Canada offered, and still do.

Eastern Canada (Ontario) is only a 7 hour flight from UK, (maritimes are even closer) unlike NZ or Austrailia.

And yes I would still choose Canada (although I would love to see NZ and Australia one day as a visitor)

Tumbling_Dice

My wife had been making the odd sounds about moving to NS to be nearer her parents, though nothing serious.

I work in financial services and, around 2012, there were a lot of changes in the UK which resulted in my suffering two redundancies in the space of a year. So, I said to the wife, "sod it, let's put the application in for Canada".

Words I wish I could take back in some ways because I went self-employed whilst the application process was going on and ended up being pretty successful pretty quickly. We had some debts to clear up and decided to take a gradual approach to moving over but, by the time I left, I was thinking it was going to be a huge mistake. My wife was too involved emotionally by this stage so it could not really be called off.

We are in Nova Scotia, where we have been coming since 2000, but I never thought I would live here. In terms of expectations, I didn't have many to begin with, but came here with that great fear I would never get back to the position I left in the UK. In the event, I have managed to get into a fairly decent position which, with a bit of hard work, will put me in a similar position to what I was in back home within 5 years.

NS is certainly different but I can tell you straight away I do not miss the drunken debauchery of the average UK city on a weekend, nor do I miss the roving bands of bored, feral youth causing havoc. Wouldn't mind a decent curry though.

Would I chose to move here again? No.

suzeandmatt

Husband works in academia- he finished his PhD and was looking for post-docs.
We both decided he wasn’t going to look for positions in the UK- we’re from Newcastle and just felt the place wasn’t really suited to us anymore- we wanted to see what the rest of the world had to offer instead. After spending our late teenage years in Asia we wanted to make our lives easier by looking at an English speaking country.

He applied for a post-doc that came up in Calgary & got offered the job.

We’d never been to Canada before. Turns out we absolutely love it. It has everything we need and enjoy! So going to apply for PR this year- so yep- we’d definitely do it again.

scilly

We will have been here 50 years in August.

We'd spent a year south of the line, not ready to go back to the UK or really wanting to. OH applied for positions in universities in US and Canada. UBC offered him what looked the ideal job, so he took it. We came for 2 years initially, before thinking of moving on to Australia or NZ, returning to the UK slowly but surely becoming a "not for us, thank you very much"

We both found "our" jobs, and "our" place, and became citizens 5 years later. He's looked for other jobs, got on short lists, but the tugs for and from UBC and Canada always won out over other enticements.

Would we go back?

Not on your nelly!!!!

Would we be willing to move on to another country??

Probably not at our age, but Australia and NZ have always been attractive, and OH did arrange sabbaticals in both countries, and we could have lived permanently in either one.

But age, and our family all being here, plus the potential difficulties in moving after the age of 70, AND the fact that we still enjoy Canada.

We no longer even feel British ................ we go back to the UK as tourists, not as returning Brits. We're immigrants here, not expats from the UK.

Kentonmag

I worked for a Rolls Royce subsidiary Company in Newcastle upon Tyne and my job had brought me to Canada 6 times on various contracts. Rolls Royce then made the decision to open a factory in St Catharines and advertised back in the Newcastle factory for experienced people interested in moving to get the new factory up and running. I applied and got a position.
It will be my 27 year anniversary, of coming to Canada, on 6th April. In a twist of fate my Son who was 2 year old when we brought him to Canada has moved back to live in Newcastle and says he loves the UK so much there is no chance he will ever come back here. He finds the people much friendlier, work opportunities much better. He has also reconnected with cousins and aunts and uncles that he didn't really know.

Aviator

yes

Grimnorth

Try Curry Village 1569 Dresden Row, Halifax, NS B3J 2K4, not quite a UK curry but we enjoyed it.

Grimnorth

Tumbling_Dice

Grimnorth

Wife chose Canada, I wanted NZ. Either way could not live in the UK anymore so moved here 2009. Started in Fredericton NB, then two years ago moved fully to Nova Scotia.

Made some good friends in Fredericton but very glad we moved, or the answer to the question about expectations and would we choose Canada again may have been very different.

I suspect this is us now, we will not be moving again for many years and am now glad we chose Canada.

Former Lancastrian

Anxiously awaiting Oinks answer