annie3-4

i,m not criticising, we too are planning to move to OV I really like it, I was reading the hobnob thread where it was said that OV Burlington had the highest population of brit immigrants, just wondered why

annie3-4

whats odd about your break, go and make yourself a marmite sandwich and a cuppa..

Cowtown

The wierdest use for a jar of marmite that I ever heard of was:
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eating it!

iaink

EEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwww!!!

Smokey

But just how odd do you want it to be

Visited Oakie for a week in Sept and thought...um...well it's Thames Ditton really...good commuting to London...er Toronto....expensive..very, very expensive. So that why I liked what I saw Hmm... my cheapest house here was $9k and most expensive was $32k hmm....

Never spoke to another ex-pat...did speak to a rather nice transvestite at my hotel though..dressed better than me at any rate

Souvenir

You spent a week in Oakville without talking to another expat? That's quite a feat.

finallygotout

People make Oakie sound like it's crawling with expats, we never heard the accent or saw any union flags flying around when we have visited. Perhaps we are not hanging round the JOINTs where these expats congregate?

Souvenir

The 2001 census supports the argument. Roughly 28% of Oakville's population (or nearly 40,000 people) were not born in Canada. That is about the same proportion for Ontario as a whole but predictably much lower than for Toronto and Mississauga (both about 45%). It is a higher figure than for other towns in Ontario, such as Burlington (21%), London (18%), Kingston (13%) and Waterloo (22%).

Some 46% of Oakville's immigrant population is deemed to be visible minorities. That's way lower than the provincial average (71%) and the figures for Toronto and Mississauga (about 85%) and even Waterloo (63%). The Oakville figure is about the same as for London but 10% higher than for Burlington.

If we look at the language profile, there is further evidence. By my calculation, there are in excess of 9,000 people living in Oakville that have English as their first language and were not born in Canada. During my four years there I came across very, very few Australians, Kiwis, Yanks or South Africans. That doesn't leave us with too many options as to the origin of the vast majority of that 9,000.

I'm not saying that Oakville has the highest number of expat Brits - Burlington may have more and London almost certainly does - but there does seem to be quite a few of them. I knew dozens and my circle of friends wasn't all that big.

You wouldn't see too many Union flags being flown (although I have spotted them). If anything, the Crosses of St George and Saint Andrew are more common.

dbd33

Isn't a major attraction of Oakville compared with Toronto that there are very few people who are not white ? Visiting Oakville is like entering another world, the lost era of Harold MacMillan and Enoch Powell. I suggest that for people coming from the UK, Oakville appeals because they had enough multiculturalism in Luton or Bradford or wherever and they are seeking an old fashioned pimms drinking type of colony. Immigrants to Oakville might have chosen South Africa or Rhodesia had the natives not been so damn uppity.

Naturally, I don't live in Oakville but I can't be too smug either, Toronto's highly ghettoized and I have chosen to live in the Beach; an Anglo-Irish area of champagne socialists rather than somewhere with a population that's actually diverse.

Souvenir

There are more non-white people than you might think. The census put the visible minority population at close to 19,000. I've no idea where they all live. Not downtown, that's for sure.

I'm not sure I buy the idea of people picking Oakville because it's white.

finallygotout

Now that is a bit of a U-turn Thanks for all that stats

Souvenir

u-turn?

finallygotout

Rhodesia? You ned to get with the times

dbd33

Just an idea I picked up from talking to people at the yacht squadron and at ballet recitals. The sorts of things that take one to Oakville.

finallygotout

I'll have said it's haven for dead beat dads, rather than what you came up with