seacreature

Maybe the -50C is with the wind chill?

scimdarren

A trendy glitzy city compared to others, probably not. Cheap to live, prosperous, down to earth, friendly- these are the factors that make it feel like home to me.
If you grew up in, or are used to a large fashionable city, head for Toronto and good luck. Otherwise, with the earnings your talking about- live like a King in Winnipeg!!

Cheers

Darren

scimdarren

A trendy glitzy city compared to others, probably not. Cheap to live, prosperous, down to earth, friendly- these are the factors that make it feel like home to me.
If you grew up in, or are used to a large fashionable city, head for Toronto and good luck. Otherwise, with the earnings your talking about- live like a King in Winnipeg!!

Cheers

Darren

scimdarren

Sorry for the double posting, maybe something to do with cutting down on the Moosehead since the new year, and then having a few this evening after a long lay off....

Regards

Beer

dbd33

On crime in Toronto. This is a mixed area, you can rent an apartment for $350 or a house for $3,500 a month. There are co-op and metro housing buildings nearby. It's urban enough to be within the limits of the streetcars and subways.

I just had a cop at the door. "We have complaints that there has been vandalism in the neighbourhood and that some youths hanging out in the alley look threatening. Just being in the alley isn't a crime, of course, but we don't want any of this to escalate. Here's the phone number for the Community Policing Unit, call us if you see something less than a crime in progress, call 911 for crimes, but if it's just something that makes you uncomfortable call us".

We talked about local facilities for dogs and autistic people and he left a form which is to be used for reporting "patterns of worrying behaviour, potential car vandals and the like" in order that the police bicycle patrol routes can be adjusted.

"**** me" I thought, that's service.

crazydaisy

My feeling is that you have to ask yourself how busy you prefer things! When we flew from Winnipeg to Toronto last year we left Winnipeg and looked down on fields and small farms and the city centre didn't extend all that far and then came in to land in Toronto and all you can see is grey, grey building, grey roads and masses and masses of cars. To some that would be lovely but I was sure glad to fly back into Winnipeg! I get kind of stressed out in large cities and so try to avoid them but on the down side is we have found that loads of jobs in the papers are to do with farming so the oppurtunities are less, and although cost of living is cheaper the salaries in some cases are completeley laughable, so it's six of one and half a dozen of the other. If we applied all over again knowing what we know now I would still choose Winnipeg though!! I love the cold, I love the snow and the people are great.

sandeep0909

Thanks all for the posts. It is crazy 'coz the more I think the more I get confused.
These are my Idea from all the posts

Winnipeg: Better Quality of Life, Laid back life style, More time with family,
More Cleaning of Snow (Consdering that I move to a house),
On Career front - Permanent Job but as a Senior Developer (a big Minus)
Does Winnipeg has underground and Inter connected shopping complex etc like Toronto ???

Toronto:Fast Life, Less time with family, No cleaning of snow('coz I can only afford an 3 bedroom apartment), More traffic (But I will prefer Subways), Too expensive, Lots of good palces to visit during weekends,Toronto has a very good underground connection so u can still comfortably move around/shop while it is -20 outside.

Career: Consulting Job but as Project Architect and/or Project Manager (This is one biggie for me). My wife also being a software expert in SAP/Java may get more opportunity too.
As of now I have decided to buy some time from the companies, visit winnipeg before taking decision.

Rex,
I did not apply everywhere. I chose very limited companies which exactly fit my requirements and applied to those. To be honest I have till now applied for about 6 companies and have got response from 4 of them.
US market is much stronger, if you are in USA and can work here, do so and gain some experience. There are quite a few experienced guys in canada in the areas of .net/Microsoft technologies etc.

crazydaisy

Hi Sandeep - re:question on underground etc. in Winnipeg there is an underground tunnel linking offices and shops downtown although there is no underground railway. The buses though are excellent (mine has only been late twice in 2 years and that was during the first truly cold spell when the roads are hellish - after that they settle down!) Plus if you have to catch 2 buses you can get a free transfer ticket so you don't have to pay for 2 buses. The kind of companies I have seen recruiting for IT are Convergys (a horrible call center with real bad pay), Great West Life (pretty stressy job an expat friend says but could be pretty secure with benefits) and IBM have a huge contract with Air Canada. The downside is they (IBM Winnipeg) very rarely take on permanent staff but instead take on temps and employ them as permanents after 2 years. The pay isn't too bad for the area although the shifts are killers at 2 x 12hrs days followed by 2 x 12 hr nights - pretty brutal, especially in minus 20C temperatures! The one real dowside with Winnipeg is that it attracts companies who want to pay a pittance for workers. They come to one of the cheapest areas in Canada, and yep pay a pittance. Even Uni grads end up with low paid work and it can get pretty frustrating. Some companies have admitted that Winnipeg is a zone for cheap labour and the main offices where there are more career paths are held in Montreal or Calgary. Also it's very hard to get the foot in the door here. Hubby has managerial experience but has had to start at ground zero as no-one likes to take mid management staff, they prefer to take on entry level staff and promote within. I don't know if this is true for other provinces but is pretty common in Winnipeg. If you do have job offers first though then that would be a huge leap ahead and would hopefully go some way to securing a good position.

Good luck in your decisions and go with your gut instinct!

Daisy