Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Hi all,

So, our house has only been on the market a week, and is already under offer. Great but a little too quick. We are still waiting for my husband's temp work permit and medical to be sorted, and then three months notice on jobs to be given, which roughly takes us to moving December or in January. I have to admit I am a bit worried about not having chance to readjust to the cold and snow, moving to Bracebridge which I believe gets a fair amount of snow, and just being thrown into the deep end of driving on snowy roads and clearing drives etc.

Is this a daft time to move? Should we wait til Spring? Do you think there will be less opportunity for the kids and I to make friends? Feeling a little daunted by everything that needs to be sorted through and worried that the first impressions you get of somewhere can play an important part in settling. Some reassurance required I think.

Vicki.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

We arrived on January 15, 2007. We survived;)

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Plenty of people do it. Canada doesn't stop like the UK when it snows unless it snows really bad then things may slow down a bit. Anyone with kids will still be out and about doing stuff, the kids will make friends in school and you will meet people that way too.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Winter? Whats that then :confused: :D


I've read of a few people who move in Sep/Oct to cold parts of Canada (aka most of it!) and by March (6 months later) they have had enough of the cold weather to start wondering if they made the right choice. Moving in January at least gives you less time to wait for spring/summer and the feel good factor of nice weather to hit.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Missleah moved from Ireland to the thriving metropolis of Kindersley, with kids in tow in the middle of a howling blizzard with windchill warnings and road closures all over for days; I mean really nasty nasty weather even if you're from here, and instead of refusing to get off the plane in Calgary or demanding to be repatriated she just got snow gear and skates for the kids and got on with it. Commendable! :thumbsup:

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Someone I used to work with arrived in Ontario from Swindon on one Sunday in the middle of winter. They settled into their temporary apartment and over night there was a snow storm... nothing serious, but a reasonable blanket of snow.

The next morning her husband, who was supposed to start work that day, called into his new employer to say he wouldn't be in because of the snow ....

Apparently they said nothing ... they just laughed at him..:rofl:

Needless to say, he never lived it down ... yeah and they're not here any longer, packed up and went back after a few years !!!

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Oh no, I'm looking forward to the snow....but we won't be used to it. Coastal Swansea in Wales gets a dusting and life on a hill grinds to a halt.

Should I get our snow gear in the uk or wait for heavy duty stuff from Canada, for the kids really? Husband and I are fairly kitted up already. I think I remember reading somewhere once about some sort of driving in snow course? Is it something newbies do or are you all going to laugh at me and tell me to man up?!:)

Vicki

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Personally ... and this is just my opinion .. I would buy the kids gear here. More choice and probably cheaper.. also they'll fit in with all the other kids which was a big deal for my kids when they first arrived ... However I don't remember if you said how old your children are so maybe this is not such a biggy.

As far as driving is concerned, and again this is just my opinion ... I'm more nervous driving in the UK on ice and snow because it tends to be that wet slippery stuff. Here I've had some hairy moments but in 23 years I can probably count them on one hand. Generally with good tires .. better still winter tires you'll be fine ..Just remember to do everything more slowly and gently... brake slower, accelerate slower, corner slower etc. You'll be fine and they don't usually take very long to clean the roads.

I can't recall where you are going to settle but if you would feel happier getting some experience with driving in icy conditions there is a place in Oakville on Bronte Road .. They teach driving on a skid track using water I believe... alternatively you could go to a quiet parking lot on a snowy Sunday evening and practices some 'doughnuts' (skidding in circles on snow) ...

Mind you I am talking about Ancaster, Ontario ... and in the whole scheme of things, we don't get much snow ... :D

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I'd be more worried about selling up before the temp work permit and medical have been sorted. Unless there is absolutely no chance of something going wrong wouldn't you be better to wait until after they are completely sorted before making a committment like selling the house?

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Yandros,

Wasn't the intention to get an offer so soon. Thought it would take months and then some to sell- housing market is soooo slow. But the offer is a good one, and offered exchange with long completion date to fit in with us. Too good to turn down really. Medical should be (theoretically) a formality, fit and healthy 40 something bloke. Needs one to work as a family physician, and so have a reasonable expectation of temp work permit going through okay.

However, we have discussed, in light of quick offer, what happens if we don't go, and we need a bigger house as we are now, so it's not terrible to sell this one. I would hope though that work permit is through before exchange, so hopefully not an issue. There are always so many variables in this sort of process.

vic

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Don't come in winter if you plan to bring cats/dogs with you though!

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Everyones experience will be different, and it will depend on where you're moving to.
We had friends who moved to Alberta in December when it was -40. For the wife in particular (SAHM) it completely ruined her experience. With no car, not being able to get anywhere, and not knowing anyone at the time, it was a very isolating experience.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

We brought two dogs with us. They survived too;)

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I can understand this. We lived very close to the school and my OH, as she did in England, planned on walking the kids to school each day. She thought it would help her meet people.

She found that, in winter, the kids of other parents were loaded into their minivan within the integral garage, garage door would open, car would reverse out, drive to school, door would open, kids would get out, minivan would drive home, garage door would open, car would drive in, garage door would close.

Had it not been for the fact that the kids told us that other kids lived on our street, we would have been hard pressed to realise this.

Spring came and, it would appear out of nowhere, our street was full of kids and other adults.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

You'd have to figure it out when you experienced your first snowfall, regardless of what month that occurred in so why not just jump in head first? And yes, Bracebridge gets a good amount of snow but you'll soon adjust. Also Bracebridge is beautiful so the spring, summer, and fall more than make up for the snow in winter.



Nah, scores of people have done it. If you can arrive around Christmas so that schools are out and the kids can start fresh the first day back in January, even better.


The kids will make friends in school. If you will have access to a vehicle (I recommend snow tires for your first experience of it or, failing that, at least a set of very good all season tires) during the day you can make friends by joining various groups - whether a sport of some kind (recreational league), a special interest (art, crafts, music, or whatever), a mother's group (kind of depends on the age of the kids but these can be great for making friends and are often nothing more than social groups), a local gym, etc.



Completely normal and almost everyone goes through that.



Try to avoid letting any first impression cloud your judgement and give it a year before you really evaluate how you feel about being here. And just remember that winter doesn't last forever and that we here in Canada deal with it and get by much more efficiently than they do in Britain. Although it might not seem like it, winter will end and the spring, summer, and fall in Bracebridge will be glorious. And as you become more accustomed to winter it will become easier to deal with so your second winter will be easier to handle than your first. Personally, I hate winter but I have come to look at it more as a temporary inconvenience than anything else.

And you must also keep in mind that you will not have to be in Bracebridge forever - you can move to anywhere else in the country so long as you and your husband can find work in your fields (what is it that each of you do?).

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Hi Colchar,

Husband will be working as a Family Physician (GP in Wales) and when the kids are more settled, I will have to sort out working as a staff nurse, which in itself will be a long process. But kids are young, 7 and 2, and the eldest will need me around to help him adjust so no big plans to work imminently.

We did visit Bracebridge in January, so a little idea of what's it like but of course a visit is nowhere near like living somewhere.

Have to confess Yandros post left me worrying a lot about the work visa!!!!! What if he doesn't get one? I was under the impression they only declined work visa if they thought you might not leave when time was up and be a burden to province. So many things to stress about!!!

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

My family doctor is Scots and all the doctors at his practice were Scots or Irish except for one. My aunt, who was a nurse, always marveled at how they never had any problems bringing doctors over from Britain!

But that is neither here nor there I guess so I'll get back to the issue. There is a shortage of doctors in Ontario so him getting a work visa should be a formality I would think - especially if he is willing to work in a smaller town like Bracebridge that will be under serviced as far as doctors are concerned. And as a physician he would be able to move anywhere in the province, or country, once permanent resident status was achieved (assuming you plan to stay permanently). He will never be out of work unless he chooses to be! And so far as I know, there are plenty of nursing positions available as well so, when the time comes, you shouldn't have any trouble finding work.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Ha I don't know about it being easy for doctors to work there!!! A lot of hoops to jump through, I suppose it's reassuring that immigrant doctors are so closely scrutinised and sure it will be worth it. The plan is for Canada to become our permanent home and LMO came back for three years so here for a while at least.

Vic.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Once qualifications are accepted, it is very easy for doctors to find work here. A newly arrived doctor will be monitored for about five years after arriving, but it is the same with a newly qualified Canadian doctor.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

A newly arrived doctor, and a newly qualified doctor, are not exactly the same thing.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

January is the best time to move because then you don't have to pro-rate your tax return and it makes easier to calculate other things, like the number of days you've been in country which matters for various other reasons. Also as pointed out you get to experience winter without sitting through the whole thing so it's a better introduction.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Husband has to sit two exams to be able to work unsupervised. Had to find a practice with a family physician able to supervise him (albeit loosely) and a proxy supervisor. Sort of what I mean about it being hard to practice out there since he's an extremely good doctor, lots of years hospital experience and general practice experience with orthopaedics and sports science behind him too. Still needs supervision though :(...

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I know a number of foreign trained doctors that have all had a hell of a time "requalifying" in Canada. The exams appear to be fine, as to the practical assessments. It is finding a residents place that seems to be the issue.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Almost Canadian,

My husband won't need a residency, the system is very complicated, but the UK Royal College of GP and the College of Physicians of Family Medicine Ontario (CPSO) have a reciprocal agreement so that my husband does not need to retrain ie residency, he can go straight into practice with the "supervision" but still needs to prove himself with what used to be two exams, has actually now been amalgamated into one rather expensive exam.

I think for a country that is rather short on family physicians they could make it a teeny tiny bit easier to work here. Fortunately my husband really wants to come over to work, so is prepared to do whatever it takes to get here.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Therein lies the conflict. Canada needs doctors, but the provincial bodies who represent doctors like things as they are. With limited supply and increasing demand, they can charge more for their services.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Everybody keeps asking me actually about this and I have no response, but why doesn't Canada have enough doctors or each province? It can't just be geography, can it? Why don't they train what they require? There were a few doctors looking to retire in the area we went to, but weren't able to find someone to cover their practice list.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I think given the age of your children you will be fine regardless of the time of year you move. I moved with 2 of my 3 kids last October to Manitoba.....we were only here a few days and the snow fell.....and fell.....and fell......and it didn't stop until May!! You will make friends quickly through schools and nursery etc......buy their snow clothes here if and when required.....and best of luck:)

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

They are as far as the government is concerned. Since they are new to practicing in Ontario/Canada, they are both monitored (prescriptions, etc.).

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I think a big part of the reason is due to doctors who trained and qualified in countries other than Britain, the US, Australia, etc. as the education systems in some non-western countries simply isn't up to our standards.

I had a bad experience with a foreign trained doctor a few years ago when my regular family doctor was on vacation. I had broken a finger in three places but he insisted that, because my fingers were kind of reddish in colour, I hadn't broken my finger but had a skin condition. I explained to him that my fingers have always turned that colour in cold weather and that, having broken more bones over the years than I can count, I know exactly how it feels to break a bone. He insisted that I was wrong, took a razor blade, slit my finger open, and then couldn't understand why it was bleeding but no pus was coming out. I said a few choice words and left. About half an hour later I popped into another walk-in clinic where a girl I had gone to high school with worked as a nurse. She got me in to see a doctor who then sent me for x-rays and those confirmed that I had, indeed, broken the finger in three places. Because the x-ray place had given me my x-rays and I had to return them, I had them with me when I left that second doctor's office. I went back into the first one, asked to see the same doctor again, showed him the x-ray, and let him know that he should learn to listen to his patients. I said a couple of other things but those cannot be repeated here without me getting hit with the banhammer ;)

When I was in graduate school, a guy in our department had come over from Pakistan. There he had earned a B.A. after two years of university and a Master's after four years of university. He had applied to the PhD program that I was in but was only allowed into the Master's program because here in Ontario after four years of university we only earn a B.A. and a Master's takes another one to two years (and both of those degrees are required for entry into a PhD program). He said his family was angry that the university was making him do another Master's and wasn't allowing him into the PhD program but after being here a little while he understood why and said that he now grasped that his Master's from Pakistan was only at the same level as a Canadian B.A.

So, while it might seem like they are making it unnecessarily tough on foreign trained doctors, a lot of that has to do with people coming from education systems that simply are not up to par with those in western countries.




Not true. See above.

And doctors cannot charge more, regardless of demand, because their rates are set by the provincial governments, not by the doctors themselves.

http://www.health.gov.on.ca/english/...ob/sob_mn.html

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

A lot of it has to do with the availability of medical school places. In provinces with smaller populations there will only be on medical school. In provinces with larger populations there will be several but spaces in those programs are limited and are tied to government funding. And starting new medical schools is a long, involved process. I spent a decade in academia and know the hoops that have to be jumped through to, for example, add fields to PhD programs in the Humanities. The hoops for establishing a medical school are far far worse. The university where I did my undergrad recently set up a medical school in combination with the university where I was doing my PhD (that university has a long established medical school) and they did that (partnered with another university that already had a med school) because that made the process shorter. But even then, it took a few years to get it up and running.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Existing doctors (or lawyers or electricians or dentists any other regulated occupation) benefit financially by keeping out practitioners from overseas in two ways. Firstly, if there are less doctors (etc.) they have more customers each and so can provide more services and so charge more fees. Secondly, if there's famously a shortage of that skill and lots of scary stories in the paper then their organisations can more effectively pressure the government to increase the fee for each service.

People in a trade have a clear financial interest in creating barriers to entry, whether or not they intend to create a climate whereby they're overwhelmed, they certainly don't want to create one where doctors (etc.) are in such oversupply that we each have one per limb.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

That's what I was getting at, thank you.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Never a more correct bunch of words spoken

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Well any of the practices that we've spoken to, the actual doctors themselves, are very keen to recruit. It's the government red tape that ties everything up. The Family Physcians of Ontario have an agreement with the UK to recognise GP qualifications, so they are trying to make it easier.

America is course a different culture and we can't comment on Canada yet, but for the UK most entering the medical or nursing profession do it out of a desire to help and heal. I don't believe that Canadian physicians are any different. I fear sometimes that the media and governments seek to colour Joe Publics view of certain groups to gain more power and leave them vulnerable to whatever changes they want to make. This is certainly true of the UK.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I am a lawyer in Calgary and was a solicitor in England. I have spoken to many lawyers in Canada that practised in other jurisdictions, I have also spoken to many doctors, engineers, dentists, carpenters, electricians that were recognised as experts in their own countries but were told that their own country's standards were not sufficient and that they had to take exams and pass supervision periods to enable the regulators in Canada to satisfy themselves of their expertise. Invariably, all those concerned believed that a) it was a money grab by the regulators; and b) the standards in Canada are not so high that any of them actually learned anything of relevance throughout the process.

Put simply: it is protectionism.

I truly hope your experience will be different but, somehow, I doubt it will be.

Edit: I note that you are a nurse. Please let us know how "useful" your requalification process was to you, once you have been through it.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I'm not disputing that the exams are probably useless and that I'm as equally as qualified likewise my husband. I just don't believe it comes from doctors or nurses wishing to protect their pockets.

One concern of mine is that we've actually come across many doctors unable to retire as they have no one to hand over their patient list and don't wish to leave them without a doctor. They certainly wished to retire and again were very keen for us to come. In the end, we opted for a younger surgery, again desperate for the help. No protectionism over income at all.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

I must defer to your greater knowledge;)

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

Almost Canadian....

Maybe I'll be eating my words in a year or two:)

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

It doesn't come from doctors trying to protect their pockets and anyone who thinks so is misguided.

A doctor can only work so many hours in a week (or day, month, or however you want to break it down). With so many Ontarians being without a family physician, to say nothing of specialists, there are more than enough patients to go around without negatively impacting the incomes of established doctors if that new physician establishes their own practice. And if that new physician joins an existing practice there is a financial benefit to the established doctors in that practice as their practice can now see more patients per week.

So there is an obvious financial benefit for them to have more doctors in their practice and, as I said, there are so many people without a family physician that adding new doctors who set up their own practices won't make any difference to existing doctors because there are more than enough patients to go around and the number of patients that each doctor can see in a given period (whether day, week, month, or year) is limited by the number of hours that they can work.

If existing doctors are really just trying to protect their own pockets, as some here claim, then why are there so many family practices in Ontario that are flat out refusing to accept any new patients? If they were trying to line their pockets they would be accepting new patients, no matter how long their wait times were. The fact that so many of them aren't accepting new patients (and the fact that they aren't is reported regularly) refutes the claims some are making that doctors/ the College of Physicians are trying to keep new doctors out so as to protect their own pockets.

Re: Is winter a crazy time to move and resettle?
 

You're missing the point. It's not individual doctors per se, it's the provincial bodies who represent doctors.

But, if you don't agree with the argument that it's protectionism, then please try and explain why a UK trained/qualified doctor (lawyer, engineer, etc, etc) has to requalify when they come to Canada. What is the purpose?