British Expats - One Year Since Arriving.... [update]

Thought I'd pop down my thoughts on Canada one year on (well 10months but hey I was in the mood to type :) )

Myself and my partner (common-law same sex couple) arrived in Canada July 2007 and have been experiencing the new immigrant lifestyle ever since. I left the UK to come and work for RIM, one of the most important things I cannot stress enough is if you are thinking of moving to Canada please please please have a job arranged prior to coming it WILL make your life and the process easier!

I read so many horror stories on these boards about not being able to obtain car credit and credit cards that to be honest we weren't 100% certain we'd manage to make it after we arrived, given that all we had with us was $15k CDN and that was it, we'd decided to sell everything back home and just arrive with our liquidated assets.

So after having had a trip to look for somewhere to live in the Region of Waterloo we had a house rental lined up and had already obtained keys it would mean the house was being paid for for 1 month with no one living in it but we wanted to ensure that services were hooked up and furniture that we'd bought had somewhere to be delivered to, we arranged for someone to house sit on the days that services and deliveries were scheduled to happen.

Everything from that respect worked out beautifully, our relocation consultant stayed at the house for us and all was good - cable was hooked up - tv, phone and internet and all our furniture deliveries made it and all was as expected when we arrived at the house on our actual move day - 'Welcome Home Relocations' provided our consultant and from experience I'd not hesitate to reccomend them - http://www.welcomhomerelocations.ca

Having the use of a relocation consultant was fantastic and definitely eased the whole process, from getting our SIN, Driver's License Exchanged and
Bank Account organised - she knew exactly where and when to go in order to avoid queues and just eased us into our new lives. We successfully obtained Credit Card, Full Service Bank Account (I know you have to pay for them but here our bank has been a MASSIVE improvement over any UK bank I ever had the displeasure to be a customer of)

So that was arrival... we are here now and have been living life - since we've arrived we've discovered that cost of living here in Waterloo averages out to be significantly cheaper than back home in the UK, however for some bizarre reason Chicken and Cheese is very expensive... god knows why.

Cars = Cheaper
Fuel = Cheaper (about cent for penny at time of writing $1.27 litre)
Food = Generally Cheaper but some exceptions (as noted above)
Services (cable, satellite etc) = Overall Cheaper
Houses = MUCH Cheaper
Car Insurance = More Expensive

We've found the little corner of Ontario we are now in very hospitable, people are very friendly and constantly curious about where we are from - some seem to think New Zealand or Australia and other pick up it's the UK straight away.

If you pine for some of your favorite British comforts then there is a small network of british shops in the area that can furnish you with essentials from home, at a price, Branston Pickle, Pork Pies, Marks & Spencer Biscuits and other foods are all available - it's worth seeking out 'Best of British' in the Peddler's section of St Jacobs Farmer's Market - Thurs and Saturdays.

Life has been good and Canada appears to have welcomed us with open arms so far, so much so that we've bought a house and are now very settled, we are currently only on Work Permit's with Permanent Residency in progress.

More updates to come, hope you found the above useful