Farmboy1892

Hi Guys its been a while since I have been on here but I just thought I would bring you up to date and off course ask a Question (as per usual)??

My Wife and I went on our planned trip to Ontario last week and I thought it went well. We were very well received and the Canadian people were very welcoming. My wife still hasn't changed her opinion but that is another story.

Anyway I have received an email from World Education Services to say that my credential assessment has been completed even though they have missed out one of my certificates!! (its a 1 year level 2 NVQ so I don't think it will have a huge bearing on the final outcome).

What do I do with this report now??

Kind regards

Alan.

christmasoompa

Glad you enjoyed the trip to Ontario. Any luck with finding a job offer? Iirc you were going out to meet potential employers at an exhibition or something similar? Although I may well have you mixed up with somebody else so apologies if so!

WES don't accept NVQ's, which is why they didn't assess that.

You don't need to do anything with your ECA until you actually apply for EE (i.e. when you've got a job offer/LMIA/enough points).

HTH.

Farmboy1892

Hi Christmas,

Thanks for your reply. Yes I enjoyed Canada immensely. I was very impressed with how welcoming the people were and how impeccably clean all the malls and restaurants we visited were. Even on the sides of the roads it was noticeable the absence of trash which people over here in the UK tend to throw out with little or no thought for others.
My wife on the other hand seems to be a real home-bird and that's not something that is easily changed.
Right now we are in a real quandary. I want to go and embrace existing opportunity and she doesn't. We have 3 fantastic kids and I don't want to leave them.
Their quality of life and access to opportunities would dwindle I am sure of that. Its a difficult one.
We will just have to see!!
Had a good time at the expo by the way and spoke to a lot of employers who I now have to get in touch with in more detail.

Regards

Farmboy.

christmasoompa

No, it's not, and in all honesty if she didn't love Canada enough to give it a go, then I can't see her being convinced anytime soon. You never know though!

Would dwindle if you left them? Or dwindle if they stayed in the UK? I'd agree with the former, but not the latter.

A very tricky one. Do you think another area of Canada might make your wife fall in love with the country, or do you think she just loves the UK too much to consider anywhere?

Farmboy1892

I don't think it would matter Christmas.
She says she doesn't want the hassle of moving or making new friends.
Its all very raw at the minute. Sometimes the harder you try to achieve togetherness the bigger the rift seems to appear.
I cant see any winners in the situation at present. I don't necessarily want there to be a winner either I want to jump the hurdles of immigration with my Wife and the Kids. I want the nervous feeling of making new friends in both of our stomachs.
There is a big brick wall being built every time I mention the subject.
I don't know how to approach it or get any decisions made to provide a plan for a way forward.
We cant go on living like this as a family cause that is exactly what it isn't at the minute.


Answers on a postcard please!!!

christmasoompa

It might not be what you want to hear, but if your wife doesn't like you mentioning it and you're hitting a brick wall every time you do then the answer seems simple to me - don't mention it and forget the idea.

Moving to another country, away from friends/family and everything that's familiar is stressful enough when you're in it together, to try and do it when her heart's not in it would be a disaster IMO.

Just think of the practicalities and how you'd deal with it all if your wife didn't want to be there - if your kids come home crying from school every day and asking to go 'home', how you both suddenly have no friends with any shared history or culture to relate to, how you have to adapt to a very different working culture, and then the little things like not knowing what the different brands are in the supermarket, or how to pay a bill, or learning the new rules of the road, or where to buy decent Christmas cards, etc. Those things are all tough enough when you're both on the same page, but if she's homesick and only there for you, they'll break her.

If you were in a third world country, it would be very different, but although Canada is great, but it's really not going to offer you anything that the UK can't IMO. It'll cost you £25k or so to move as a family, and I wouldn't risk that, or my marriage, personally.

Right, agony aunt hat off! I have no idea about you or your marriage, but if your wife doesn't want to move then I think you'll have to be happy with just holidaying there.

But you never know, perhaps you'll take a trip to BC, or NS, or somewhere else sometime and that will be the place that she'll magically fall in love with and decide the move is worthwhile for.

I wish you the best of luck.

bc2015

There's no harm in opening a profile now, assuming he has the English test results as well.

christmasoompa

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

colchar

NVQs aren't recognized here.

From what I understand, the UK government considers them as roughly equivalent to GCSEs and those are just high school level credits/qualifications so here they would be considered equivalent to high school courses which are, essentially, meaningless.

Some of their higher level equivalencies are questionable as well. Apparently a NVQ Level 7 is considered equivalent to a post graduate diploma/certificate or a Master's degree. The problem with that is that a post graduate diploma/certificate is in no way, shape, or form equivalent to a Master's degree so how can a Level 7 NVQ be considered as being equivalent to a Master's?

In some ways it seems that NVQs are things that the government made up so that they could claim that students were graduating with qualifications. While NVQs might mean something in the UK, for someone looking to emigrate they will find that other countries don't recognize them.

Farmboy1892

All the good news seems to come at once on here guys!!
I thought yesterday was Monday.

I am full aware of all the risks involved with a proposed move. There is hardly a day goes past when I dont think of all the details you have mentioned above.

We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Thanks for the advice.

beckiwoo

I agree with Christmas, I am waiting on my ECAS and a year of Canadian work experience before applying. It would be better to know how many points you will get from the get go

beckiwoo

It is shame that they are not recognized but at the same time Canada should look into developing their own vocational qualifications. Especially for trades and more hands on jobs.

Not everyone does well with academic subjects

Siouxie

https://www.vocationalschools.ca/
http://cset.sp.utoledo.edu/canctcol.html

Dorothy

Not Canada, but Australia in our case. Postcard version?
We moved to Australia. Husband couldn't find work in the city we agreed we'd move to. He moved to another city leaving me with a low paid job and 2 kids. Three months later kids and I left city of choice to move somewhere we didn't want to be. Marriage ended. Kids were now habitually resident in Australia so even if I wanted to go home they couldn't come with me. Oh happy days!!!


Not so postcard version?

In 2005 I lost my job in Canada (we're Canadian btw). My husband and I lived in Burlington Ontario and he worked at Yonge & Shephard. Unfortunately he had to drive to work as he needed his company vehicle for his job and most days had to stop at sites on his way to work. He routinely left home at 6:30 am to be at work by 9:00. He left work at 5:00 and would most nights get home around 7:00. We were both tired of his horrible commute and my inability to work in my profession (long story there). So, one day as I was on the GO train going to Toronto I saw a snippet in the paper saying Australia is looking for skilled migrants. I phoned my ex and said "hey, we're skilled so let's be migrants". We first looked into moving to the UK but we didn't qualify for a visa, so looked at other places. New Zealand and Australia both looked nice and we qualified for a visa for Australia.

We decided to move to Adelaide as it's a nice small city without the rat race that is the GTA. I was very fortunate to be offered a job on our second day in the country and I started work on day 4. My ex, however could not find a job to save his life. It was really soul destroying for him and he sunk into a deep depression. At that point we considered moving back to Canada, but we would have gone back with nothing and to nothing. So he started looking for jobs wherever he could. An opportunity came up in Melbourne but he did not want to move to such a big city so the company said they also had a position in Perth if he was interested. He was so he took the job. In the meantime we had been in Adelaide for 6 months and I was happy at work and starting to make friends. The kids were settled in school and doing really well. My son was set up with CAMHS South Australia and was working well with his counselor and psychiatrist. The kids and I didn't really want to move away from where we were settled, but my ex did want to go...So he did. He left us behind in Adelaide while he moved to Perth, a 3 hour flight away.

Three months later I told him I was struggling financially and was considering going home to Canada and needed his permission to take the kids out of Australia, which he would not consent to. Our only option was to move to Perth where we would have the financial security of his job.

After a series of temp jobs I was offered a job that was permanent but turned out to be a nightmare for me. I then couldn't find anything that wasn't a short term temp position which wasn't good for my mental health. Then my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Thankfully I was able to go home to be with him for his last week, although I'm not sure whether he really knew it was me there.

Roll on a couple of years of placating my husband in his Australian dream and one day it all becomes too much and our 23 year marriage is over. He's got his house by the beach, the motorbike he's always wanted, kids who are now adult and Australian citizens and I'm left with the choice of either staying somewhere I never wanted to be in the first place or going home and leaving my children on the other side of the world. My 19 year old son has lived in Australia almost as long as he lived in Canada. He doesn't know anything else except Australia. He doesn't remember most of his extended family, he has a full-on Aussie accent and he has no desire to ever leave Perth. My daughter is now 21 and finishing an apprenticeship, living in her own place and has no desire to live anywhere but here.

Please, if you care for your wife (and I'm sure you do) think about what it could do to your marriage and your family if you cajole her into doing something she really doesn't want to do. If Canada really means that much to you then perhaps it's something you need to do on your own. However you have to ask yourself what's really more important to you; moving somewhere that the malls are clean or the woman you love and your family. At the end of the day those welcoming Canadians aren't going to be the ones holding your hand telling you that they love you when you're on your death bed. They, in all honesty, are probably just really fascinated by your accent.

beckiwoo

Yeah but it isnt as extensive as the vocational opportunities in the UK. My qualification in children and youth work was vocational.