For making your own bread, oh yes, Strong bread flour.

There are different spice mixes to play with here, an perfecting BBQ and grilling and SW USA recipes.

And butter tarts

And creme filled donuts to die for (or die of perhaps)

Butter tarts, eh? Sound yummy

There is plenty of good food available (at least in my part of Canada). However, it is rarely found on a supermarket shelf.

Not if it's anything like US meat. Bland, tasteless c**p.

That's always the case, isn't it? LOL

right bare with me im going to be reet thick......why is cheese in canada so bad.....and if it is so bad, why isn't someone using techniques and ingredients as done in the UK/europe to make something the same...sure would make a fortune........or would it be more simple to plait snow???

There are 2 tiers to cheese in Canada.

There is supermarket cheese:
http://armstrongcheese.ca/

And there is cheese:
http://www.bentonscheese.com/
http://www.moonstruckcheese.com/index_1.php
http://www.buycheese.com/
etc.

Likewise, there is supermarket bread:
http://www.wonderbread.ca/

And there is bread:
http://www.terrabreads.com/
http://www.labaguette.ca/
etc.

I imagine the majority of British Expats complaining about cheese haven't attempted to shop for cheese outside of a supermarket. As JonBoyE has explained, if you want good food, you don't seek it at a mainstream supermarket in Canada; you'll have to change your UK shopping habits or prepare to be disappointed.

There is good cheese, it just costs. Most supermarkets have a section for brick cheese and another section for the real stuff

ahhh i seee.....i dont even eat that much cheese but seeing the commotion on here and having friends who drive across the border to visit costco to get their cheese i was begining to miss it already...and im still in the uk!!!!.....im massively going to miss sausages...but believe me ill make a jolly good attempt at making my own before that happens

There are sausages here. Again you have to go to a butcher, which is a rare thing round here, or get used to sweet over spicey supermarket ones. That said President's Choice range is getting more and more good stuff in so all is not lost as long as you have some cash

Our first 3 years I had to watch every penny and shopping in low end stores trying to work out what the meat cuts were, what would be good and what wasn't would reduce me to tears every time I shopped. Now I am used to the grime that is No Frills.

We have found a great butchers here in tiny little Yarmouth. Their sausages are almost on a par with UK sausages. Much much nicer than those plastic things that pass for sausages in Superstore!
......still looking for good cheese in Yarmouth though!

Urban areas typically have more selection in terms of alternatives to supermarkets. Where I live, there are butcher shops everywhere selling fresh sausages - from English-style bangers to authentic Italian sausages, and exotic flavours (bison & blueberry, duck & port, etc.) I've never had an issue. Same for cheese, same for bread - but you have to know where to go.

However, Canadian small town living, suburban living, or even small city living, especially in the more isolated areas would likely be quite different, and I imagine choice is much less in those places because demand isn't always there.

It's not like the UK where villages are always less than an hour drive away from a major urban centre; in Canada, 33 million people are spread across a country the size of a continent. People living "in the sticks" don't have that luxury of proximity that we take for granted in the UK; Canada simply doesn't have the population density to be able to provide a diversity of high end quality products at every small town, as it's too cost prohibitive; the spaces are too far apart to bother delivering those products to justify the cost of transportation. Those products are sold where there's demand, and that's usually in the cities. Add on the layer of British Expats (at least many on this forum) that seem to be drawn to the more isolated, rural areas of Canada because they can get a bigger house for cheaper prices, and you can see why there's a pattern of "I can't find sausages, bread, cheese!" prevalent amongst expats.

And yet, it also depends on the local culture. There are many areas in Canada (usually in regions where natural resources are the main/only industry) where a sophisticated food culture isn't high on the priority list, so there's less demand for cheese shops, gourmet bakeries, etc. And believe me, cheese that isn't block cheese, is considered sophisticated to the average Canadian! Although baked Brie is strangely prominent! And then there are places, like Vancouver, where "100 mile diet" and buying organic, locally-grown/harvested foods has been adopted into the mainstream mentality. I imagine things are different in Fort McMurray.

In Quebec, cheese shops and boulangeries are everywhere and it's a part of the local diet, so it's much more available.

I don't know where I'm going with this, other than it really does vary where you go and where you intend to move to, and it helps to know that supermarkets aren't the "be all end all" to food in Canada. Supermarkets, frankly, are frequently depressing places in Canada because the shelves are primarily filled with mass-produced processed foods made in factories. Unfortunately, these are often the only shopping options in smaller, isolated areas.

Yes, so very true. Except that those food deprived areas are not always so remote. Peterborough has only recently had decent supplies, it improved considerably after Costco moved to the city.

2 hours from Toronto and it's another world! The village does 100 mile diet stuff but the menu is still burgers and fries and wings and greek salad etc.

Overheard at work the other day "The French seem to have some good cheeses"....

That's not so different from us, it's an hour and a half from here to the market. We go often though because there are so many foodstuffs available there that simply aren't sold here. I'd say that, in Toronto, one cannot find a good Mexican meal in a restaurant and, of late, there have been no good quality pickled onions on offer, otherwise you can get any kind of food and, if you want it delivered on a plate, you can have it cooked by a native of the country of the cuisine. It's a great place for eating but, once you go past the 401, well, you'd better take a sandwich.