Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

This is a rather informal analysis but there seems to be a disproportionate amount of Scottish people who want to emigrate to Canada. Especially from the Glasgow area. I wonder if the motivation is that Canada has a somewhat similar landscape so they feel comfortable or that Scotland is such shithole that they all just want to leave the place?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Well those that are heading to Saskatchewan & Manitoba are definitely not moving because the landscape is similar so I guess we can deduct its a shithole ;)

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Are you on the Buckfast already? Our kind of guy.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

This is my town. Picture says a thousand words etc...

www.paperclip.org.uk/Cumbernauld/abronhill.htm

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

It probably looks a lot better in the sunshine. What about all that lovely Scottish salmon and wonderful Highland beef.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Sunshine? Remind me what that is?

Note the prison like, 8ft steel fence around the school. I'm certain all schools in Scotland now have this, as a response to the Dunblane massacre.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I suspect you're painting an overly bleak picture. I'm sure behind those bars the the fresh face children are enthusiastically discussing the cultural significance of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

You're probably right. Can't complain about the school our 2 boys go to - once they're inside that is.

We Scots like to moan a lot. That may be why it feels like there's loads of us on this site!

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Looks like downtown Hamilton ontario to me??

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I know. Anyway, slightly off topic. I was just wondering if your handle is Big Al's or Bi gals? The latter would be preferred.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

agreed.;)

They used to flock to Blackpool.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Blackpool to Ajax. That's hilarious.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Thanks.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

It looks a dump and, if you can move from there to somewhere in Canada that's not a dump, that's obviously better, but Canada also has town planning and designed communities. That looks very much like the Regent Park area of Toronto, Tuxedo Court in Scarborough or Rexdale. The difference in the latter being that there are criss-cross wire fences everywhere to make it difficult to run. Granted the whole of Canada doesn't look like that so, if all of Scotland does, that explains a lot.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

It is not. Some of the best countryside in Britain is in Scotland.

I once went to superb wedding in gourock, one of the best I have been fortunate to attend. The people are gems, the hospitality second to none. Though the pebble dash buildings, less said the better.fletch

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Agreed. My sister lives in a small hamlet just outside of Stirling. Lovely countryside. <and only a short distance to Glasgow>.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Surely comparing the nasty areas of the UK with the nasty areas of Canada is missing the point a bit. It is almost like saying you shouldn't move from Glasgow to San Francisco because Buffalo is a dump. Isn't the point that for the price of a house in a nasty area in the UK you can buy a house in a nicer part of Canada? Or at least is was when there were two and a half dollars to the pound.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

From what i can see, you get a slightly larger house, and you have some much larger bills to pay. IMO. i suppose there will be the equivalent to Hull or Middlesborough in canada. You can buy cheaper houses in these areas, but is there any work to allow you to pay the bills?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

That's fair enough. But equally, for the price in $$ and other sacrifice that moving to say Barrie from Glasgow will involve, the self-identified Glaswegian slum dwellers could move to somewhere like my sister is (she wouldn't thank me for suggesting that) and commute to Glasgow if they must.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

In the words of the immortal bard "Away and lie in yer pish ya numpty'

:p:lol:

All in the best possible taste....

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

John Cooper Clarke?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Big Als sorry for the let down

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I think Buffalo warrants reconsideration. The Elmwood Village area is very nice and, whilst walking dogs there, one encounters entertaining old ladies with whippets. I'd sooner move to Buffalo, at least that part of Buffalo, than Barrie.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

There are many towns in Scotland that can be classed as picturesque or desirable - outwith the financial reach of a regular working family. I'm aware of the areas you mention above and they probably are comparable.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Stirling itself can be quite rough, but as you mentioned, there are many desirable towns and villages within the Stirlingshire area. If we (and many others) could afford to live there, would.

Our return to Ontario will be done with tails between our legs, so to speak. We are looking forward to it but at the same time, there's no way to deem our attempt to settle back in Scotland other than a failure.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

By comparable I hope you mean the truth, i.e. the places in which a regular working family can afford to live? Especially ones who've blown their miserable life savings (if any) on moving halfway around the world to arrive in our mythical Shangri-La without a job.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I was referring to them being visually comparable but you're right to bring that up. Having seen many of the Ontario housing blocks and listened to stories from the OH, who was a district nurse for a spell, it makes you wonder if they were better off where they came from.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

+1 Buffalo vs Barrie = Buffalo everytime

(and over Glasgow as well!!)

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

It's not like it's anything new. Look at the Hudson's Bay and NW Companies. Run by Scotsmen. Okay, granted that quite a few went back to London afterwards, a few also stayed either in Rupert's Land, or many more in Montreal after they retired from fur trade life. The ones who stayed behind had usually married local women and couldn't bring them back and face society with a non-European wife.

Canada's been second home to the Scots since 1670...

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

From Trainspotting:

"It's SHITE being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the ****ing Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are COLONIZED by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized BY."

Is Canada better though?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Good point. This could explain the mythology. But it's not true any more.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I think you've almost hit this one on the head. It's not Scotland that's a shithole but Glasgow.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

What? The 1991 European Capital of Culture? What happened in a couple of decades?

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

That they can't return home with Native wives? True, not in the societal censure of marrying outside one's ethnic group. That's not applicable to the same degree today. We could probably argue that in a small sense, the outsider feeling that some expats comment upon as present in their daily lives still lives on though.

I've often wondered, if some of that mythology of Canada as place to make one's fortune and way in the world, wound its way almost subconsciously into generations of Scottish families who remained behind. I imagine even more so once relatives came back to the UK in their retirement during the 1700 and 1800s with their company pensions and well embellished tales of living in the wilderness. There might very well have been a centuries-old influence on people's decisions to emigrate that started off as an old half-remembered family history told by some male ancestor that subsequent generations of grandsons and great-nephews then decided to take up and the cycle continued. Interesting.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I probably exaggerate, though I did have a grim stay there 4 years ago where I got my wallet nicked as well. We did go to a fine restaurant called 'The Ubiquitous Chip' - thankfully before the wallet walked...

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

I guess you can take the Englishman out of England... but not the English out of the Englishman... :rofl:


Glasgow does have areas that are shitholes inhabited by people that waste the air... Find me a city that doesn't...

However it also has been invested in and cleaned up a lot over the past 3 years or so and the city centre is genuinely a nice place to be now. With some stunning architecture and a long rich history. Places to visit like George Square, the Merchant City, Kelvingrove Art Galleries, Pollock Park and the Burrell collection, the Necropolis, the west end and University Avenue etc etc ....its a hard working University city not a holiday camp, it certainly has plenty to see and do and a high population of hard working friendly and culturally interesting people. I am proud to be Glaswegian and proud to be Scottish... Kilts, Bagpipes, Irn Bru & Haggis the whole bit!! Scotland has soul... Like it or loath it you can't deny that.

As one of the Glaswegians on the forum looking to move to Canada I can categorically state I am not running away, I am not seeking a "better life" and I am not rejecting my cultural background. I'm just approaching 40 and want to experience something different, something new and somewhere that the weather isn't grey 90% of the year! Canada is my new home of choice, yes parts of it remind me of home, but with an interesting newness thrown in and just a different outlook and attitude... not better or worse... just different.

I'm away to make myself some Porridge and then go up north search of Nessie...

"They may take our lives - but they will never take our FREEDOM!!"

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Ah, the recipient of the 2001 Carbuncle award for Worst Place in Scotland. Way to set the tone for the thread.

I don't (yet) know any urban place in Canada as visually pleasing to me as Edinburgh although admittedly I've still loads to see. Ottawa does well. Old Montreal also does alright. Toronto, not so much.

All of those win over Glasgow pretty easily for me on the visual front, but Glasgow has its own pockets of magic as well, I just find you have to go looking for them, they're not all slap bang in front of you when you step off the train.

Glasgow tears Edinburgh up for arse paper when it comes to arts and music. Some you win, some you lose.

I think what I am trying to say is Glasgow is really not a bad place, it holds its own.

Everywhere has its good and bad but it'd be a pretty short and boring thread if we all just acknowledged that. ;)

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

A voice behind me says "Glasgow? I always thought of Glasgow as a fun and safe place, somewhere to go drinking without fear".

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Good one! The SNP insisted on having drinking as an event within the Glasgow commonwealth games in 2014 to guarantee one Gold for the host city.

Re: Scottish people emigrating to Canada.
 

Not "Biggles" then? I thought you might have been a pal of "Aviator" ;)