Dave n Ailsa

We have completed our family Recce trip to Canada, and the results are as follows: (with pictures) hope that's ok. (in three parts)

Ailsa: "I don't want to go home"..."sob sob"
Me: "I now have a shitload of work to do back home before we can move"
Son Number 2: "awesome!"
Son number 1: "It's ok, can we go home now?"

So, 3 out of 4 isn't too bad.

In our two week trip (three weeks for Ails) we did the following:

Ailsa worked for a week in her Canadian branch of her current employer.

We lived with friends in their "average family home" in the south west of Hamilton. We spent most evenings discussing the cost of living etc

Ailsa spoke to a bank mortgage advisor

We spoke to a realtor

We Visited Niagara, Montreal and Ottawa

We viewed 10 homes for sale

We drove around many surrounding areas to "get a feel"

We visited local schools

And the big one, we became addicted to Tim Hortons!

Findings:

Ailsa loves working in Canada. The burlington branch are very family aware, and have many occasions throughout the year where family are invited to work BBQ evenings, and a once a year work funded trip to places like Canada's Wonderland.

The family we were living with were also once immigrants, but from over 20 years ago. Their current home is a couple of years old and is in a newer area of Ancaster Hamilton.



Open plan Kitchen/living/dining area, 4 bedrooms, utility upstairs, full basement, double garage. Pretty much exactly the size we would like, but we would prefer an older house in a more mature area.

We decided on a budget of no more than £350K for a home. Any more than that and we would'nt have any money left to hang curtains, I mean "drapes"

You could easily get a nice large home for £250K or less, but you really have to decide how much of a snob you want to be with regards to area and schools, lol.

Mortgage wise, as a new-comer you may be expected to put down a 20% deposit on a house, so we would be looking at $70,000 up front, which would pretty much wipe out our entire savings once we sell our shoe-box in Scotland. We might just rent for a year, which would mean we could save up more of a deposit, and hopefully after a year the deposit required would be reduced as we were no longer newbies.

That would also give us a better idea of the area we were living.

There are many other monetary factors you need to be aware of when choosing a house and area. Property tax can be quite expensive. I think the family we were staying with pay over $4000 a year, and you also have the usual utility bills such as electricity and water. Bare in mind summer can be hot and dry, so if you want to keep the lawn green, you'll need the sprinkler on every night.

Here's something that won't occur to many of us in the UK...

We would class a house built in the 70's are relatively young. My mum's last house was a 120 year old semi and was in pretty good nick.
Because of Canada's extreme temperature differences between summer and winter, we are talking 60 degrees, their houses come under much more stress. Because of this, the life of the average canadian home is much shorter than that of a house in the UK. Many are built from wood rather than brick because wood can adapt to the differences better than brick and cement. But then wood has it's own set of potential problems.

So my point is, it is sometimes cheaper to tear down and rebuild a 40 year old home in canada, than to try and maintain it.

View over Hamilton..



Home Styles:

We looked at a few different home styles.

New build - We found that a lot of the new detached homes were designed more to look good inside than for functionality. There was a lot of wasted space in some of them. For example, there might be a wide staircase, and at the top there would a large area of landing with no real purpose other than looking spacious. All this really does is reduce the size of the bedrooms upstairs. There are other obvious design cosmetics, like MASSIVE ornate windows inside a walk-in cupboard, the only reason for this is that the window formed part of the front of house appearance from the street.

But the thing we hate about the new homes is the way they are all built in a line with about 2 feet between each.

Older 2 story detached home - This was our favourite. Maybe around 20 to 30 years old. Square shaped home with attached double garage to the front. Most had finished basement with either extra bedrooms or rec-rooms and work-shops
The first one we looked at had a complete student rental appartment in the basement. Two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and lounge. Many families will rent this out for some extra income during the school seasons, not a bad idea.

Side split

I thought this was going to be my favourite style of home, but sadly it is not. They generally only have half a full height basement, with the other half being crawl space. They are also usually much older houses.

Single level home (bungalow)

We only looked at one of these. It was an older home, and to be fair it was quite nice. I hated the kitchen. It was an old style and very little work-top. It had a fully finished basement, but it had odd things like a "bedroom nook". It was weird, lol.

These were all "open houses". This happens on Saturdays or Sundays between 2pm and 4pm. The owners basically leave the house for a few hours and allow their realtor to show the house to anyone that wanders by. If this was Scotland, you would need to install CCTV in every room

City Visits

Niagara:

Very touristy, but no more than you would expect and hope for. We went on Canada day, so we knew we would need to pay a lot for parking. Worked out at $20 for the day, not too bad. The falls are just as you would expect. Lots of water rushing off a cliff I would love to see it in winter with the snow and ice.





We had a brilliant meal at the Edgewaters restaurant over-looking the falls. Then had a game of mini golf with the kids and then headed down to the river for the fireworks in the evening.






I was amazed at the amount of different peoples all sitting on the grass near us. Canadian, Chinese, Indian, African, European and a family of Mormons complete with horse and carriage all happy to be part of this great Canadian day.

Cont...

Dave n Ailsa

Part 2..

Montreal:

I have to say, I'm not keen on France, so our trip to Montreal was not filling me with joy. My feelings were not wrong. I really didn't like Quebec, and once you get it in your head that you don't like something, it's very hard to change. I took some nice photo's of the architecture, but that's about all I liked. Sorry Frenchies.







Ottawa:

Ottawa however is awesome. We had a suite on the 21st floor over-looking the city. Decided to make some pizza's in our oven, but had a bit of a disaster when the pizza drooped and dropped cheese on the element causing a "little smoke" and setting off the smoke alarms on the whole 21st floor, oops.

At the same time, one of the kids had walked through the flyscreen on the balcony and jammed the door so we couldn't open it enough to let the smoke out Oh how we laughed







So we saw the first light-show of the year on the parliament building, which was awesome, and then did the guided tour the next day. Also saw the Museum of civilisation and the war museum before we headed back to Hamilton.

Dave n Ailsa

Part 3

Driving in Ontario:

I found the driving style to be fairly laid back. Saw the odd nut-case, but in general it was fairly easy going. I like the fact thet the pedestrians are given right of way when crossing the road, unless the UK where they are seen as targets.
We did get caught in a jam on the way back from Ottawa when we were driving through Toronto. 10 lanes went down to 1 lane Took about 3 hours to get through, but everyone seemed quite patient, and allowed you to cut in without too much grief.

I asked later if the traffic system was a bit crap, or if it was just traffic volume. Turns out that Canadians like to drive, a lot!

Shopping

There's huge differences in prices from one shop to another. It was hard for us to try and get out of the "but we're on holiday" attitude, but when our bill in Walmart came to $92 for some sweats and juice, I had a major re-think.

There's shops like "No frills" where you can buy the same items much cheaper, and "Dollarama" is excellent for kitchen stuff and craft items

Gas (petrol) is obviously mush cheaper than here, but it's all relative. Once you live there you will stop relating everything to pounds value equivalent.

Fastfood is cheap and plentiful. Tim Hortons not only does coffee, but breakfast and other yummy food at a good price.

We had a look in a thrift store while the kids were at "Lazer-tag". Loads of great items in there for a few dollars, and a great place to buy furniature for your new home when you're just starting out.

The people

We were paying particular attention to the way people spoke to us and to those around us. When we were in Florida, it was obvious that most of the service industry staff were being paid to be nice. We didn't really see this In Canada. All were friendly and helpful, and it didn't feel forced.
We had a get-together with many of the neighbours on a couple of evenings (drinks on the driveway), and got a real feeling of what it was like to live in Canada, the good and the bad.

You can tell a lot about the people from the animals that live nearby...





The next step:

We were hoping for the quick easy route of a twp and a work transfer, but we have decided to start the PR ball rolling immediatly. We don't want our future lives in the hands of corporate manipulators, so if they decide to help us then fine, but either way, we ARE MOVING to Canada!

Step one, is the IELTS. Next available test date in Glasgow is 3rd September.
Ailsa needs to get her qulifications recognised (or whatever the term is)
We need to get police reports

We know it will all be worth it.

JonboyE

I enjoyed that.

Essay

Lovely story, lovely pictures, lovely family.

Looks like y'all will be a great addition to Canada!

christmasoompa

Thanks for posting that, very interesting. I've moved it to the main Canada forum as then it can be found more easily by those searching for info in the future, and also The Maple Leaf is only for off-topic, fun or non Canada related posts.

I wouldn't mention the fact that Ailsa worked for a week whilst on a visitor visa to any immigration official btw.

What visa are you applying for, presumably a Skilled Worker if she needs IELTS? Just keep an eye on the quotas as obviously it has been halved for this year, so will fill more quickly.

Good luck with it all.

Dave n Ailsa

The working over there thing is probably the wrong term to use. They have a branch in Burlington, but she is in charge of a Global process change, so she is basically training the staff in the way things work from head office in the UK, rather than doing a job a Canadian could do. But some of her colleagues have been questioned in the past for their frequent visits, so Ailsa is pushing for a TWP to avoid any problems in the future.

We know that we are unlikely to get our applications in before this years quota runs out, but it's worth a shot, especially if the position she is applying for is a less common role.

Our friends just sent her a picture of Ancaster this morning. 38 degrees and sunny, and it's only morning. She sent one back of Glasgow. 16 degrees and pissing down

christmasoompa

Ah, ok. It still may need a 'proper' visa though (entering the labour market is the definition, not doing a job that a Canadian could do), even somebody wanting unpaid work experience needs a TWP, so just something to bear in mind.

Very sensible. If a TWP, will it be a normal one, or an intra-company one? If the latter, this Wiki article may be useful.......http://britishexpats.com/wiki/Intra-...ransfer-Canada

So what NOC would she be applying under? Is it even under one of the 29 eligible occupations, or would she be applying under category 2 once out there on a TWP? Sounds like the quota may not apply to you anyway.

mittenstb

very interesting...good luck to you all...

canbritdenise

A great read. Good luck to you and your family.

Mhut

Hi Dave n Ailsa

Thoroughly enjoyed your post, thanks.

I know what you mean about Tim Hortons, thats our first stop out of the airport and last stop before going into the airport always.

How were the boys after visiting the schools there? I have a 13 year old and a 4 year old.

Mhut

Denhamgirl

Hi Dave and Ailsa,

Congratulations on your well-thought out trip and all the intelligent consideration you've given to Canada. My husband and I left London 7 years ago and live very happily in Hamilton. We started in a newer house on Hamilton mountain but ended up hating the fact that although we had a nice house with all the bells and whistles we were out in the suburbs with absolutely nothing to walk to. So, for the sake of our sanity we moved to downtown Hamilton and now live in a really lovely area of older homes where we can walk to all the neighbourhood restaurants and bars (and there are lots of nice schools here too) - this has saved Canada for me; I would have gone home had we stayed out in the 'burbs. Having said all this, we don't have children, so a more suburban lifestyle might suit your family better, it really depends on what your priorities are. We have an older home (almost 100 years old) and it's full of the character features that you just don't get with the millions of new-builds here. I also have to say that I'm glad you would consider Hamilton as a place to live. Hamilton-bashing is something of a national pastime here and it's both very unfair and largely done by ignorant people who don't live here. It's a great, affordable and safe city with lots of diversity and character and I wouldn't be anywhere else.
As for the cost of living here, you really do get used to it once you are earning Canadian dollars and not working everything back into pounds (takes a while!!). Wait until you are travelling back to the UK with your Canadian dollars, THEN you'll see what the cost of living in the UK is really like! The weather too is something you get used to pretty quickly. The winters can sometimes feel like they go on forever, but our lovely summers and autumns more than make up for it!

Good luck with your decision!!

Trish

ergyngfeld

ah did you take that yourself? you were about 30 seconds walk from my flat if so!

magnumpi

Great post, nice pics, bet you cant wait to move now.

Good Luck ....

iaink

Nice posts. Did you discuss winter with anyone while over here? It all looks so nice in july heatwave, but living with the winter is a deal breaker for some...