christmasoompa

Then have a look at Manitoba - the easiest PNP to qualify for, with no job offer required.

Has your wife visited? Got to be honest, if she has and doesn't love it, and isn't keen on the move, then I wouldn't try and force it. There's usually always one person that's more enthusiastic about the move in a couple, but you do both need to be wanting it, if one is miserable from the start that's not great for a happy marriage! If she does agree to it, I'd recommend you have a full and frank conversation before you leave and ideally agree about returning if needed. When my husband and I have moved abroad we have had a '2 year exit point' agreement - if either of us aren't happy and want to move back after we've given it two years, then the other person has to move back and not moan about it, even if they don't want to! Luckily we've both been on the same page each time, but it's good to have something in mind before you leave just in case. Particularly important if you have kids I'd say - we've got a lot of forum members that are desperately unhappy in the country the emigrated to, but don't want to leave their kids behind and so can't move back.

Kiowan

I'm fairly out of date on all the new work permit programs and various other schemes across provinces these days. If you are going to go for any scheme that requires a job offer from a trucking company here to qualify though then you are going to need to already have your class 1 and experience. They're not going to offer you a job as a class 1 driver when you've never driven one, also if you only have your class 2 as some kind of formal requirement of your job but your job is driving a highways agency car or something, it's also not going to count towards truck driving experience under most PNP programs or by the company you apply to. There's no such thing as a long haul class 2 driver over here so you need class 1 experience.

My company no longer sponsors foreign workers, it's a very big trucking company, but they'd only take someone with 2 years experience in an articulated truck. Canada now has MELT across most provinces which is mandatory training and costs $10k, no company I know of will pay for this, it'd be down to you also. Our company takes on newly qualified class 1 drivers who have already done their MELT but they have to do a 13 week training program with the company and its only for people here, no work permits/sponsorship involved.

If you can get into Canada on some other merits such as EE via a degree and other work experience that gets you picked for PR then it wouldn't matter. You could arrive, do your class 1 and find a company who'll employ you.

By the sound of things it's a long way off, so if you really want to drive trucks out here I suggest you do your class 1 there now and get a job doing it, in 1+ years you'll know if you even like driving trucks and you will have a chance at a company considering you as by the time any process is completed you'd have probably hit the 2 year experience mark.

Given the wages for drivers in the UK at the moment vs here I'd suggest staying there. They still pay pretty much the same here as they did 10 years ago even though everything costs significantly more now, the UK has seen some significant wage rises in that time. You'll be poorer out here and you'll have no life to go with it as a long haul driver. If your wife isn't convinced now, is telling her she'll see you for 4-6 days a month at best going to help convince her?

krazylegz

Thank you for your reply mate. if you don't mind me asking who is the company you work for? is it Bison?

I have my class 2 as part of my job (traffic management) and I do enjoy driving them, but from what I gather I cannot use traffic management to emigrate.

I would have no problem paying for the MELT myself, but as you say I will look into getting my class 1 in the UK first.

the wages in the UK are still quite poor, some places are only £10 per hour and the cost of living has sky rocketed here, the price of gas, electricity, fuel, price of houses and yearly tax charges ( equivalent to uk monthly council tax) all seems to be a lot lot more expensive here that over there. Granted groceries, mobile phones and house TV/internet does look more expensive over there.

christmasoompa

No idea where you're looking that's £10 per hour but that's below minimum wage so illegal and probably not somebody you'd want to work for anyway!

I'd suggest you have a look in the main Canada forum for threads on the cost of living - said by most to be higher than the UK. There's a long running groceries thread in the Maple Leaf for example, that will give you info on weekly shop prices. Fuel will be much cheaper, but not sure you'll find a lot else that is, particularly in BC (said to stand for 'Bring Cash'!). If you are going down the AIP route, then housing may be cheaper though as those are some of the cheapest provinces for that (depending on where you're coming from and going to of course). Your wages may well be higher though from what you've said, so you'd need to work out if it will compensate for the cost of living and the cost of moving and getting set up there. It really won't help your case if you tell your wife it will be cheaper, then spend tens of thousands on moving and it's more expensive! So do your research super carefully.

Not sure why you think your current job wouldn't let you emigrate? Probably worth asking in the immigration section of the forum with more info about it (NOC code, your experience and education levels etc), to see if you could just move with that instead of having to retrain.

Best of luck.