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Thinking of moving to Canada.....

Hi, I am from the NY forums Me and my hubby are thinking of moving to Canada. (mostly to get the hell out of the US) I was hoping that some of you could provide some information that would aid in the descision since we have never been there. I have some questions below, please post if you can answer them. Thanks

How hard is it to get permanent residency in Canada and what are the general terms?

How is education there? (I have a 5 year old boy that is starting school)

How hard is it to get a job if you have great computer and administrative skills?

Do you have to speak French to get by there?

How cold is it and what are the warmest areas to live in?

What area's of Canada do you recommend for settling down with a family?

Do the jobs pay well and is the cost of living expensive like rent etc.?

Thanks again for your help

Re: Thinking of moving to Canada.....

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How hard is it to get permanent residency in Canada and what are the general terms? How is education there? (I have a 5 year old boy that is starting school) I think education is far better than the US, my family lives in both canada and the US. The smarter ones are canadian. My dad is full american, immigrated to canada, my mom is canadian. Anyways they were living in virginia the part to DC. When they had my brother they moved to canada because they wanted us to go to school in canada, its safer and better education here. My dad is a carzy triple degree person from princeton and he wanted us to go to school in canada so thats ays something. How hard is it to get a job if you have great computer and administrative skills? No idea Do you have to speak French to get by there? If you live in quebec, I cant really speak french and i've lived in quebec my whole live. It depends where you live. The rest of canada u dont need french. BC they hate french ppl. How cold is it and what are the warmest areas to live in? Very fucking cold... Victoria BC is the warmest. USaully around 10 degrees in winter but rains. Vancouver more rain and a but cooler. The rest of canada is insanely fucking cold. What area's of Canada do you recommend for settling down with a family? Hudson or st-lazar Quebec. Just west of Mtl lots of americans move here if they have jobs in Mtl. If you want to live in a city. Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto imo. Victoria is niice weather but no jobs. Do the jobs pay well and is the cost of living expensive like rent etc.? Living in mtl is alot cheaper than NYC. Gas is more $$$. I think it's cheaper to live in canada but you;de be better off asking someone older. Thanks again for your help

Not sure if it's your best option if you want to get out of US....I think we're too influenced by it...you gotta go FAAAAAAAAAR ...other than that you're more than welcome to...but it's boring here compared to NY ...

OH yeah and excuse the lack of proper english in this answer

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Originally posted by starsearcher Not sure if it's your best option if you want to get out of US....I think we're too influenced by it...you gotta go FAAAAAAAAAR ...other than that you're more than welcome to...but it's boring here compared to NY ... OH yeah and excuse the lack of proper english in this answer

You come from TO....a really boring city...I think alot of ppl would agree with me on that. Ontario is a boring place

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Originally posted by Tag You come from TO....a really boring city...I think alot of ppl would agree with me on that. Ontario is a boring place

TAG all i see you do is bitching at others and being a smartass , whats wrong with u child ?!?!

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Originally posted by the_devil TAG all i see you do is bitching at others and being a smartass , whats wrong with u child ?!?!

+1 he's kinda annoying indeed!

Tag just gives his opinion and there's nothing wrong with that! If it stirs things up a bit then so be it!

Gotta say I agree with a lot of the man's points...except that Hudson is a good place to live....sooooo flop there.

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Originally posted by LiGHT78 Tag just gives his opinion and there's nothing wrong with that! If it stirs things up a bit then so be it! Gotta say I agree with a lot of the man's points...except that Hudson is a good place to live....sooooo flop there.

Actaully you're right hudson isn't a good place to live...I want out lol. I do think though if you have small children like age 5 it's a nice safe place to raise them. The town is filled with families of kids of all ages. Other than that no it's terrible.

Thanks for standing up for me. I do say alot of shit that pisses ppl off. I rather say what I want and not give a damn about what ppl think, than only saying what ppl want to hear.

Move to Montreal... all i can warn u... our winters are deadly!

Re: Thinking of moving to Canada.....

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Originally posted by ZzZ The Goddess How hard is it to get permanent residency in Canada and what are the general terms?

I can't say this from personal experience because I was born here, but from what I understand this seems to be a fairly open country when it comes to letting people in. This would be a good place to start looking: http://canada.gc.ca/main_e.html

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How is education there? (I have a 5 year old boy that is starting school)

Education is very good, whatever province you choose to live in. However Quebec uses a different system than the other provinces. Your kid will be required by the ministry to learn french, and will have to pass secondary 5 french (like grade 11) to obtain his high school diploma. If he wants to go to university, he has to follow a two year pre-university course at a college (called CEGEPs), where he'll have to take three additional french courses. (it sounds really bad, but there's alot of immigrants here and they seem to be doing fine in the most part - if he's introduced to the language at a young age he should have no trouble learning it and speaking it fluently.)

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Do you have to speak French to get by there?

Yes and no. As you get closer to the core of montreal, you will need it less and less. I can go around downtown speaking only english, and I can be served in english anywhere. As you venture into the more rural townships though, less and less people speak english, and you might run into some trouble. You also have to realize that not being bilingual puts you at a considerable disadvantage on the job market. Not all professions require it, but it's certainly a useful skill to have.

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How cold is it and what are the warmest areas to live in?

One of the biggest (and saddest) stereotypes people seem to have about canada is that it's cold all over. Climate has very little to do with how far up north you are. It's more about winds, ocean currents and humidity levels. The west (BC) is very mild. Not too cold in the winter, not too hot in the summer, very comfortable all year. The prairies are very dry, but can get very cold in the winter. If you're trying to get AWAY from the US though, by all costs, AVOID THE PRAIRIES. We call Alberta "Canada's Texas" for a reason.

As for the east - well, climate wise, you get the worst of both worlds. In the summer, it can get very hot and humid (humidex values in montreal today reached up to 44 degrees celcius), and in the winter, it gets very very cold (as low as -45c with wind chill values considerated), and in the spring, you get unpredictable and unstable weather constantly. One day it's snowing, the next it's raining, then it gets colder and the ice freezes over and you get an ice storm, then it snows on top of that, then it gets warmer and it rains on top of that, etcetera. I make it sound like it's miserable all the time, but in the long run you get used to it - and we do have great weather sometimes.

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What area's of Canada do you recommend for settling down with a family?

Stick to the big eastern cities. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Kitchener/waterloo...

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Do the jobs pay well and is the cost of living expensive like rent etc.?

The pay depends on your job. Canada is much more socialist than the US, so if you normally make big bucks, you'll see a chunk of your paycheck eaten away by taxes (on the other hand, you get alot more public services in exchance), while if you're generally amongst the average to lowest paid, you'll see most (if not all) of your taxes returned to you at the end of the year, without losing the public services. Minimum wages are also a couple of bucks higher than in most US states.

As for the cost of rent, well that all depends on what area you move to. In the toronto area, prices are INSANE. In Montreal, prices are pretty steep too, but nowhere near as bad as toronto. What most people here tend to do is, they buy a house or rent along the train lines, but within the suburban areas (where housing prices are far more reasonable), and every morning they can quickly take the train straight to downtown Montreal.

Aquarian said it all, where the fuck do you live ? TO or MTLTA ? you should stop whoring the CORe and focus on local scene forums

I live in Laval actually.

hahahaha un autre du 450 tabarnak

514-50 negro dans mon r�seau

i'm starting to get bored of these threads... every week someone asks the same questions in here... do some research, Canada is one of the most wired country in the world, you'll find everything online.


As for the weather, guys, this couple is coming from NYC, not Hawaii... so the weather shock might not be as brutal as some people have described it. Basically the colder season is longer and the hotter season is shorter, and like NYC (which is barely 500km to the south) it snows/rain/cold/etc. So don't make it a fuss.

What are you talking about Malek ?

Everybody know that in Montreal it Rains Cows !!

Come on, don't let them think that it's the same as 500km south. Who could be dumb enough to think that it almost the same weather !!

KrinKer

Aquarian hit the nail on the head 100%!!!!!



Dont live in Ottawa though .. shit you need to know french more there then in quebec

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Originally posted by KrinKer What are you talking about Malek ? Everybody know that in Montreal it Rains Cows !! Come on, don't let them think that it's the same as 500km south. Who could be dumb enough to think that it almost the same weather !! KrinKer

dude, wtf you talking about, NYC isn't miami man hehe

and it rains alot there, plus the 365days a year smog!

OK just so Krinker stfu, it rains more in NYC than in Montreal in average. A full 120mm more in NYC.

in average, NYC is hotter by 9c during the winter and around 4c during the summer.... so its not the end of the world difference.

Montreal:

Maximum -5 -3 2 11 19 23 26 25 20 13 5 -2
Minimum -14 -13 -6 1 7 13 15 14 9 4 -1 -10
Moyenne -9 -8 -1 6 13 18 21 19 15 8 2 -6

days Temp. <= 0�C = 155 days
. 30 27 27 13 1 0 0 0 0 8 20 29

Precipitation: total: 940

Total (mm) 63 56 68 75 68 83 86 100 87 75 93 86


NYC:
Maximum 3 4 9 15 21 26 29 28 24 18 12 6
Minimum -3 -2 1 7 12 17 21 20 16 10 5 0
Moyenne 0 1 5 11 17 22 25 24 20 14 9 3

days Temp. <= 0�C = 82 days
. 23 20 10 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 3 16

Precipitation: total: 1069mm
Total (mm) 77 73 91 96 97 91 103 95 86 77 97 86

quote:

Originally posted by malek i'm starting to get bored of these threads... every week someone asks the same questions in here... do some research, Canada is one of the most wired country in the world, you'll find everything online.

Yes I know that, and I have done research, but what better way to find out how a place REALLY is than by someone who actually lives there. Do you really beleive everything you read on the internet anyway? For all I know the internet can say a bunch of great things about Canada simply because they want to encourage people to travel there. Not saying thats the case but I am throwing the scenario out there.

Thank you everyone for all your insight. Aquarian.....thank you for the great response, you seem to be very knowledgable and put a lot of substance into your response. I really appreciate it.

I'd say the best course of action is to visit the cities you intend on living. I've lived in Toronto all my life and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else but I guess the guys from MTL can say the same thing so it's all a matter of preference. As for the cost of living in Toronto it's only considerably higher if you live in the downtown core but the great part of Toronto is it's surrounded by numerous suburban areas (Brampton, Mississauga, Thornhill, Richmond Hill, Scarborough etc.) and all these places are literally half an hour or less from the downtown area.

quote:

Originally posted by house_conXion I'd say the best course of action is to visit the cities you intend on living. I've lived in Toronto all my life and I couldn't imagine living anywhere else but I guess the guys from MTL can say the same thing so it's all a matter of preference. As for the cost of living in Toronto it's only considerably higher if you live in the downtown core but the great part of Toronto is it's surrounded by numerous suburban areas (Brampton, Mississauga, Thornhill, Richmond Hill, Scarborough etc.) and all these places are literally half an hour or less from the downtown area.

The more I learn about Toronto its sounding pretty good actually. I am very suseptable to language. I know 4 languanges already so I may as well start learning french just so I can get a head start and get a better paying bilingual job when I get there. I am not making the descision completely by myself, my hubby has to have some input on this too. So far we are leaning towards buying a house and probably need to save more $$ till we make all of this final as well as go down there at at least hit up a few job interviews.

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Originally posted by ZzZ The Goddess The more I learn about Toronto its sounding pretty good actually. I am very suseptable to language. I know 4 languanges already so I may as well start learning french just so I can get a head start and get a better paying bilingual job when I get there. I am not making the descision completely by myself, my hubby has to have some input on this too. So far we are leaning towards buying a house and probably need to save more $$ till we make all of this final as well as go down there at at least hit up a few job interviews.

Toronto has worse traffic than NYC. It took me 100 minutes to get from the suburbs to downtown the other day, AGAINST traffic.

It also has more smog than NYC.

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