AIBU to think life would be better in Canada?

[ButtercupsAndBluebells]

I've always been very happy with my life in the UK, but I am starting to feel so disillusioned (as many others are too, judging by several other threads I've read today). My brother moved to Canada (Calgary, Alberta) a few years ago and is currently staying with us for a visit. Although he hasn't been openly critical or boastful, it's obvious that he's been taken aback by how things have deteriorated here. He seems to have such a wonderful life, and it's left me feeling very flat about my own.

I know I shouldn't compare, but it's hard not to. DH and I have similar jobs to my brother and SIL. They have the huge house and cars, a fantastic family doctor, a mobile home that they take into the mountains most weekends, access to the most incredible wilderness despite living in a city. In contrast, we have a small 3 bed terrace without any parking, disposable income is shrinking month by month and let's not even mention the state of the NHS. We live in a really nice area, but there's still litter everywhere and it's like nobody cares about their surroundings.

I have done some reading online and I think we'd have a good chance of being accepted to migrate ourselves, but would it really be that different? I'm tying myself in knots thinking about it. Please can someone either talk me down or give me some encouragement!

What would put me off Australia is all the bush fires etc which seem to be happening more frequently. Plus all the poisonous wildlife. Plus so far away from Europe (maybe that's a good thing with the current world situation, but plane tickets home to visit must cost a lot more). Wouldn't mind New Zealand.

I love the scenery of Canada.

A family member moved to Canada to be with a new partner and he loves it. They've since split but he's staying. One thing he said though is that property is EXTREMELY expensive. He's still living with his ex as there's no way either of them could afford property on their own.
The weather seems to either be baking hot or 2 foot deep in snow, but they are well equipped for it over there. He's struggled to find a decent job but he is in his late 50s and doesn't drive, which is kind of essential over there.

My other reservation about moving to Canada (apart from the weather, which I mentioned earlier) is that many parts of the country are not very manageable for people like me, who are not totally able-bodied and cannot drive. Not as bad from that point of view as parts of the USA, but much more difficult than where I currently live.

If you decide to go, don't burn your bridges. My experience is ancient history but I found that immigrants to Canada over the age of thirty had a lot of difficulty making friends

Canada is a very big country and the weather varies greatly. Where I live, we don't get much snow at all.

Winnipeg in January. I'm still shuddering. I felt infinitely remote from anywhere I wanted to be. There are many pleasant places to live in the UK and I do still feel European and that I belong on this continent (Irish passport).

maddy68 notice you don’t actually say which country you’re from ….. come on enlighten us. Which Utopia do you live in?

Great idea, if your rights don’t matter to you.

What rights are you referring to?

My husband is Canadian and my kids both have duel nationality.

I wouldn’t move to Canada now. Trudeau and his crack pot government have lost the plot.

Beautiful country, lovely people. I would have considered moving before covid.

I don’t like Trudeau and don’t vote for him, but I think the reaction from conservatives over the vaccine mandate, and (belatedly) shutting down the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest has been nuts.

Some posters on here (and I don’t mean the two immediately above, but others in recent threads) seem to be under the impression that Canada was mandating that everybody be vaccinated. It was not. Like a lot of other countries, you needed a vaccine to enter the country.

This impacted a minority of truck-drivers (i.e., those who were not vaccinated were no longer able to do cross-border routes, so most were re-assigned to intra-Canada routes, but some refused or could not be easily reassigned).

The protests in Ottawa were horrific. When you get Insulate Britain blocking a few roads for an afternoon, it seems like a majority of Brits (particularly those on the right) are outraged. Yet for some reason, people in Ottawa are expected to tolerate a protest that occupies and shuts down the city for over a month? And the protestors weren’t simply blocking roads, they were blaring horns 24 hours a day and generally creating as much nuisance as possible, with residents too scared to leave their homes for weeks on end. They were also amassing guns and were being largely funded by foreign donations.

Frankly, I thought Trudeau treated the protestors with kids’ gloves.

Canadians still retain more rights to protest than British people do.

I’m just trying to imagine the reaction among the British Trudeau-bashers if Insulate Britain shut down London for a month, were being financially supported by France and/or other EU countries, and were stockpiling guns…

Something tells me they wouldn’t be shouting ‘tyranny!!!’ if the government took steps to shut down the protest.

@whatyousayin

I agree with most of what you said. Alberta is landlocked, but it is also home to some amazing ( and very big) lakes.

Canada also has medically assisted dying which puts it another step ahead of the UK in terms of progressive thinking.

As a Canadian I find the comments about not being funny interesting.

In the past Canadians have been known for being quite funny on tv, SCTV for example, CODCO, This Hour has 22 Minutes.

I do think that's rather different in different parts of the country, people are probably closer to a British type humour in the Atlantic provinces.

Though that may be changing, now that I think about it. Maybe we are too PC to be really funny, these days.

Yes, it's great, they've just changed the law so mentally ill people can access this service. And there were old people who used it to avoid a second lockdown in a care home without being allowed to visit anyone or leave for months on end.

So freeing.

Thanks for this. I couldn't be bothered to argue about it but I get very tired of people who have apparently accepted blindly the nonsense from RW trolls about the occupation, vaccine mandates etc. Trudeau is bland, corporate and disappointing but he's miles away from being 'authoritarian' or a tyrant. Canada is one of the freest countries in the world.

I daresay some of them are unhappy about trans rights.

Re healthcare, yes you have to wait to get a family doctor in Canada. But in the UK you only get one because the government forces GP practices to add patients to their lists. The UK doesn't have more doctors, on a per capita basis.

I always wince when British people say "North America has no history" and many Canadians in particular would find that offensive, because when you say that you're ignoring Indigenous/First Nations history.

I live near Kelowna. I’ll never move back to the UK.
Its not perfect but I prefer the problems here to problems I’d have in the Uk.
Trudeau is a prick though.

I have lived abroad, so I know going on holiday somewhere is not the same as living there.
But we went on holiday to Canada just before the pandemic and loved it. We had great food and it was cheaper than the UK. Good beer. Beautiful scenery. Clean and well cared for public spaces and clear air and rivers. And everyone was so friendly and helpful and polite. I loved it as a country.

I agree they were treated with kid gloves and should have been dispersed much earlier.

A Canadian friend who visited recently states bluntly that she is never, ever going back (I should add, though, that we do not live in the UK). The cost of everything was just awful, and you have to drive absolutely everywhere.

Housing prices are high and rising everywhere, but Canada is well and truly in a class of its own. See this image.

Other posters have also alluded to the left-authoritarianism of Canada and I have to say it would make me very uncomfortable. Canada does seem very odd and extreme on this issue.

@ElCaMum , this is me as well. My British voice always sounds so abrasive to my ears when I am requiring cooperation from my kids in public. I feel like a total harpy. And absolutely agree with whoever said that although people are friendly it's hard to make a deep connection. I feel like I know a lot of people but not a 'tribe'. Those tend to be groups of people who have lived here forever.

You probably wouldn’t want to live in Alberta. It’s cheap for a reason. I live in Vancouver and real estate is much more expensive than in the UK. I don’t miss the UK at all but as anyone sensible would say, there’s no such thing as a perfect place to live.

Housing prices are indeed awful, but what do you actually mean by left-wing authoritarianism?