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!

I travel to Canada a lot for work and I wouldn't move there personally.

Sure, you can have a massive house if you live rurally, but then you will probably have a very long commute to work down the freeway in your massive car. Or you can live in a city, but property prices in places like Toronto or Vancouver are pretty much as insane as London, maybe even worse. The natural landscapes can be stunning, but in the more urban areas where you are likely to be spending most of your time, the architecture varies from uninspiring to hideous.

If you love the outdoors, hiking, camping, skiing etc, or you are into ice hockey then there's plenty of stuff for you. If you like culture and restaurants, not so much. The food culture is really...not great.

The people I find pleasant enough (very polite) but somewhat insular and not particularly cultured. (Although that might just reflect the industry I work in.)

Politics wise I find it quite a disturbing place. Justin Trudeau has been in power for a long time and I think internationally he has benefited from a reputation for being young, cool, kind and progressive. In reality, his government doesn't seem that competent, there is a lot of government corruption and scandal as soon as you scratch the surface, and what others said about woke authoriatirans is definitely true. You have the school in Ontario saying it would be against a male teacher's human rights to say he can't wear giant fetish boobs to school, at the same time as a nurse in British Columbia is facing legal action and possibly being struck off for saying that biological sex is binary and immutable. If your child struggles with their gender identity and says they are trans, you have to affirm them or face legal consequences. For me, that alone would be a reason not to want to raise my child there.

Some people love it, but it wouldn't be for me even if it weren't thousands of miles away and a very expensive plane journey home. (And I say that as someone who already lives abroad.)

Stay away then Hater

Canada freezes the bank accounts of people that don’t agree with the Government.

Not for me

You have the school in Ontario saying it would be against a male teacher's human rights to say he can't wear giant fetish boobs to school, at the same time as a nurse in British Columbia is facing legal action and possibly being struck off for saying that biological sex is binary and immutable. If your child struggles with their gender identity and says they are trans, you have to affirm them or face legal consequences

Mixture of truth and fact in here.

The Ontario teacher story is true, but I’d be curious to see how schools in the UK would handle a similar case.

The BC nurse story is partially true. She is not facing legal action, but a disciplinary hearing with her regulatory body. The outcome is as of yet unknown. Similar instances have happened in the UK.

It is not true that you have to affirm your child’s gender identity or face legal consequences. This claim seems to be based on a case where a father was jailed for persistently releasing his teenage child’s identifying personal and private medical information, in breach of a court order.

What a stupid claim.

It varies so much on location and job. Some work pays better, other work not so much. Some cities are very very expensive (Vancouver for example) whereas your money goes further elsewhere.

Houses are often bigger but commutes can be long, the winters (Vancouver aside) are long and extremely cold. I do like Canada and wouldn't be averse to living there but it's no utopia

@maddy68

Not sure where you live but I've been to 7 countries this summer and all felt more run down than the bit of Britain i personally live in. Particularly france, the towns I stopped in (road trip) seemed half empty, boarded businesses, for sale signs and graffiti everywhere. Italy was no better. Switzerland was ok actually but no better than where I live. Half built abandoned buildings in Spain... could go on

Did you know that, in the UK, you can be arrested if you don’t support child sex trafficking?

I have lived in the Caribbean and then in Australia as a permanent resident then citizen. I really think it is swings and roundabouts. It is absurd to say that one first world country is really all that much better than another. If you want to move then do so , but I wouldn’t recommend moving because you think Canada is utopia.

Yes that happens. I was in prison for 12 years because I don’t support it. 🙄

Obviously I’m making a trite reference to the arrest of the person who heckled Prince Andrew recently, to highlight the absurdity of the ‘you can have your bank account frozen for disagreeing with the Canadian government’ claim.

I think it doesn’t matter where in the world your relocate, it takes time to build a new social circle from scratch, it’s not purely a reticent Canadian thing.

So much misinformation on here it's absolutely shocking. Talk about pot kettle black!

Whereas your post tells all.

What misinformation?

I lived there for nearly 5 years and don't feel that Canada is better than the UK. Better in some aspects but not in others and we found it more expensive to live despite larger salaries.

When we arrived there in 2007 the news was full of GP shortages and long waiting lists for routine operations which made me feel right at home. From what I hear that's not improved ( Vancouver)

On the surface we had a lovely life there but I was homesick for most of it and I missed the UK so much. Have never regretted coming back.

Interesting how much of what you say, @babyjellyfish agrees with my experience of Canada in the 1970s. I honestly would have thought with the passage of time and huge waves of immigrants the culture would have substantially changed.

I have found similar. Very nice people on the whole but somehow a bit overly earnest. Not sure that’s the right word, but closest I can find.

I like my people a bit more gritty and messed up. 😂

I’ve said this before on a similar thread. I loved Canada when I visited before but now I know more about its history I would feel reticent about becoming another settler on stolen land. That part doesn’t feel great to me and I’d need to think about the moral approach to it. It would definitely feel wrong to just move there for no reason that because it’s “better”, which to the extent that it may be true is probably partly due to the ongoing plundering of resources against the will of the custodians of the land and stuff…

*no reason other than because it’s “better”

My friend lives in Calgary and although she likes it I think she misses the UK at times. It is expensive - her 3 bed bungalow in a smart part of Calgary was $650k about 8 years ago and she's had to spend a lot refurbishing it. Her daily life costs a lot. She does earn a massive amount of money but not everyone can do that.

The state of women's rights under Trudeau is shocking. Even worse than here in Scotland and that is saying something.

We visited Canada for a month a few years ago and I have to say it was one of the most boring places I've ever been. There was very little history or culture that resonated with me, not much for our toddler to do. Lots of sports-based entertainment which I didn't care about. The people were lovely and polite and some parts were very pretty.

Overall I have absolutely no desire to return or ever, ever live there.

Following with interest. I have UK and Canadian citizenship, but I've only been twice and that was in my teens to my birthplace, Montreal.

We considered moving a decade ago, but my DH worked out that Canada actually has less sun and more rain on average each year.

A valid point of view, but of course similar concerns likely apply to all of North America, South America and Oceana, at a minimum.

Canada has more rain and less sun? All of it? You know it is several times larger than the UK , and that it can be raining in Scotland and sunny and hot in Devon?
I think your husband needs to recheck his sources

The thing is, where do you live now? The country that did the plundering and whose economy was built on empire and resource extraction. I'm certainly not excusing any actions by the Canadian government, but I think there's a European tendency to ignore the blood on one's own hands because the results don't stare you quite so directly in the face every day.

A valid point of view, but of course similar concerns likely apply to all of North America, South America and Oceana, at a minimum.

Yes absolutely similar concerns apply, although obviously each place is different and has their own specific issues.

In comparison to the USA though, I feel like people often seem to view Canada as though because it’s relatively emptier they can kind of stake a claim more readily?I may be getting that wrong but it’s just an impression I have based on the way people talk about it.

Secondly, while people are vary wary about some of the darker aspects of the USA - we see and read a lot about it whether we want to or not - my impression is that people think of Canada as very progressive in contrast (which it is in many ways) and may not have scratched the surface to gain an idea about history and the very much ongoing oppression of the indigenous people. I feel like never see it mentioned.

It’s just that when you step back all these discussions about whether we could emigrate to a “better standard of living” which don’t even consider the unjust standard of living endured by the actual native people of these places seem quite awful on some level. Not saying no one can ever emigrate but it just feels like at a base there has to be some acknowledgment of the immense privilege of position here that some of us could move there and immediately enjoy a better life than the people who were there first for millennia.