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!

My brother emigrated to Toronto 20 years ago and absolutely loves it. He and his wife have no children, a lovely house in the middle of an acre of woodland where they get all sorts of wildlife including coyotes and chipmunks! They do loads of outdoor stuff (no children) and live a life they couldn't live in the UK. Its cheaper for them to travel to the UK than it is for us to go over there but due to Covid they haven't been over since Christmas 2019.

On the other hand, a colleague of mine and his wife (no children) emigrated to Halifax, Newfoundland and returned after three years as it wasn't as idyllic as they had hoped and they missed their family too much. They struggled with not having as many paid holidays as the UK too.

A few posters have mentioned elderly parents and I do think that’s a big factor. I lost my parents fairly early so there isn’t as much keeping me in the UK, but my in-laws are very local to us and in their 70s. They’re in pretty good health at the moment but will most likely begin to need more support in the coming years, and I don’t think my husband would contemplate going to live abroad for that reason.

Equally, I can see why some people wouldn’t want to leave the country where their adult children live.

Both DP and I have lost our parents now. We used to live abroad and came back to live nearer ageing parents. The only thing keeping us here now is that at 14 and 16 years old it would be a pretty disastrous time to move our children abroad educationally wise.

A couple with a child packed up and left England for Canada, got a good job, liked the country and the life but after a few years had to pack up and come back because the child had autism and they would not grant permanent residency for that reason.

@Pilipalapal I agree with almost everything you say but would love you to point me in the direction of the $350,000 apartments!! Locally to me the cheapest 1 bed I can find for sale is $450,000 in a 50 year old building with shared laundry. It is insanity.

@Pilipalapal has been doing heroic work, setting many frankly know-nothing posters straight on several issues. Hat-tip to you!
Look, the country has 38 million people. I promise you, they are not all dull and lacking a sense of humour. Wondering how I spent most of my high school, university and early work years doubled up with laughter if that was really the case. Perhaps I am easily amused. Here's the thing: there is such a thing as sly humour, and you find it most often in nations that play second fiddle to other nations, often because a lot of that humour is directed at puncturing the inflated egos of the larger nation. So, if you're British or American, and you don't 'get' Canadian humour, be aware that a lot of it is directed at you (and also be aware that everyone else around you IS getting it). All you Brits, so smug that Canadians didn't 'get' your banter: are you totally certain they weren't mocking you behind your back?

I don't dispute the crazy cost of living. I always used to think Canada was cheaper, but recent visits have made me rethink that. Housing, food, and then of course the famously expensive online services, which are out of control.

And just to recap what so many pp have said before me: you think you couldn't deal with Justin Trudeau, but you can deal with Liz Truss, and Johnson before her, and the endless litany of crap the Tory party is handing out to you? Wow. Just wow.

And also, to the PP who couldn't manage living in a country now having to face up to its legacy regarding indigenous peoples? At least it IS a country beginning, however imperfectly, to face up to that legacy. But the PP would rather live in a country that raped half the planet (the sun never sets on the British Empire)? Crazy. Here's the thing: people migrate. As soon as they find somewhere that looks like they can do it, they do. People have been migrating for millennia. If you want to unravel all migration from the get-go, you'll find yourself in very confused territory, not least, what to do with the many, many people who claim heritage from several different traditions? Don't be an idiot. We have the occupation situation that we have, now. Our duty is to ensure that rights are recognized and voices heard.

Once again, @Pilipalapal , bravo.

And just to recap what so many pp have said before me: you think you couldn't deal with Justin Trudeau, but you can deal with Liz Truss, and Johnson before her, and the endless litany of crap the Tory party is handing out to you? Wow. Just wow.

Authoritarian Trudeau who reframed the truckers as terrorists and froze the bank account of a single mother for legally donating to them? A man that tramples on democracy, the law and the right of Canadians? A man that literally has women trampled by horses at the freedom rally and declares there's nothing to see here? Who was told quite strongly at Brussels European parliament that he was a disgrace to democracy for how he had treated Canadian citizens and his presence was not welcome there?

Whatever you think of Boris / Truss, any of them. They are nothing like Trudeau. Thank fuck.

I second this and I’m Canadian. People do take themselves (& their pet issues) very seriously indeed. Virtue signalling is intense and people are intense rule-followers.

Its also expensive (good and fuel), most of the country is bloody cold in the winter, I was unimpressed with the education that my kids got, and the federal government seems determined to kill the health system by stealth. Depending where you live, housing is either cheap (for a reason) or unaffordable (Toronto, Vancouver, Victoria).

Also Calgary is not an attractive looking town and the Rockies are not exactly adjacent, 1 hour 40 in hood weather and hood traffic to Banff.

If my adult kids weren’t here I would emigrate.

Excellent post @humancalculator.

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

That fellow would last all of five minutes in a classroom over here! Public, state, mixed or single sex, he’d have the utter piss ripped out of him sharpish!

There’s no way that would fly. No way at all.

It really isn’t.
I grew up as a Canadian teenager, although am back in the UK and the sense of humour thing you refer to (are they mocking you) is just 🥱. No they’re not - and they generally aren’t even cultured enough to know they’re ‘second fiddle’ (your words, not mine).

I absolutely would take any British government in the last fifteen years over the equivalent Canadian ones.

You’ve legalised marijuana (and it is way worse for teenagers than booze), you have a massive fentanyl problem, and there’s fuck all to do of a weekend in most places, and food prices are a shocker!

Also, your track record on women’s rights is dire! Bloody dire!

And I am Canadian (like in the Molson advert kind of way) and it’s so sad to be a citizen of a country to which people are generally indifferent.

Having no opinion on Canada, is worse than a bad opinion.

Indifference is terrible.

And people talking about bad governments and budgets seem to have conveniently forgotten ‘Canada’s bloodbath budget’ in the 90s.

You want to see spendings cuts, makes our Tories over here look positively generous!

I’ve got Canadian nationality but I can’t think of much worse than living there. Trudeau is an appalling person.
For all Britain’s faults, there are many positive things about here. I also Iove having so many interesting countries so close and accessible.
NZ was fun for a visit but the thought of living there was claustrophobic.

@FloorWipes you don’t need to apologize for residential schools as you had bugger all to do with them. Ditto me. My grandparents emigrated from England to Toronto. My family (including some First Nations family) have been here for over a hundred years. We didn’t know about residential school conditions. If you lived in the cities it was not information that was accessible.

I’d like to see less apologizing and more actual action. Wearing an orange T-shirt one day a year doesn’t get clean water on reserves or improve the education results for Indigenous people.

This is one of those times that the intense sincerity of Canadians is a negative. So long as we parrot the “right things” self-flagellate over history we weren’t part of, we can keep voting in parties that do bugger all to improve the lives of FN (or working class Canadians in general).

And @humancalculator my experience of Canada doesn’t recognize yours. Of course there are Canadians with a sense of humour. Overall, though, I find most Canadians can’t laugh at themselves and take following (often inane) rules extremely seriously. Unless it’s a law against selling fentanyl, in which case have at it! And the dr shortage is dire and property prices and rents are out of control in BC.

I’ve lived in both countries and have never stopped missing English humour, architecture, media, and shops. I will say that the west coast does Asian food, bakeries, and cafes really well and the scenery (on the west coast) is lovely.

Good for you @Ritascornershop ! Well done you, with your entirely individual experience. Not well done you, attempting to magnify your limited personal experience to the whole.

Just curious: what is it you miss about English architecture - I think you're all misty-eyed about half-timbered cottages and aged stone houses - but maybe you're really enthusiastic about the pebble-dash semis that actually constitute so much of the UK? The slapdash generic suburban growth? Or the generally terrible insulation in so much post-war housing that leads to so many threads on this site about how to survive a UK winter when you can't pay for heating? Or ok, little England, and the tear in the eye about the lovely rose over the charming door in the vanishingly small number of sweet stone UK cottages.

And what would you miss about UK media? Is it the one-sided hounding of issues, with no fact-based balance at all? <yes I promised myself I wouldn't mention Brexit, but if I did it would be here> Oh honey, you need to open your eyes.

😂 to your thou don’t protest too much posts.

Insulting the UK doesn’t make Canada any better ‘honey’ (who actually says that 🤣).

Where to start on your utterly inadequate housing and shocking lack of infrastructure.

.

Slapdash growth into the mountains above the snowline.

The highest energy consumption a per capita in the world (heated lamp outside in -15 anyone).

>$10 for a large box of generic cereal.

@humancalculator don’t call me honey, dickhead.

I lived in England for years. Not sure if you did, but my idea of the UK is not based solely on Downton Abbey 🙄 I miss various things about English architecture, not limited to the Georgian, Victorian, and Edwardian flats we lived and worked in. My extended family’s 1970’s house is as beautifully built, far nicer than the vast majority of houses from the same period in BC with their hollow core doors and mouldy metal window frames.

I miss the better newspapers (I would have thought it obvious I didn’t mean the red tops), BBC 1 and Channel 4, the specialty magazines that I’d find in Smith’s, the LRB, etc etc.

And I’m not sure why my experience of Canadians is any less valid than yours. I said that my experience of my fellow Canucks doesn’t recognize yours. That’s allowed. But perhaps you are … taking yourself too seriously 😬

It's very pretty but no. Not somewhere I'd consider desirable to live, for various reasons but I don't want to insult any Canadians who may be reading!

despite having dual citizenship, maybe I’m an uppity rule-following Canadian at heart… hence why I absolutely have to point out that Halifax is in Nova Scotia, not Newfoundland @blobby10

Tranada? Are you kidding?

@Quincythequince - Well I don't live in the UK or Canada, but if I was forced to choose one of them to live in it would only take me a second - and it wouldn't be the UK.

As for this wonderful British sense of humour I keep hearing about - why is it so more special than that of people of any other country? Where I come from Brits are generally known more for their complaining and sense of entitlement.

I haven’t said the British sense of humour is better, or special. Not once. It is different though.

But I also don’t think Canadians ooze this special dry wit those goes straight over Brits or Americans (not sure how they were suddenly brought into this) either. As is they are these Wiley, worldly individuals (wink wink) and I don’t think they’re rude enough to to collectively mock people either.

Load of rubbish. Only that poster knows total arseholes - but again, that would her experience.