VANCOUVER

[katface]

We are thinking of living/working in Vancouver. If we love it we might stay for good !

Does anyone live there now or has lived there in the past ?

Is it a child-friendly place, is it friendly to new-comers ?

What are the schools like ? Ds is 4.3, he has just started reception here.

Is the standard of living generally higher than the UK ?

Any views appreciated : )

Friend of mine has moved over there - she loves it - but took her a while to get used to seeing bears wandering through woods!
She has made friends, and has joined social groups. Her ds started formal school later than we do - he has only just started full time and he is 6 - they are more laid back, so whereas here they have them reading at 5 years old, they don't make an issue out of it until they're older apparently. I think school hours are earlier (8.30-12.30 for pre-school anyway), but I think you may have to pay for kindergarten stage - no grants?? She did struggle with finding schools and applying for places at first as she didn't know where to find out about them locally.
She has a huge house and car that cost less than they would here - petrol is cheaper, clothes, food etc - but she misses "english things" that you can't get.
I think she had to have £10k in savings and evidence of her dh's job before they could move - he had to go first and work for a while, then she joined him.
Jobs wise, I think you are restricted to what you can do for a while if you lose your first job, and you don't get any benefits! Don't quote me on that though!
I would think it is child friendly as everything is so much bigger to play in!
She lived on Vancouver island for a while which was very nice.
You also get proper snow but it can also be very hot, and everywhere is all lit up and decorated at Christmas!
You need a car and a local driving licence apparently, summer holidays go into September, kid's vaccinations are apparently compulsary (not sure if it applies to ex-pats though)
HTH!

vancouver island was vote the best place in the world to live in terms of quality of life about 4 years ago i know a few people who have moved there and love love love it.
good luck

I live in Ottawa Canada, have friends who just cam back from looking at Vancouver - house prices are v expensive and there's lots of traffic.

But it is supposed to be very fun and beautiful.

Thanks everyone, hellish, I am a Londoner so used to bad traffic and big crowds

I think it might be best if we went there on holiday next summer and checked it all out.

Quality of life is what I am after most, not having to live in a pokey little 2 bed terrace (although I am in one of the nicest parts of the UK) any more would be great ! In this part of the UK the prices are still so high we are finding it tough to find our dream home.

The great thing about Canada and US is you don't have to go to an expensive private international school (like I did) to do the International Baccalaureate (IB). This is much better than A Levels and as it is an international qualification, he can go to uni. wherever he wants.

Over there you can do the IB in a top state school for free ! I think it would be great for ds, he is only 4 now, so I think he will find it easier adjusting to a new country and school now, than when he is older.

I get the impression North America in general is very get up and go when it comes to people who want to set up a business. I am a lecturer at the moment, but want to set up my own business over there.

Fingers crossed, I will let you know how it goes ! I can log onto MN over there too ; )

charlene - did you friend's dh have the job offer BEFORE he went or did he go unemployed and then look for work ? what line of work are they both in ? did they find it hard to find work ? what year was it please ? sorry for asking so many questions !

I think you'd love Vancouver. Not heard of doing IB in High School here but I'm sure you've done your research on that.

Great idea to go on hols first to check it out, in the meantime look at house prices on www.mls.ca/

I think they are more get up and go about everything here which is great.

thanks a lot hellish. i have been looking at rental prices, they are higher in the best areas, of course, just like London. but i think we can still get better value for our money over there, i.e. i won't have to live in a bedsit

yes the holiday idea is a must, i would find it too scarey to just get up and go like that.

i was reading that one of their secondary schools (there may be more than one) offers the IB, it is state run and you get a choice to do it or not. over here you still have to pay £££££ to get your child into a private school to do the IB.

hellish are you a Brit or Canadian ?
what is life like in your neck of the woods ?

anyone teaching in Canada, what sort of salaries are college lecturers on ?

Katface - don't apologise for asking questions, it's fine!!!
Her dh had a job here ad was getting made redundant so he applied for a job with their Canadian office - he's a computer programmer type person, and she is a sahm for now, but qualified as a Medical/Science type person (not sure what exactly!), so I think he's always worked for this company or similar. They moved out in 2004, but they'd lived there before briefly, so knew about the rules and regulations etc.
They had relocation expenses and help with housing costs so they rented for a while, moved around, and recently bought a house - they do sound so happy over there!!!!!
(I would like her to come back though someday as she was a good friend, and my ds liked her ds!!!!)

"is" a good friend!! Sorry matey, if you read this!!! . Eek!!!

katface, please slow down! Emigrating is not an easy thing to do, and moving to Canada, although easier than some places is not that straightforward. If you are wanting to make this move any time in the near future the only way to do it is for either you or your dh to get a job that falls into a shortage category for BC. You need to expect that that might well be at a lower pay than you would expect in the UK, and to allow for the fact that emigrating is very expensive. You need to factor in shipping, renting a new place (bear in mind you will lose your UK credit history), buying new stuff if you don't ship it all (and you will need to buy new electronics anyway) and other unanticipated costs. I've been told that setting aside twenty thousand pounds or so is sensible.

On the plus side BC is very beautiful, and those that live their friendly and laid back. The nicest areas of Vancouver are expensive, and everyone says traffic is bad (it didn't look that way to us, but we come from London).

So definitely go out and visit, prepare a resume (Canadian for CV) and network as much as you can during that visit (Canadians are very face to face orientated, and many jobs are never advertised). If what you do is not in a shortage area, then be warned that you may have a very long wait ahead of you (although if you are going to make a big investment in your proposed business there may be other classes of visa open to you).

Regarding your son, you are right, the earlier you move the better. My children are 8 and 9, and the nine year old has found it much harder to be uprooted (we moved to NYC in April, and will be shortly going to Kamloops, BC).

For more advice I really recommend British Expats.

hi nooka thanks so much for that. i have been thinking about Van for many years now, oooohhhh well over 7 years, but always finding excuses not to apply for immigration, actually mainly because dh isn't so keen on moving at the grand old age of 40 !! i am 40 too but much more adventurous then him. i am tired of many many things in the UK and fancy living abroad again (I have lived abroad before in my youth).

a very good friend of mine lived in Van for 15 years, came back to the UK, then went back again at retirement age !

i am aware of the "skilled worker visa", which i have now decided is my only option. i do want to set up a business eventually, but don't have the kind of money they are after to apply for an "investor visa".

luckily dh and i have one thing going for us, we are both postgrads. so we get the max. score for education and have also worked for many years. we got a combined score of 77 and we only need 67 to apply, so hopefully there won't be any problems, we meet all the criteria. dh also speaks fluent French, the second language of Van.

any way, thanks everyone, fingers crossed, it will all work out, planning to apply soon

katface please be aware that if you apply down the skilled workers route you may be waiting a very very long time. Probably a minimum of five years, quite possibly more. The point requirement was dropped from 75 to 67 a few years back, and the result has been a huge backlog and massive delays. The previous gov't (election imminent) brought in a change to say that in future skilled applicants would be weeded out using an occupations in shortage approach, and it is widely expected that this means you will only get in if you can get a job, and that many applications will be rejected. If the Liberals get back in they have said they will repeal this, so it's all a bit in flux at the moment.

So the recommended route is to find out if your occupation is in demand, identify precisely where that demand lies (for example my dh is in IT, which is a shortage skill for BC, there are lots of jobs in Vancouver, but also lots of people looking, but the smaller towns attract fewer people, so that's where we looked, and dh got an offer in Victoria and one in Kamloops), get hold of as many contacts as you can, ring them up, find out if there are any jobs going, offer to come out and talk to them. If you get any bites, organise your holiday/recce around that. Many jobs aren't advertised, so networking is really important (this is less so in the public sector though).

Should you get lucky the employer then has to get a Labour Market Opinion (LMO) if you fall into an occupation in demand then that's not to onerous, but it takes a few weeks. Then you can either apply to the Canadian immigration in the UK or turn up at the border (known as POE) and get the work permit (TWP), the spouse will get an open permit too, which is good.

Once you are in, get the employer to make your offer permanent, and apply for permanent residency (known as PR). This can be expedited as you have a job already, and usually takes under a year.

So if you really want to do it, and BC is very beautiful so why not, then you have to get active about it, and really check things out. This is a sensible approach in any case, as some people have found that they have waited years to get their PR, sold up, travelled over and then found they either couldn't get a job, or that it wasn't quite what they had expected. Good luck! and do check out BE, people there can answer pretty much every question you may have, and there is a very good Wikki too. britishexpats.com/

nooka thanks so much for the EXTREMELY informative post. dh is a network engineer, his postgrad. degree (network security) is in huge demand here in the UK, so let's hope it is the same over there.

i have lots of different qualifications, politics, law and economics, plus i am ex-City. right now i am a tutor and lecturer, so not sure whether that is in such demand. i think dh has a better chance of getting a job quickly, but he doesn't want to apply for jobs there now. he works in the City and is happy to stay here he would rather get the immigration sorted out first which we are aware takes a number of years, then he might change his mind and go !

we live nice and minimal. property we have here will be let out and we don't have much furniture, so no hassle of shipping things. i don't wish to burn my bridges, i think like my friend who went back and forth for jobs i always have the chance to come back here if i don't like it over there.

yes defo will do a holiday there, we are planning to do it next summer. i would never just uproot and go without doing a long holiday to see whether i like the place.

thanks again, will check out the website too

No problem! I've had so much help that it's nice to reciprocate We have done the temporary thing, in that I took a career break, and we have let our house for two years. We came over to the US on a work transfer why went belly up, hence we are now moving to BC. Who knows what the future may hold. Having been very risk averse for years, it is quite liberating to just set off and see what comes up, and so far the positives have outweighed the negatives. Good luck with your decision

nooka - the biggest downside for me of moving to another continent is that i will seriously miss Europe. my favourite places in the world are Italy and Spain, i will find it difficult not being able to get on a cheapo ryanair/easyjet flight to Europe, which i do once or twice a year from here.

anyway, that is the only downside, sorry not to sound too happy about life in the UK, the crap weather and public services are really getting to me the older i get i know BC is very rainy, but it also gets quite nice weather in some parts i hear ? plus the nature there has a wow factor from the pictures i have seen. my son will love it.

as my sister is planning to go to Canada too and mum and dad have both passed away, we don't really have any other very close family that we would be leaving behind. friends can always come over and visit !

oh, my brother and sister in law live in California. they keep begging us to go over there too, but i don't think San Diego is quite my scene. they both have their green cards sorted out. california is even further away (culturally) from Europe than Canada, so i have a feeling i won't like living there for good.

The scenary is breath taking. Rain wise it depends on where you live. We are going inland (known as the Interior) where it is actually semi-arid, so we will get lots of sunshine and it's not too cold in the winter. Regarding visiting Europe, yes that will pretty much go, as it takes a long time (12 hours or so) and is very expensive. Also Canadians don't have that much holiday (3 weeks is normal in a good job). So you have to like where you live enough to make it worthwhile. Canada is a funny mix between the US and the UK, but it is also very variable. In some ways BC may have more in common with California than the UK, as it has that West Coast vibe. You'll get a feel for that if you visit, and I am sure have a fab holiday.

Thanks nooka. I really must go and visit soon. My sister loved it, really wants to go back there for good. I think if she and her 3 kids ended up there, we would all be really happy there rather than living on different continents.

The Europe thing, I think I would save up time and money and do a long holiday to UK, Spain and Italy every 2 - 3 years, that would do me just fine ! I won't miss Europe so much if I do that.

I'm Lily and I live in Vancouver, BC. It's funny how everyone has an opinion of this place and I have to say they aren't wrong but everything is relative. I found Vancouver to be a friendly place but I had just moved from Toronto which is very cliquie. Also with this traffic thing, Vancouver is a rapidly growing city so traffic is getting worse but relative to London... it seems rural. Again coming from Toronto where rush hour can keep you sitting for hours, Vancouver is easy to get around. I don't care much for driving in Toronto at all but after 2 weeks in Vancouver I was driving a 3 tonne truck downtown without any problems. The downside to it is that there are bridges everywhere and if there happens to be an accident on the bridge it buggers up traffic. The benefit of a young growing city too is the opportunities available. I was able to start at an entry level position and climb the ladder very quickly as competition is lacking. I tripled my salary in about 5 years. As far as cost, if you want to compare to London you won't find Vancouver that expensive but the standard of living much higher. I have recently moved about 30 minutes outside of Vancouver and am looking at 5 acre properties in the $600,000 CAN range. The commute isn't that bad into Vancouver especially earlier in the morning. Vancouver island and the interior of British Columbia are amazing places but may be harder to find work that will pay decently and the cost of living is about the same. We vacation to those places. Now... I could spend a lot of time talking about the scenery and wonderful vibe of this place but you really need to see it for yourself. It truly is breathtaking. As far as wildlife, I've seen bears from my car driving in the wilderness not to mention cougars, wildcats etc. but I also do a lot of back country 4X4 excursions. They don't really come into the city. We do have coyotes living on our roperty now but they run if they see you. They keep us up howling some nights but are harmless as are most creatures if you don't startle of bother them. You just have to be smart. I would recommend to anyone to move here. I'm trying to relocate my family from the east (near Toronto) but they have so many friends there, they don't want to leave.I have lived in other countries and traveled a lot and love that Vancouver is my home.