where's good to live in Canada?

[mrmiloopy]

We are thinking of moving to Canada in the long term as a we had a great time out there with DH's work. We only know Alberta, where else would you recommend?

Wow - it's such a massive country that's a pretty difficult question!

It depends what kind of lifestyle you want, I suppose.

I have family on the East coast, in New Brunswick, which is beautiful but very quiet. It strikes me that they always have a great way of life - but when I've been there for any length of time I do realise that it's actually quite parochial, whereas people who live in Toronto or Calgary may have completely different lives.

What do you do/what careers/lifestyles do you want?

Vancouver. Sea to sky in 1 hour, or something. I had a great time there, I'm sure it would be fantastic for kids.

My sister and her dh visited friends who had emigrated to British Columbia - about 1 hour up the Fraser River from Vancouver. They went bcak again the next year, then came home and put in applications to go themselves. They have been there for 5 years now and love it. They certainly do seem to have a great lifestyle.
As BIWI said - depends on what sort of life you like - city or rural. But there seems to be plenty of variation to choose from.

I'm from just outside Toronto, Ontario.It is a really nice place to live. You will love the summer and hate the winters. I would go back but it's a lot to get my husband into the country to work.

Vancouver - never actually lived there but have spent 2 extended summers there and would move there given the chance.

We lived 2 hours from Calgary, and visited the Rockies regularly. We have visited Vancouver, we did love Vancouver Island but not Vancouver so much. Calgary was great but as we haven't been anywhere else we just wanted some other opinions. We would love to be near the coast if possible. My DH is in logistics and we have 2 children.

I grew up in New Brunswick so it gets my vote. The problem is employment is low so it could be tough to find work unless you already had a job there. But lifestylewise, heaven cheap housing, loads and loads of land you own around your house, beaches, hiking, lakes, and loads of good downhome people. Another option is halifax in nova scotia where I spent 10 years. ITs a medium size city, average for employment, lots of housing right on the ocean and wonderful lifestyle, again, similar to new brunswick, just a bit bigger. However, if you like an urban lifestyle, vancouver (has the best weather), calgary is booming for jobs, and toronto is ok but not my favorite city but good for an urbanlife and lots of employment.

I love Vancouver. Think it was recently rated the top place in the world to live, IIRC. Depends what you want I suppose, but there you can get skyscrapers, snowy mountains, beaches, great food, huge open spaces all within an hour of each other.

west coast gets my vote

east coast for me, but really really does depend on what you're looking for

west coast much pricier than east
alberta is booming at the moment
toronto is souless
calgary fab city as is vancouver

but I'd go for the east coast (grew up there so rather biased..)

Vancouver, Vancouver, Vancouver. OMG, it's awesome. I miss BC soooooooooooooo much

We may be moving to Kelowna in 2010.

hijack

Most of my Canadian family live in B.C.
Victoria (on Vancouver Island is really lovely, but has quite a slow pace of life), Vancouver is brilliant because you get a multicultural city but near great beaches and mountains for skiing and wildlife.

Lived in Toronto as a child and loved it, but that may be nostalgia more than good advice.

Sorry about the dodgy punctuation... typing too fast

Just bumping this as we're interested too.

If you speak French (or are willing to learn) Quebec is lovely.

Vancouver - lived there and still have a house, visit few times a year. Very expensive but still slightly cheaper than London. You can ski in the morning, be on the beach in the afternoon and have a 1st class dinner+theatre in the evening. Low crime, nice fusion of European and South east Asian immigrants. Healthy lifestyle, excellent schools, universities .If you can work there/afford it, go for it.

Haven't been many places in CA but DS and I really liked Montreal the couple of times we've been. Tried to convince DH to do a temp move there but he wouldn't go for it (he hasn't been there)

Vancouver. Lived there for a bit and loved it. Rains a lot tho!

Were you at batus recently? Every man and his dog is staying at the mo, as they are using the CEC. If you have been back a while it won't count, but the SW process is much faster than it used to be.

Most people are staying around Calgary or Cochrane. Okotoks is like little Britain. Airdrie v popular. Can't move for Brits. job market is also saturated with mil, but proving reasonably popular. Depends on entry level though, so snco/ off can make big difference. Lots of offers floating about.

Advice only pertinent round here though, elsewhere you'd be on your own (although quite an ex batus community in Edmonton too. They all still fetch up at sunshine)

I think that fundamentally you probably need to look at the job market in the first instance, and also have an idea of what sort of salary range is likely. We live in interior BC and are very happy here (we did our medicals for PR today and are hoping to stay permanently), but the are few large towns, and you woudl probably need to look at Kelowna. Vancouver is a lovely city but very expensive - you need a very good income to live comfortably there. If the job is in mining or oil/gas then the north is booming.

I think the OP has probably already reached a decision at some point in the 5 years since the thread was started

Ha ha doesn't time fly when you're mnetting!

That's v funny. I wonder if I know her! She's probably one of the millions of Brits here...

Now I'm going to watch out for blooming alisa75 though.

Ah, lazy, she's probably still in the SAP queue...