Canada

[The Floating Nose]

I live in the UK but been thinking recently of moving to Canada as i've heard it's a great place to live. Thing is, it's absolutely MASSIVE so...where? I heard Ontario was nice thinking Ontario was a town but turns out it's a province.

So, has anyone been to a great place in Canada or lives in Canada that they think would be a good place to look into moving to?

Personally i would recommend Quebec, for the cities either Quebec City (which i prefer to Montreal because it's not too big and it has a friendly feel to it) and Montreal because pretty much everything is there: the Bell Cnter, The Olympic Stadium (but it's pretty much a wreck), Chinatown. Quebec is a lot of fun but i would recommend you to stay out of the region like Saguenay and places like that because 95 % of the population is french and if you speak english to them they will look at you funny. Quebec is a lot of fun though and if you have any interest in art Quebec's the place.

 

[Denos]

I currently Live in BC and have for my entire life here, Vancouver is possibly the most expensive city to live in in Canada, but its absolutely gorgeous here, Alberta is flat and full of cowboys, but they get low taxes and have the oil sands up north, Saskatchewan if even more flat, and as far as I know is more of a farming province, I don't know much about Manitoba, but from what i heard/know Winnipeg is probably the most dangerous city to live in in Canada, Ontario is also nice, and has a good percentage of the population, so you'll probably find plenty of work there, Quebec has a lot of Frenchmen but you'll have no problem finding English speakers, Ive never been to the maritimes, but i can assure you the Newfoundlanders have a pleasant accent that im sure you'll enjoy (when they say tree, their actually saying three) The east cost tends to have worse winters then the west, infact Vancouver has fairly wet winters. Depending on whether or not you want to live in a big city, you might want to look up Victoria, it is on the larger side of most cities but its not necessarily huge, its a little out of the way being on an island off of Vancouver. Id also suggest Somewhere in the Okanagan(the Okanagan is a region of BC with a few bigger cities and several smaller ones), that is where I live and its absolutely gorgeous here

 

[Issurru]

Come to either Saskatchewan or Alberta, both are fairly nice places to live. Saskatchewan is a decent place to live if you want to live in smaller cities or towns. With a few bigger cities spread about. Whereas I find Alberta to be more city like (at least where i'm moving from and to)

Never been anywhere else. A couple guys I work with have come from BC and they say its nice and beautiful and awesome but so damn expensive and there isn't a lot of work (at least for them, not sure about anyone else)

P.S We also gave the world James T. Kirk!

Edit: Also as far as I knew Saskatchewan was starting to boom/bounce back (at least somewhat I thought) from the recession. Or maybe that's just my brother yapping about how good it is to work on the pipelines.

Also As far as I knew, we really needed tradesmen out here in the prairies. So there are a decent amount of jobs to be had

 

[Dimitriov]

British Columbia: it's the greatest place on earth! (seriously, our tourism ministry said so, so it must be true).

But yeah, personally I would rather have tuberculosis than live away from the ocean (fuck being inland) so I gotta say BC because the Maritimes are freaking cold in the winter.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Just stay away from Quebec, they're like french stereotypes that are twice as snobbish

I lived in New Brunswick before being awesome and moving to the USA

*facepalms*

Generalize much? Let's toss in a side order of stereotypes, huh? Howzabout we started a "Fat Americans" thread? Just to see how that goes...

Shut up if you're going to talk about things you clearly have no understanding of or better yet, come spend more than two or three weeks in Quebec. We're not that bad, honest.

Except when we're offended.

Don't let the Quebec bashers detract the place for you, most of them are pretty nice. The only psychos you get are the Bloc party and the separatists, who are a minority.

How does having a handful of fairly harmless ideals that don't quite float with the rest of the ROC make me a psycho? It's true, we have our fair share of nutjobs who'd pretty much like to raid the Parliament and skullfuck Harper until he lets us go, but most of us are actually extremely level-headed about our position.

 

[Dimitriov]

I went to the West coast and I have to say that Calgary was pretty badass. It's where I'd choose to go.

Calgary is about a thousand miles from the coast: I have no idea what you are talking about, and, I suspect, neither do you.

 

[Liquid Paradox]

Don't, they have given the world Justin Bieber and Nickelback, surely this is a good warning D :

>>Canada Produces two generally disliked artists
>>U.S.A Produces a plethora of generally despised artists
>>Don't move to Canada
>>
>>
>>??

Seriously though, Canada is a great place to live. Better then a lot of other places you could go, and if you ever get homesick, just hit up London Ontario! I'm not kidding... that place is so English it shits the queen. Even has shitty weather

 

[mitchell271]

Stay out of Quebec. They're really snobbish and really annoying. Or at least, the ones I know are. If you want to try Quebec though, spend a few years in Ottawa, Ontario first. Ottawa-Gantineau (it's called that because the 2 cities are connected and in different provinces) is a decent way to experience Quebec culture little by little to start. Then you could go to Montreal for a week (just a 2 hour drive) to get a better feel of what Quebec is like.

Ontario is very nice (I also live there) and some cities are actually a decent size. Stay away from Ottawa, there's nothing to do here. Except in the summer when we have Bluesfest. I'm not even sure if there's blues there any more. Last year Soundgarden was there, The Tragically Hip and Rise Against were there as well. The year before that Iron Maiden was there. That's about the only exciting thing that ever happens in Ottawa though.

Toronto is a big city. Think a smaller New York except with nice people.

B.C. is nice and wouldn't be that much of a shift from the UK in terms of temperate weather. If you alpine ski or snowboard, live in Vancouver. 2 hour drive from Whistler-Blackcomb, a world-class mountain. That's where the ski/snowboard events took place during the 2010 Olympics.

The Maritimes are nice, Prince Edward Island especially. Newfoundland is crazy though. Those Newfies have an accent I can't for the life of me understand and they're out of control.

Hope this helps!

P.S. Best thing about Canada, we are some of the nicest people in the world. This is the only country I've been to where if you bump into someone and they are standing still, they will apologize to you.

 

[Mrsoupcup]

I live in the UK but been thinking recently of moving to Canada as i've heard it's a great place to live. Thing is, it's absolutely MASSIVE so...where? I heard Ontario was nice thinking Ontario was a town but turns out it's a province.

So, has anyone been to a great place in Canada or lives in Canada that they think would be a good place to look into moving to?

Move to the Toronto area, you need to go to Playdium

 

[DracoSuave]

The cool thing about Vancouver is you don't have to move directly to Vancouver. The suburbs and stuff can be cheaper if the city itself is too expensive.

And yeah, the weather. It rains always, but the alternative is it snows always... so it's not so bad. And the sky is grey... but everything else is SO GREEN and colorful! You have no idea!

 

[Genericjim101]

I live in Ontario and despite what people often say about Toronto, I don't find it that bad. Can't say much specific about Ontario besides that it has some nice history (definitely nothing on the level of most places in Europe, but it's there), many different kinds of people and probably one of the more stable climates in Canada. I also hear that Vancouver, Quebec and Saskatchewan are pretty good places to live.

Don't, they have given the world Justin Bieber and Nickelback, surely this is a good warning D :

Yeah, bloody Canadians, creating all those successful music bands and actors and video games, maintaining a stable economy and having clean air, offering public health care and and remaining a country of tolerance into the 21st Century, where do they get off?

Our healthcare system isn't really that amazing since we barely have any doctors because they all move to the US where they can actually make money. Ah, the burdens of equality...

I do forget hyperbole is hard to detect over the internet.

In the UK I have met 3 neural-surgeons and ponder why they haven't left the NHS or when they will.

 

[dslatch]

Go Muskoka. We have chairs, booze and ciggerets named after us, we also have some of the top 10 scenic drives in Canada. The G8 summon was in gravenhurst, the prime-minister recommended the reseraunt called Wabora in Bracebridge. Plus in a small town called Port Carling many pro sports player own cottages.

Just google muskoka chair and say that looks like a bad place to be!

 

[Shraggler]

You could come live in Vancouver, B.C.; a moderate climate (although, the rain can certainly get annoying), gorgeous natural scenery, a wide array of recreational activities, vibrant cultural diversity...yeah, Vancouver is a good place to live.

However, take note - this is an expensive place to live, so be prepared for that if you ever decide to come here.

Going to have to agree with this. Living right south of Vancouver, I have been considering moving there for a while now.

Ever since I went there in 2008 for the Relic community get-together... thing, I've just been incredibly impressed with that city. Excellent public transportation system, great nightlife, excellent fucking restaurants, enormous amounts of diversity from people to places, not to mention the local government puts ours to shame, did I mention public transportation?

Every time I've gone to Vancouver and come back home, I get angry. Reading the Wikipedia page on their SkyTrain gets me more angry. Observing the differences in police practice makes me even more angry.

Down here, during the nightlife, bars close at 2:00am and sometimes people drive home drunk - and get caught. Instead of trying to prevent DUI/DWIs from occurring, police lie in wait to pull people over - you know, if the driver hasn't killed anyone yet.

In downtown Vancouver, police CLOSE OFF ROADS to vehicular traffic. The side roads are then used as small U-turns for taxis to come and pick recently vacated patrons up and out of the way. Police are walking along the street making sure nothing gets out of hand and everyone ends the night safely. They don't wait for someone to make a mistake and then jump in to fine them... er I mean "save the day."

It is fucking ridiculous. I feel safer in a city that I'm not even a legal citizen in than I do in my own home city, where my (and every other inhabitant's) tax dollars go to pay for safety. WHAT THE FUCK?

Ok, getting back OT, calming down...

Vancouver's awesome. Sure, everyone hates the weather around the PacNor, but you know what's better than 30ºC summers and tornadoes and hurricanes? Rain. It's temperate. It's rare to get crazy fuckin' heat spells (and if there are, there is a huge fucking ocean to mitigate that), it doesn't snow very often at sea level therefore if you want to travel somewhere or get to work, you're not screwed completely. Crime is fairly low in a city that size, the government aren't total fuckups, and to be honest, there aren't that many people there. Try living in metro LA. Vancouver's got something like 2 million in its metro area. It's a breeze.

It is expensive to live there, right up there with the aforementioned LA, but I believe you get what you pay for.

Take note: If it's not obvious to the reader, this is coming from an American. Canada and England are essentially societal utopia's compared to places around here. Every issue's gotta be polarized and politicized and discussed while nothing gets fucking done. Another topic for another day.

 

[Hemlet]

I can recommend staying the hell out of Edmonton. I think we're up to a murder a week or something ridiculous like that. Also, no one here knows how to drive. People might give people from Saskatchewan a hard time for their driving habits, but they have a perfectly valid excuse: most of their roads are pretty much straight. Edmontonians? Holy shit, god forbid that you actually understand right of way, how to properly navigate a traffic circle, how to signal, how to make a left hand turn that doesn't cut off the guy next to you mid intersection, how to change lanes without sideswiping the the car next to you, or even how to drive in one fucking lane to begin with.

 

[PrototypeC]

OP, you could be forgiven for thinking Ontario is just one big town. It certainly feels like it the majority of the time (mostly in good ways).

I've lived in many places in Ontario... since I was old enough to have a fully-formed memory, that is. The only other place I frequent is Michigan, so my realm of experience is admittedly very small. It's a thousand times better than Michigan, for what that's worth.

Some are saying don't live in Toronto. I say, live in Toronto, but don't buy or use a car. They're as good as paperweights when rush hour comes around. There are some fairly-priced subway and bus options that are superior. I live in London, which is in a nice "centre of it all" kind of area. It's still a sizable city, but it's nowhere near the size of Toronto. I know that a large number of video game companies are just settling in or setting up splinter branches in and around the area, so I'm excited about that.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

I've been to Quebec and it sucks, come to Halifax.

 

[maswell]

Ooh, I was thinking about making this exact thread!

I'm training to be a teacher and hoping that I'll get a job over there once I'm qualified.

You will have a very hard time finding a job in Ontario as a teacher. There is a massive surplus of teachers there. Teaching jobs are hard to come by in most other parts of the country as well.

I live on the East coast and am having trouble finding a job teaching high school science.

 

[ReZerO]

look for a job in one of the resorts in the mountains before you come out. my sister woks for one in HR and they often like to hire workers from other commonwealth countries.. plus it'll give you a bit of a taste of Canada (all be it in a resort town) before you commit to staing here for a longer amount of time.

 

[Eggbert]

Well as long as neither of those fuckers are near Edmonton I'll go stalk Bioware.

Nickelback's from a small town in Alberta, aka the province Edmonton is a capital of.

That said, go west. But prepare to get screwed over on internet and cell phone bills. Anywhere in Canada will get you that, but Saskatchewan is by and large the worst offender within the provinces.

 

[sleeky01]

Here is a slightly racist breakdown for you, based on your interests:

*snip*

Racist? Naw.

Ignorant? Well.....

Best way to do it is backpack across the country, take a couple months and see what you like best.

Probably the best advice I've read thus far in this thread.