Tell me about moving to Canada

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about moving to Canada

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

I'm no stranger to ~~love~~ living abroad. I had planned to finally move back to the US of A, and did briefly, but then COVID-19 complicated things, and long story short, I'm abroad again.
I was still planning to move back to the US, but then I remembered medical bills. And a whole slew of other dumb things you have to deal with there. I don't know if I can go back to that.
Then I remembered Canada.

I know a lot of Americans like to claim they'll move to Canada if so-and-so happens, but I don't really have anything tying me down to any place, so it's a real possibility for me.

On paper, it looks pretty good - same timezones as my friends; I can drive my stuff over from storage and finally have access to all of it again; far enough away my family could visit, but they probably won't.
But I'd like to make my next move more permanent, so I wanted to ask: Amerigoons that have moved to Canada - How was it? What kind of culture friction did you encounter? How hard was it to learn Canadian? Do they have Taco Bell? Milk? In a bag?!

# ¿ Oct 22, 2022 13:52

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 17:51

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Saalkin posted:

Housing and rent prices are hosed across the country.

Yeah, I heard about this. It's across the whole country though, not just Toronto?

Saalkin posted:

Health care is also hosed and is slowly being privatized.

Why can't we ever have nice things?

Saalkin posted:

But lots of pretty wilderness. I went to Cape Breton start of September and it was lovely.

I'd love to see some of the Canadian wilderness. I've only been to Canada once, and very briefly. Whether or not I move there, I should definitely go check out some of the wilderness sometime. I'd love to go into the Arctic Circle and all that.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2022 15:11

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

I think the big thing you need to ask yourself is "How am I going to move to Canada?"

Like you can't just move here you need a work visa and sponsorship and that kind of thing. What do you do for a living? Do you have family here or a partner with Canadian citizenship? What's your plan for turning any work visa into permanent residency?

Job-wise we're heading towards a recession here so depending on what you do getting a company to pay to sponsor you for a job/visa may not be easy. You also can't do what a lot of European/Australian younger people do and work here for 1-2 years on a working holiday visa for enough work experience (minimum 1 year) to be able to apply for permanent residency (which also isn't a guarantee), because that isn't open to Americans.

Honestly the easiest way is probably additional post-secondary education. Graduating from many Canadian college (what community college is referred to up here) or university programs gets you an open work visa equal to the length of your time in school up to a max of three years.

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...it-program.html

I'm a programmer, so I had assumed finding work would be possible. I can also teach EFL. :eng101:

I assume that's in big demand in Canada too, right?
I've never had a problem finding work in another country when I've tried, so I kind of assumed I'd find a way.
More school sounds awful... And expensive... But it is an option, thanks for the info!

I got a score of 515, assuming that I get perfect scores on the language test, which - uh, hopefully, "If you can't do, teach" doesn't apply here. That's like, less than half the max score though. :ohdear:

Well, if I can't find a job, maybe I can romance someone. 🤔

But of course, I'm still trying to figure out if Canada is somewhere I want to move to. Has anyone made the transition that could give a good idea how things are different? What are the little things you found annoying or nice? Is there roughly the same diversity of food as in the US? Can I get orange chicken?

Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

Labour

Uh oh

Sally posted:

milk in a bag is a regional thing. bigger on the east coast. hard or unlikely to find on the west.

I see. Now I know which part of the country to avoid. The West

MakaVillian posted:

No, it's mostly just Toronto and Vancouver (and probably Victoria).

Like Yacht mentioned immigrating here is actually fairly difficult if you don't have close relations already living here. We have a points system for "normal" immigrants to make sure unskilled foreigners don't TAKE ARE JERBS!

Honestly the 2 countries are quite similar these days, for better or worse.

You traded in your gun rights for the right to bear Kindereggs.

# ¿ Oct 23, 2022 12:53

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Coasterphreak posted:

There is no Target.

Hmm, well as long as they have K-Mart...

# ¿ Oct 23, 2022 22:26

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

DarkSol posted:

And yes, you can get orange chicken.

Oh thank God.

DarkSol posted:

Dealing with metric has taken some getting used to, but it's not bad. Temperatures still trick me up, especially since I'm in contact with my parents still in the US and they insist on using Imperial units. (So I have to convert in my head.)

I haven't lived in the US much in the last ten years, but I also still have no idea how long a kilometer is.

Or a mile for that matter.

I have come to understand that 20-30C is comfortable temperatures, but other than that, I just ignore what anyone tells me and nod my head when they tell me it'll be 60 out or whatever.

Overall, you found the transition easy though?

# ¿ Oct 24, 2022 18:04

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

DarkSol posted:

Overall, yes! Dealing with IRCC was pretty straightforward for my immigration situation.

Getting a bank account, my SIN, driver's licence, health card were all pretty easy too.

I will point out, however, if you're a US citizen, you'll need to file taxes with the US, regardless of your residency status within the US. (You'll need to pay only if you make above the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion cap. And you'll only need to pay taxes for what you made above the cap.) Personally, I have a local tax guy who takes care of figuring out my US tax forms and files for me. It costs some coin, but I would rather have the peace of mind that it gives me, because I don't think TurboTax would be able to figure it all out.

That's great!

I've lived abroad for most of the past 10 years. Don't worry, I know all about the weird US tax stuff, haha. Though usually the nations I work in have tax treaties where I pay $0, but you still file regardless.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2022 17:28

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Sailor Video Games posted:

This is something I'm going back and forth on a lot, because at least nominally trans people have civil rights in Canada and the situation in the US is not getting any *less* scary. I'm a citizen and can prove it, so I can in theory bounce any time I feel like, but I have a lot of ties to the US in terms of friends, family, social groups, and given my family left Canada when I was 5 I know absolutely nobody, which at 40 is pretty drat daunting.

In terms of actual advice, uh..in Montreal itself you can probably get by not knowing French, but god help you if you ever go out to the suburbs.

We can be friends! :highfive:

France is between the UK and Germany, so I assume I can just take half of English and half of German and stitch it together and that's probably ~~Dutch~~ French.

DarkSol posted:

I think that, with Canada, I have to initially pay the US but get reimbursed by the CRA. I'll ask my tax guy next year, because I finally got above the FEIE cap, even with the weakened CAD.

Depending on how you want to get up here, if you can find a job up here with a company that will sponsor you, they could bring you up on a NAFTA work visa, which lasts three years versus non-NAFTA countries, which is two. Once you're up here, there are multiple pathways to getting your permanent residency.

You could also apply for Express Entry and see if you can get a spot via lottery to get into Canada without having a job offer. (But having a job offer first is way easier!)

I don't think I'd want to move if I didn't have a job, so I'd definitely go that work visa route. Then from there, yeah, I'd looking into getting a permanent residency.

I suppose another route would be working from "home" using a US address, and just living in Canada 3 months at a time or whatever and crossing the border and coming right back the next day, but I don't know what kind of restrictions that would run into?

# ¿ Oct 30, 2022 22:30

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Vietnamwees posted:

Seems like if you want to know what fast good restaurants are in Canadia, you can just use Google to find out. Also, which part of Canadia do you plan on moving to? The western normal part, or the east end, where they speak French and use loonies?

I guess it would depend on where I found work. But I wanted to ask goons how the culture was before I committed to looking (and even then, it'll be a couple years) - but so far it seems like things aren't so different from the US? Maybe there aren't so many stories of culture shock/fatigue in Canada. I guess Quebec has its own rather different culture though.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2022 10:42

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# ¿ May 23, 2024 17:51

Shadow0: Jun 16, 2008; If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that there is something good in eccentricity.; Grimey Drawer

Mr Luxury Yacht posted:

Well for one Customs and Border Services would get real suspicious real fast on why you keep leaving and re-entering to "visit" for three months at a time and probably eventually deport/at least temporarily ban you for working in the country illegally. That and you wouldn't qualify for provincial health insurance, etc...

The other issue is IIRC is you can only be in Canada on a visitor's visa less than six months of the year cumulative. It's not really an option.

Well, my idea was to work fully-remote for a US company and just live in Canada, but I guess then I won't get the healthcare? Just fewer bullets and more moose.
I had been under the assumption that as long as I'm going in and out of the country every 3 months and not working for a Canadian company, I'm following all the rules and there's nothing wrong with it, but I guess it won't matter because, yeah - I could only be there up to 6 months a year I guess.
I could still spend about half the year there though, which might be nice.
Just thinking about all my options.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2022 19:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Tell me about moving to Canada