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I'm no stranger to 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?!
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Oct 22, 2022 13:52
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You're gonna need to get used to wearing a toque, OP - they're required by law. Source: Have chatted with a lot of people from Canadia.
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Oct 22, 2022 13:55
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Alberta has an antivaxer for a leader right now. Housing and rent prices are hosed across the country. Health care is also hosed and is slowly being privatized. But lots of pretty wilderness. I went to Cape Breton start of September and it was lovely.
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Oct 22, 2022 14:02
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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.
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Oct 22, 2022 15:11
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milk in a bag is a regional thing. bigger on the east coast. hard or unlikely to find on the west.
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Oct 22, 2022 16:15
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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 Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Oct 22, 2022 |
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Oct 22, 2022 17:17
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Shadow0 posted:Yeah, I heard about this. It's across the whole country though, not just Toronto? 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.
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Oct 22, 2022 19:01
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Here's an example calculator to see how many points you might get: https://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/skilled/crs-tool.asp The reason the education path is one of the easier ones is for a company to hire a non Canadian and sponsor them for a work visa they need to do a Labour Market Impact Assessment and argue why there are no current Canadian citizens or permanent residents who can do the job. It's one of those "Okay there doesn't literally need to be nobody who can do it but someone has to come up with an argument in the paperwork and probably hire a lawyer for a few hours" things. A company isn't going to do it unless they're super serious about wanting/needing that employee. There are exceptions like Canada's NAFTA TN visa equivalent for certain "professional" jobs. Those are exempted from LMIAs but like the US one it's explicitly a non-immigration visa and can't be used for permanent residency. Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 21:38 on Oct 22, 2022 |
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Oct 22, 2022 21:30
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I moved up to Nova Scotia almost 4 years ago from the US. Housing prices are hosed in Halifax too.
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Oct 23, 2022 12:46
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:I think the big thing you need to ask yourself is "How am I going to move to Canada?" I'm a programmer, so I had assumed finding work would be possible. I can also teach EFL.  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.  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). You traded in your gun rights for the right to bear Kindereggs.
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Oct 23, 2022 12:53
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wasn't it something that Canada has more guns per capita than the USA? i remember some weird stat like that from the Bowling for Columbine documentary. that was ages ago though...
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Oct 23, 2022 16:05
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Housing issue is definitely the whole country. Some places hit harder then others but it's hosed country wide.
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Oct 23, 2022 16:19
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Sally posted:wasn't it something that Canada has more guns per capita than the USA? i remember some weird stat like that from the Bowling for Columbine documentary. that was ages ago though... Sorry double posting but gently caress it. That might have been the Swiss? But I do believe Canada has a very high guns per capita stat. I'm a Canadian gun owner and you have to jump through far more hoops and hand guns where just banned. It's better this way for sure.
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Oct 23, 2022 16:22
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Shadow0 posted:
Our chocolate is better in general imo, unless Hershey's has stopped using butyric acid. You definitely won't get the variety of brands in Canada that you would in the US but there's still the same general variety of foods (except certain regional dishes of course)
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Oct 23, 2022 18:42
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There is no Target.
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Oct 23, 2022 19:34
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Coasterphreak posted:There is no Target. Hmm, well as long as they have K-Mart...
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Oct 23, 2022 22:26
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Shadow0 posted:Hmm, well as long as they have K-Mart... No K-Mart. The locations were turned into Zellers... which also doesn't exist any more. Shadow0 posted: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? Ask away! That said, the big things that I've noticed are... things are more expensive, and not just because of the exchange rate. Canada has to import a lot of things, so that's baked into the cost of things. 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.) Way less cops than where I came from. (Although the RCMP and Halifax cops have tons of problems of their own that are comparable to US police forces.) In regards to food diversity, I think that depends on where you live. Obviously, Toronto and Vancouver are going to be top choices for that, but Halifax has a ton of good restaurants too. And yes, you can get orange chicken.
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Oct 24, 2022 00:55
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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?
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Oct 24, 2022 18:04
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Shadow0 posted:Overall, you found the transition easy though? 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.
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Oct 25, 2022 16:56
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DarkSol posted:Overall, yes! Dealing with IRCC was pretty straightforward for my immigration situation. 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.
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Oct 25, 2022 17:28
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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.
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Oct 25, 2022 23:05
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Shadow0 posted:That's great! 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!)
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Oct 25, 2022 23:48
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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. 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 DarkSol posted:I think that, with Canada, I have to initially pay the US but get reimbursed by the CRA. 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?
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Oct 30, 2022 22:30
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Shadow0 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.
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Oct 31, 2022 02:23
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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. Do you have a Canadian passport? Like if you have one of those cards with your face on it from when you were real young that might be good enough but a passport would probably make your life way easier.
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Nov 8, 2022 04:37
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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?
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Nov 27, 2022 02:32
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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.
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Nov 27, 2022 10:42
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I became a Permanent Resident through the Express Entry program and received my COPR right before the pandemic shutdowns (which forced me to have to make a questionable soft landing during the pandemic). I have less than a year before I can no longer meet my residency requirement, so I'm planning on moving there permanently soon. Happy to answer any questions about the processShadow0 posted: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. So for Express Entry, this is a really good score. I think I scored 494, and it took a few months of bi-weekly drawings before I was selected. You can see what the score cutoff for invitations is here. The key thing to note is this number in the drawings: quote:CRS score of lowest-ranked candidate invited: 491 If you score at least above that number, apply for Express Entry - you will likely get selected within a matter of months after completing the process. That number fluctuates over time, and you can see what the lowest score is historically via that page I linked. The entire process - English language test (CELPIP-G), proving my education background, and work experience, took several months. Here are my recommendations:
After you've actually received your COPR and got it stamped by CBP, you'll need to submit a photo for your Permanent Resident card. This is actually the part I had the most difficulty with, because they rejected every single photo I sent. I went to Walgreens, CVS, professional photographers, etc. and they just kept rejecting my photos despite being 100% on the dot to Canadian passport standards. I have no idea why this is, and thankfully they accepted my last photo before the deadline to submit, but just be prepared for this. Lil Miss Clackamas fucked around with this message at 08:24 on Nov 29, 2022 |
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Nov 29, 2022 03:38
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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... You can renew your visa from within the country (without flag poling) but you would be working without a visa. That’s a pretty big no no. If you’re serious about this, I would recommend contacting an immigration lawyer so you don’t inadvertently screw your self over.
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Nov 29, 2022 22:04
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Interesting discussion. I have quite a bit of family, (aunts, uncles, cousins) scattered around Quebec, mostly in and around Montreal and Sherbrooke. It's an idea that has always been in the back of my mind but realistically will never pull off because I'm a homeowner and I'm pretty established in the US, but just for shits and giggles, I do know that Canada is trying to increase immigration to 500,000 per year. Does that mean that they would be relaxing some aspects of their immigration requirements? It seems like they can't have it both ways, having steep requirements AND trying to attract more immigrants. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-immigration-population-boom/ This is more hypothetical, but since I my grandfather was born in Quebec, I am conversational in French (and working toward fluency), and between selling my house and what I have in retirement accounts, I could probably scrape together close to 1 million US (1.35 million CAD at current exchange rates), would any of that help moving to la belle provience?
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Dec 4, 2022 02:03
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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... 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.
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Dec 4, 2022 19:01
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I have a question! I'd like to give the immigration jump one more try in the future, but since I am of bachelor status I'll have to be skating uphill since it seems I'll have the largest obstacles to climb. Unfortunately it also seems the only viable path I have would be getting a post-grad visa after completing school; I have Weak Central Coherence and poor Working Memory issues from my Asperger's syndrome, and have also developed testophobia because of this syndrome, which is the mother of all handicaps in academics  But it's the only option I got if I want a way out of the US so I play with the hand I've been dealt with. I have been spending the past 100 or so days working on my French this year, and if a little more money rolls around with my job then I'll start throwing down for regular French lessons (second languages add a lot to the points system). Does anyone have any advice they could give on what else I could prepare for? This will not happen for a few years, mainly because I will have to nest egg for some time before making another attempt at this. What's a good amount I should save up as a reserve? Do you think the government has any kind of leeway for someone with high functioning autism like myself when it comes to immigration? I'd have to take this very seriously as I would not have a way to come back to my previous life, but TBH there's not really a whole lot left for me down here and I'm really exhausted of all the constant drama we go through in the US.
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Dec 6, 2022 05:09
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Shadow0 posted: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. CBS has a lot of leeway over letting people into the country; they are not just going through a checklist, they are exercising their subjective judgment on any given situation as well. If they see you trying to flirt with these technicalities, they will eventually catch on. If your Express Entry score is really as high as you earned on the calculator, you should apply for Express Entry instead of trying to play games with immigration laws. White Light posted:Does anyone have any advice they could give on what else I could prepare for? This will not happen for a few years, mainly because I will have to nest egg for some time before making another attempt at this. What's a good amount I should save up as a reserve? Do you think the government has any kind of leeway for someone with high functioning autism like myself when it comes to immigration? I'd have to take this very seriously as I would not have a way to come back to my previous life, but TBH there's not really a whole lot left for me down here and I'm really exhausted of all the constant drama we go through in the US. If you're applying for Express Entry, here is the comprehensive list of what documentation you'll need to prepare for the process. You also need to have a certain amount of money to be able to immigrate. This number increases every so often. Countries usually don't make it easier to immigrate, they make it harder. Medical conditions are no exception, but I doubt yours would have any influence on an immigration application.
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Dec 6, 2022 08:33
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Ah yeah, had a strong feeling this would be the case. Still, knowledge is power, thank you for the guidance 🙏
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Dec 7, 2022 03:35
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Mr Luxury Yacht posted:Here's an example calculator to see how many points you might get: I don't know about Canada but one weird trick where I'm from to get an employer to need you for their business is to start a business, then of course you are essential for that business.
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Dec 10, 2022 06:18
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