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Would you emigrate to Canada today

Admiral Beez

Admiral Beez

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We’re now at 40 million people in Canada. As a Child immigrant in the mid 1970s I’ve done fine, but today‘s immigrants face new challenges. My dad was able to bring the family from the UK, quickly get a job in his field and buy a house, even with double digit interest rates. But it’s not so easy today. Would you emigrate to Canada today?



I do feel that as a country we’re somewhat tricking Asians, and particularly south Asians to come to Canada. Housing, good jobs and healthcare are dangled but impossible for most. Housing in particular seems like a big ponzi scheme, where we take the life savings of new immigrants to pay the rents of real estate investors.
 
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If I didn't live in Canada already I'm not sure I would choose it as a place to immigrate to. The trouble is that many of the alternative places I would choose to live have their own affordability and social challenges.
 
Admiral Beez said:
If I was professionally employed in India, I’d stay put.
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I tend to agree. I do sometimes ask in a roundabout way why people who had what sound like pretty good jobs in India, China, the Philippines etc. choose to leave to come to Canada and what sounds like an objectively worse standard of living. I hear reasons like safety, environment, opportunities for their children.

I know a guy who was a pharmaceutical sales rep in Shanghai and moved to Canada with his wife and daughter. He had an office job that sounds like it was pretty entry-level. He said the reason he left was for his daughter to have more opportunities, and that he couldn't do the sales job any more for health reasons (drinking every night). He actually went back to China for a few years to care for his ailing parents, but ended up coming back to Canada.
 
I think the question here is a tricky one.

English is my mother tongue, I do speak French, albeit very poorly at this point as I'm more than 20 years out of practice.

But if I were me, as it were, I would mostly likely have been born into one of the developed world Anglosphere countries.

In that context, I'm not sure immigrating would make sense, were I a highly educated, decently paid person where I then lived.

***

If we come up with a scenario where you're not well paid, or in a country suffering greater challenges, that's self-evidently different.

But the question then becomes, what are your alternative choices? (also what's your baseline)

In I were to choose an angloshere country to move to, it would mostly likely be New Zealand.

A country with PR, broadly similar to Canada in many respects, but with higher PPP minimum wage, a minimum 4 weeks paid vacation, 10 paid sick days are also mandated, and its largest urban centre is considerably smaller vs Toronto. (so nature is closer at hand)

To me, that's a more compelling offer in terms of quality of life.

***

Obviously if one has a different set of linguistic abilities the choices may be broader.
 
afransen said:
I tend to agree. I do sometimes ask in a roundabout way why people who had what sound like pretty good jobs in India, China, the Philippines etc. choose to leave to come to Canada and what sounds like an objectively worse standard of living. I hear reasons like safety, environment, opportunities for their children.

I know a guy who was a pharmaceutical sales rep in Shanghai and moved to Canada with his wife and daughter. He had an office job that sounds like it was pretty entry-level. He said the reason he left was for his daughter to have more opportunities, and that he couldn't do the sales job any more for health reasons (drinking every night). He actually went back to China for a few years to care for his ailing parents, but ended up coming back to Canada.
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You will find "for their children" as the answer a lot - and it isn't something you can necessarily understand unless you grew up in the environment they did - places where when things goes south, they really do. And for better or worse, generational class mobility is real here.

AoD
 
The thing that surprises me is how often these people talk about the servants they had in the old country (nannies, cooks, drivers, maids, gardeners, etc.). Coming here and leaving that behind must be a pretty big step down!
 
Canadian born, but i would not immigrate to Canada, of course if it was the 1970s i would.

My parents are immigrants, they immigrated from England in the early 70s. My boyfriends parents are also immigrants, they immigrated from India in the late 70s.

I'm amazed how they were able to own businesses and houses at such a young age on modest incomes. Those houses they bought, the average income cannot buy these days.

I keep in touch with an Indian immigrant who lived on my street. He rented a room in a house a few doors down from me. After five years of living in Canada, he moved to Fort Worth Texas a couple years ago. He got a really good paying tech job. He now owns a 3 bedroom condo, he sent me pictures, it's absolutely gorgeous! He paid less than 300k for it. That condo would be worth over a million bucks in GTA dollars. He has also met other South Asians who are also from the Toronto area and made the move to Texas. He loves it down there. I'm happy for him. I would have done the same if i were a young twenty something immigrant.
 
Northern Light said:
In I were to choose an angloshere country to move to, it would mostly likely be New Zealand.
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For me it would be a small town in England, UK. Whenever I go back I am struck by how emotionally and culturally attached I am to the place and people. I wonder if Canadians of Indian, Italian, Greek, etc. descent living in a car dependent Canadian suburb in Brampton, Winnipeg, Surrey, etc. upon visiting their cultural homelands and experiencing the roots of their culture and way of life feel somewhat betrayed by their parents or grandparents

I have Canadian-born friends who moved permanently to Greece and Italy to connect with their cultural roots. Of course Greece in 2023 is not the Greece their grandparents fled in the 1950s.
 
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Admiral Beez said:
For me it would be a small town in England, UK. Whenever I go back I am struck by how emotionally and culturally attached I am to the place and people. I wonder if Canadians of Indian, Italian, Greek, etc. descent living in a car dependent Canadian suburb in Brampton, Winnipeg, Surrey, etc. upon visiting their cultural homelands and experiencing the roots of their culture and way of life feel somewhat betrayed by their parents or grandparents

I have Canadian-born friends who moved permanently to Greece and Italy to connect with their cultural roots. Of course Greece in 2023 is not the Greece their grandparents fled in the 1950s.
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You are totally speaking my language.

My parents both left Austria to move to Canada in the early 60's. Starting when I was around age 5 or 6, they used to take me to Austria every summer for a couple of weeks to visit relatives and do lots of sightseeing. I was gobsmacked that they voluntarily chose to leave a place that I consider to be close to my personal paradise. They could have led perfectly nice lives there had they stayed put as they were both well educated. It might sound strange, but even though I was born in, and have lived my entire life in Toronto, I have always felt a deep connection to Austria and its culture, far more so than Canada. Every time our plane would approach Pearson on the return journey I'd see the vast, soulless suburban sprawl below and my heart would sink and I'd fall into a depression that would linger for weeks, even months, so it really struck a chord with me when you described a feeling of betrayal by parents/grandparents for abandoning their roots to come here. I've been dealing with that lingering sense of betrayal for the past 40 years now. It's been a consistent dream of mine to permanently move to Austria, especially with the way life in Toronto is now. I'm already a dual citizen and I'm fluent in German...
 
Towered said:
You are totally speaking my language.

My parents both left Austria to move to Canada in the early 60's. Starting when I was around age 5 or 6, they used to take me to Austria every summer for a couple of weeks to visit relatives and do lots of sightseeing. I was gobsmacked that they voluntarily chose to leave a place that I consider to be close to my personal paradise. They could have led perfectly nice lives there had they stayed put as they were both well educated. It might sound strange, but even though I was born in, and have lived my entire life in Toronto, I have always felt a deep connection to Austria and its culture, far more so than Canada. Every time our plane would approach Pearson on the return journey I'd see the vast, soulless suburban sprawl below and my heart would sink and I'd fall into a depression that would linger for weeks, even months, so it really struck a chord with me when you described a feeling of betrayal by parents/grandparents for abandoning their roots to come here. I've been dealing with that lingering sense of betrayal for the past 40 years now. It's been a consistent dream of mine to permanently move to Austria, especially with the way life in Toronto is now. I'm already a dual citizen and I'm fluent in German...
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I imagine if you asked them, Europe, even in the comparatively stable countries, was a stressful place to live during the height of the Cold War. In the Maritimes, particularly Nova Scotia, experienced a bit of a 'land rush' rush during that period, particularly from Germany. Many felt that being a land owner would be an advantage if the 'balloons went up' back home. It was part of the reason PEI enacted some fairly strict oceanfront property ownership rules.

Every story is different. We are closing a deal on a house near North Bay. The sellers (and owners) are an immigrant family; he a Pakistani Muslim and she, I'm guessing, is Pilipino. Five kids, now own a lakefront house, he's into the whole northern Ontario 'huntin' and fishin' thing.

I understand the desire for cultural cohesion and support, but it seems there is life beyond the big city.
 
lenaitch said:
Every story is different. We are closing a deal on a house near North Bay. The sellers (and owners) are an immigrant family; he a Pakistani Muslim and she, I'm guessing, is Pilipino. Five kids, now own a lakefront house, he's into the whole northern Ontario 'huntin' and fishin' thing. I understand the desire for cultural cohesion and support, but it seems there is life beyond the big city.
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There is that. Some immigrants may be quite happy to say good bye to the old country.

 
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I've noted a massive increase in similar videos like these recently on YouTube and most appear to be from wannabe content creators out there who really care about the income from clicks, and of course they can get it because there's a huge immigration boom right now from India to Canada and researching Canada and how things work here has literally become an internet blog business.
If you look at the post history of many of these accounts you find two dozen videos all with the similar theme: "top ten reasons Indians should move to Canada!"; " Six reasons Indians should never move to Canada!"; "8 things that will shock Indians about Canada"; whatever to get clicks. You can find similar videos for many other countries (notably Australia) and it really looks like a side hustle to get income.
 
Jonny5 said:
videos like these… most appear to be from wannabe content creators out there who really care about the income from clicks
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I wonder how people still make money on YouTube. My family’s been running Adblock for Youtube on our ipads, android phones and pcs for years now and never see any ads. For Adblock on iPads you need to access YouTube through Chrome instead of Safari and must delete the YouTube app, which is easy enough. I assume that’s why so many YouTubers are now flogging their Patreon pages as well as in-video sponsors. YouTube without Adblock is now unwatchable.

And Google is happy to allow Adblock on YouTube since it benefits them.

 
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