Canada - British Expat Forum

Would love to have some honest answers to my question -

What do you feel are the down-sides of living in Canada?

Thank you

this thread might help you

http://www.britishexpat.com/expatforum/canada/viewtopic.php?t=8485

For me, it's the driving (it's terrible), the price of wine and cheese (very high), having to go to the beer store and the liquor store to buy wine and beer instead of just buying it with the rest of my groceries; having to pay duty on presents posted here from the UK.

Quote:

...having to pay duty on presents posted here from the UK.

On everything? It would kinda take the joy out of receiving any gift.

Thank you

Will look at previous topic and see if that helps to make my mind up

on a lot of things, yes. The postman always stands well back on the doorstep now because my first question tends to be "is there duty to pay?". And if there is, I'll consider who its from and how much it'll be. Sometiems I send it back, I've had to pay over $60 in the past. And what's worse is that there seems to be no rhyme or reason, I ask people to package stuff up in different ways and that makes no difference either

What do you not like about the driving? I do have a HGV Class 1 but am not planning on using it

oh dear, well at the risk of hogging this conversation, the driving (in London anyway) is very aggressive - tailgating, pushing past, speeding, jumping lights, anti-pedestrian. HGV drivers of course have better training in general than the regular driver although on hte highways they speed and tailgate too. Bad and dangerous driving seems to go unpunished compared to England - speeding is more or less acceptable, nipping in and out of lanes is the norm, police don't seem to consider dangerous driving to be a priority. As a pedestrian of course, I find it is important 8)

Blimey Jessica , that bad eh. I take it this is the same for all provinces then? I happened to print off the drivers manual for Alberta, it was just a bit bigger than the UK Highway code book Not sure that I want to be taking another driving test, been 23 years since my car test and probably 15 since my heavy goods test!

When visiting I did notice that the shops didn't sell Galaxy Chocolate which I must admit I would die for but on a good note I did find a Raspberry smirnoff ice which was lovely and I can't seem to find in my local Tesco in the UK.

How long have you been out of the UK?

Hi Angel,

Sorry to butt in the conversation, but driving isn't like that in all provinces. We moved to Nova Scotia last July and driving here is very pleasurable.
Tailgating is rare and people on thew whole are polite and courteous drivers.
Police are everywhere and it is quite hard to speed.
Sometimes this is all really actually annoying after rushing around in the UK. lol.
Pedestrians have priority and drivers respect this most of the time.
I had to take a re-test here too. It was easier than expected and I was really nervous as I had taken my UK test 17 years ago.

We have Petes Frootique here which is a store that imports some UK foods, including Galaxy chocolate, so I don't miss out on too much.

Hi Lorry, you are not butting in, more the merrier

Nova Scotia has some great properties for sale with land for my horses but by the time we decide to go for it they will be long gone Will probably be about 2/3 years before we make the move, that's if my OH can convince me it's the best thing to do.....

How long have you been in Canada?

I am at work at the minute so if I don't reply back straight away it's because the boss is about

The part of ON that I am in is lovely to drive in, reminds me of NS driving. I hated driving in the Uk but love it here and have no fear driving the Tundra and towing a 4 horse trailer.

Price of food in supermarkets is way more expensive than the UK.
The downtown areas are normally always deserted; everyone wants a tip and hardly anyone goes out of their house for very long and the TV is rubbish with commercials every 5 minutes.
People dress like it's 1989, pedestrians don't stand when trying to cross the road and don't even try and take young children out to a restaurant without being stared at if they make a noise.
Apart from that it's great.

Mmmm weird. I have never had experiences like that. The last place we ate as a family - 6 year old and 20 month!! was at the CN Tower in the revolving restuarant at the top where $50 a head without drinks is the norm. Everyone dressed very smart, our 6 year old cried cos he got into a temper, our 20 mmonth had fun decorating the carpet and then they both dragged chairs to the window to watch the world going round.

Not one person cared. In fact the guests got all maternal with the " arr poor boy, do you want a treat", and others played with them and the waiters were great and cooked their food first so they were eating just as our starters were brought out.

I think people dress for the situation. My family were always going to the Clothes Show Live and Ladies Day at Ascott - so thats the fashion that I was brought up in, whereas here I can dress up to go somewhere nice, but go casual when clothes shopping etc and wear my farm gear if nipping into town. No one has the hang ups about fashion unless they are teens living in TO.

Food is more expensive but that is due to the quota syatem and the fact that there are no subsidies here, so the farmers get a decentish.. price for their food, rather than getting robbed by the supermarkets. People here seem to buy farm gate sales much more.

It is a bit difficult to dress up when one has long underwear under everything. It is true that we often dress more for the weather than the fashion, but as everyone knows "you aren't completely dressed unless you have a Tim's in your hand".

I'm with jessica on the driving, it's worse in winnipeg than in either calgary or toronto -

Also the liquor mart thing is a pain, as is the banking system which is 20 years behind the UK

In fact in many ways it's like europe 20 years ago - which isnt necessarily a bad thing.

On the plus side taking kids to eat out is much easier than in england, and doing chores like the supermarket run is much less stressful as they are habitually empty, I finally managed to get a reasonably prices tuna steak this week after year of looking!

s