Canada - British Expat Forum

A bit of back ground:
I have been considering emigrating for awhile, although I am quite young and do not plan to start preparation for emigrating for a number of years.
I prefer the cold than heat, 30degrees literally kills me and so the areas I have looked at (Canada, Cooler areas of America, France and Germany) are not what most people I speak to consider.

I am currently working full time as a project engineer in the nuclear industry, I have a degree in mechanical design and I am doing a MSc in nuclear decommissioning and environmental clean up part time, I also have various other minor qualifications/courses related to health and safety and engineering. I believe the nuclear industry in Canada is located in Quebec and so that would be my first choice, however I wouldn't limit myself to one industry or area and think I would do fine in petrochemical or other.

The questions:
Is there any demand for engineers in Canada? Particularly engineers with a nuclear decommissioning background?
What standards system do they use in Canada? (I.E DIN, ISO, BS EN ect)
If there are any engineers on the board that have worked in the UK and Canada, are there any major differences in operation?
Any information or links would be appreciated, and if you have some other information that maybe of interest but is unrelated to my questions, feel free to add anything, as I’m sure it will be of interest.
Thank you in advance.

Hi Shaky, welcome to the British Expat forum. Sounds like a good plan to me. I hope someone comes along with some answers soon. 8)

Good luck with your MSc too!

Thank you

I thought there would be a site showing required professions or shortages in skilled labour, but I can't seem to find anything tbh. Perhaps the global downturn is to blame.

Hi Shaky and welcome to the forum.
Sounds like you're not in too much of a hurry to emigrate ?
I've worked in the UK nuclear industry for 23 years and plan to emigrate to Canada this summer.
People withyour experience and skills should find work in the Canadian nuclear industry fairly easily.
There are nuclear plants in Quebec & New Brunswick, but the majority of the nuclear industry is based in Ontario.
You may like to check out Ontario Power Generation, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission(Federal Regulatory Agency), Areva, CNC Lavalin, AIM Group, Brunel, Roadtechs & AECL.
They will all be looking for people withyour skills.
It's well worth doing a reccie trip to check out the country you intend to live in.
You will find it difficult to gain employment in Canada by just applying for jobs or emailing companies cold !
Canadians prefer face to face contact !
My wife and I did a reccie trip to Ontario in February and it was well wortwhile.
We attended the Canadian Nuclear Association Annual Conference at the Westin Hotel, Ottawa. That is a fantastic event, with a great careers fair.
So it gives you a great opportunity to make contacts and sell yourself.
We thoroughly enjoyed it, though I was completely burned out after 3 days of trying to get a job sorted out.
We're still waiting for our PR visas and will be looking to emigrate as soon as we have them and jobs. You're not entitled to work in Canada without PR or a Temporary Work Permit.
Good luck !
Shout up for any advice.

Valentine, thank you for the reply, I’m quite lucky to find someone looking at the same region and working in the same sector!
I am only 24, and have a few things I need to do before I plan on emigrating and so at present I am in no hurry, I want at least another 2-3years experience here. Over that time I plan to finish my masters, get chartered, probably get as good as I can at French and travel around potential destinations. Through research Ontario was actually my preferred destination, but I wasn't aware they had nuclear facilities in this area.
Are you an engineer?
Jobs fairs would be a great thing to attend, perhaps even before I’m close to moving just to get a feel for the industry. Thanks for the list of companies/organisations, I’ll be sure to check them out.
Good luck with the job hunt and emigration, I’ll be interested in how you find things when you move out there.

Hi Shaky, thanks for the good wishes.
I'll let you know how things progress.
I'm not an engineer. I work in Environmental Health & Safety.
It'll be well worth you doing a few recce trips to look at areas you may want to live & work in. You'll have plenty of choice as the nuclear plants are spread all over Ontario.
There are also plenty of opportunities in Saskatchewan in Uranium mining, there are huge high quality Uranium deposits in this province.
So that's well worth checking out as well.
Have a look at the CIC website. This gives you all the rules and facts about emigrating to Canada. Due to the new PR system based on the list of 38 desired occupations, you may find it better to make contacts in Canada and go down the Temporary Work Permit route.
You definitely need to get to the CNA Conference in Ottawa.
That'll give you a real taste of the Canadian nuclear industry. Check out the CNA website as you'll need to register for tickets. It's an annual conference held every February.
They also hold a trade fair every June, which I think will also include a careers fair. The CNA is really well organised and you'll be treated well by them.
You're definitely making the right choice, Canada has huge opportunities for experienced nuclear people.
French is a great skill to have as well. CNSC seem to prefer bilingual staff, so it will open doors for you.
Keep in touch, it's a small world so we may end up working together in the future.
Best of luck,
V

{Please don't quote a previous post in it's entirety, read the posting guidelines-this will also explain about pm's} Graeme}


Was going to try and PM you, but I can't as I'm not a regular member, I guess it works off post counts to stop the spam bots.

How are things going with your application?

Hi Shaky.
We still haven't heard anything re our application.
It's now 5 months since we did our medicals.
I've kept emailing CIC, but not had any response since start of July.
I think they're too busy sorting out all the new applicants, to be bothered about us.
Very frustrating .

Hi Shaky: As an ex-Brit who has lived in Canada for over three decades, I want to reinforce the advice that Valentine has given you, in particular coming out to see what you would be coming to, and to get a feel for it. Emigration goes well beyond specific likes and dislikes. In my view you'll discover that what you would find in Canada on a preliminary visit would either really excite you or leave you somewhat cold. Given your inclinations to date, I expect it would be the former and it would serve to propel you to navigate the many obstacles that there are to emigration.

This board has a wealth of information for people with a million questions about leaving your country of birth. Good luck. With your skills, I know you would do well here.

[Quote deleted - there's no need to quote the previous post in its entirety.]

Thanks for the words mate, I think I will check it out, I know two people who have just been to ontario and loved it, one went to quebec to and said that was great. The more I read the more I want to go.. but I have many things to do career wise before I truly think about planning it, plus.... Going there would be a big start lol.

Sorry to here about your delays valentine! I've been reading around and it seems like it can take a ridiculous amount of time to get out there! I'm sure you'll get out there and love it, then you can post on here about how great it is!

Hi Buddyboy & Shaky.
Thanks for the good wishes Shaky. We're still hanging in there and waiting for any news.
There seem to be very few PPRs coming out of CIC at the moment.
So it looks like we're stuck in the UK kicking our heels for a bit longer.
That's excellent advice from Buddyboy.
If you can do a reccie trip to Canada and look at potential places for living and working, youl get a feel for the place.
You may find as we did that your initial plans need to be adjusted.
We were looking forward to a life near Toronto.
But having had a good look at the place we weren't impressed and will settle for a peaceful life away from big cities.
I think you'll find a visit will really spur you on to get over there.
We're itching to get out to Ontario and start our new lives.
But that's not gonna happen until we get our PR visas.
Have a good look through the forum and as Buddyboy says you'll find a wealth of info and experiences.
Best of luck.
Valentine

Valentine, I was just wondering how things are moving for you? Did you manage to get out to Canada or get employment?

Hopefully you're still about on the forums, I've been more of a reader than a poster as I don't really have much to post ha.

There is a lot of useful information here so hats off to the community and those good enough to keep it going. I think if you doubled the number of regular posters this forum has you still wouldn't come close to the number of people you've helped out.