Canada - British Expat Forum

Hi Everyone

Love the site - it's really interesting, and everyone seems so friendly. I've just been having a look around in my lunch break and there's so much info here it's a bit overwhelming!

The idea of moving to Canada is still quite new to us, but the desire to move to a better life abroad has gotten stronger and now would be a good time for us to go as our children are very small and my partner has been made redundant. He is a graduate mechanical design engineer and I'm a graduate too...we should score pretty well. We are both late-30s. We have about £25,000 max in cash to see us through a couple of years (I would rather not sell up in the UK until I was sure Canada was right for us).

We stumbled across Orillia in Ontario just by chance on a property website and it looks great. We need to be commutable to the city (or somewhere with a bit of industry) but our main requirements are clean air, good schools, water, woods and neighbours (I couldn't manage being too isolated!). I like the traditional look too (Orillia seems quite unspoilt??)

Does anyone have any knowledge of Orillia? I have checked out their website and it is still looking tempting. Anything you can tell us would be so gratefully received. If we come over for a few days to look around the area is there anywhere else that we should investigate?

Lucy.

Hi Lucy... welcome to the board. We moved to Barrie which is just not too far from Orillia in Jan this year. We have ventured over there a couple of times and it is very beautiful, although they do get alot of snow in the wintertime similar to Barrie. We just seem to be on that belt of snow and it can get pretty deep. But the good thing is the Canadians make use of the snow and there are a few ski slopes around the area to utilise. I like Barrie because, although it is a city, you really wouldn't think it as it is situated right on the lovely waterfront of Lake Simcoe and loads of parks in and around the city which makes it very green. Schools get a good rating, it only takes a short drive to the countryside, very flat but very pretty. Hope you make the right choice for yourselves and good luck in your journey to get here... don't think you will regret it.
Regards,
Gael 8)

Hi Lucy

We have lived in Barrie for just over a year.....and it is everything that Gael says it is. However, it is not really a good place for industry...considering that it is one of THE fastest growing cities. One of the guys where I work said that Barrie used to have a lot of large companies, but they closed and moved further down to the city.

I am used to corporate working so I have found it very hard to find a decent job here. Toronto is the obvious place to go but I don't want that commute or to leave the children for hours on end. Plus there is the winter commuting to consider.

It's hard when you move to a new country as I was used to being able to get to work, home, schools etc within a reasonable amount of time....but Canada is a big country!!

Regards

mal