# Would a move to Canada be right for us - Welding Work



## Smallyeti (Jul 2, 2013)

Hi Everyone,

I appreciate there must be a few of these posts floating around so thanks in advance for anyone taking the time to offer their help/advice/opinions on this one. I will try to be as brief as possible.

Myself and my husband are in our early 30s, from the UK. We don't hate the UK or have anything against it but we do like other cultures and want to leave for a number of reasons. The primary reasons are lifestyle and home ownership, I won't post a long boring post about our reasons but suffice to say we've given this some serious thought over the last few years regarding both the pros and cons of moving. It is not something we are doing on a whim or without considering the negatives.

Basically we have it down to two countries where we would like to move to (France or Canada) and could really do with some help now by people who already live there. We were planning to take a couple of years more to do several more visits but it appears my body decided to go get itself with child a bit earlier than planned so we're looking to move when the baby is young rather than wait as this means (hopefully) I will be able to stay off work and raise it as opposed to having to go with childcare.

Our current circumstances are as follows: We don't have a house to sell but we have been saving for the last five years and have managed to put together a nest egg of several (tens of) thousands of pounds. We have never earned stacks of money but we budgeted and made the savings a priority. This means we have some funds and are also used to living well within our means.

My husband used to be a warehouse manager but has recently gained his NVQ2 in welding (as did I!). He is now doing his City and Guilds in two different types of welding (MIG/TIG) and works for a manufacturer who are also training him up in welding so he should have at least some work experience in that field when we do eventually move. He is hoping to get Level 3 in both City and Guilds providing the Colleges stop mucking around with the courses! He will definitely have his Level 2s either way. He's also done some blacksmithing (although not a whole lot but he did love it).

We started learning French at the beginning of the year (I had a GCSE in it but I really couldn't remember any!). It is hard but we make sure we do some every day and progress is slow but steady. I have to admit that I am nervous as to whether we will ever be able to speak it well enough to ever live in France though - although even a basic understanding of it would help with our points for Canada so if we go down the Canadian route it hopefully would still be useful.

If we chose Canada I think we both like Calgary. It looks lovely and seems to have a lot of things which would be great for us. 

We are braced for being lonely at first/being really super poor (especially with a baby and our plan for me to be off work to raise it)/missing family, etc, but I guess we need to know what other people who have made the move think. Both of us have read up a lot of posts about either country and both options have pros and cons.

The biggest pros we have for Canada are that a lot of people seem to really love it. The lifestyle seems to be very much based on outdoors living (which we love and is very important to us), obviously we wouldn't have the language barrier and hopefully this would mean finding work would be easier. However, we've also heard that it can be really, really hard to find employment in Canada, obviously the winters are very harsh (which we would be as prepared as possible for) and sadly that there are only 10 days holiday per year (me and my hubby get 25 days each plus bank holidays so this would be a big shock to the system for my poor hubby).

Basically we want somewhere good to raise our family where it would be affordable for me to be able to stay off work and to take care of the baby and that would also offer us a good culture as the years passed by.

I appreciate the two options are quite different but opinions/advice would be so helpful right now!

Any help gratefully received and thank you for taking the time to read the post!


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## Sunlight11 (Apr 27, 2013)

Job is hard to find for NON-Trade sectors, but for Trade sectors such as yours... Lots of work available. I believe instead of setting your mind on Calgary, it is wiser to search upon the demand for Welders in each province then decide.


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## Smallyeti (Jul 2, 2013)

Hi Sunlight,

Thanks for taking the time to reply. We've had a look at various areas and it looks like there would be some welding work (from what we can find on the internet anyway) in the Calgary area but we did review other areas as well. I think it would really be between Toronto and Calgary but we both think Calgary might suit us more.

It's a really tough decision but most worthwhile ones are I guess! We are really going to appreciate any help we can get!


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## Auld Yin (Mar 10, 2009)

A couple of things I think you should be aware. You mention culture, well you really can't mention France and Canada in the same breath. Canada, as a country, just celebrated its 146th year as a nation, so culture is of a much different type than that of France and Europe as a whole. 
NVQ and City and Guilds qualifications are not recognized in Canada and unless you find pre-arranged employment you will have difficulty immigrating.


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