from Canada to New Zealand

bill · Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 3:11 am Post subject: from Canada to New Zealand

Hi ! I am wondering if it is anybody on this forum who came from Canada to New Zealand ?

I am living in Montreal and I want to move somewhere where winter lasts less than 5 months.

What is the life in NZ compared with Canada ? How is the traffic in Auckland or Christchurch ? As bad as Toronto or Vancouver ? Is a salary of 45,000 $NZ giving you the same standard of life with 45,000 $CAN here ?

Laurie · Posted: Fri Jul 23, 2004 4:13 am Post subject: From another Canadian

Hi Bill

I too am from outside the Montreal area and am looking to move husband and family to New Zealand hopefully in the next couple of years.

Last year gave me my full of winter. Want to get to some place where winter lasts on 3 months...

I am been checking out the forum and mostly the people who are looking to move are from the UK or the US...haven't found much "Canadian experiences".

We plan to head down in December to check it out and see if it is the place we want to be...

Laurie

Annierobrigado · Testing The Water Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 5

hello to canada!

i'm not from there, but i am seriously thinking of migrating to nz too. my husband's cousin who is in christchurch says that NZ$45000 would give you your needs already (family of 4-5) so that includes house, food, electricity and heat and water etc. the basic things you need to survive. i imagine CAN$45000 buys a lot more, but you have to have a lot more heat esp in the winter. visit dunedin sites, it says they have a high of 7.8 C and a low of 6.9C. I believe that's warm for Canada, who get to have (-)10 C??

Just sharing what has been shared to me, although im very brave to talk, having come from a tropical country with highs of 35 C and lows of 23 C (this is cool already for us!) Our summer capital has had 8 C, but that's during january. Guess where Im from?
cool

annie

bill · Posted: Sat Jul 24, 2004 6:52 am Post subject:

Hi Annie,

In Quebec (this is still a Canadian province) we go from -25 C to + 30 C and up. You need to love the snow if live here. Isn’t so Laurie?

If it would be only for the nice winter weekends with ski and ice fishing I wouldn’t mind. But than you have the joy of waking up in the morning only to find the driveway under 50 centimeters of snow. Imagine how the traffic is in a snowstorm when they need 3-4 days to clean the streets.

Yes you are right we are spending a lot in winter: heating, ski jackets, winter tires. Luckily we have very low electricity rates.
I read on the forum all the stories with cold and humid houses from NZ during the winter. Here summer or winter the houses are comfortable inside. Nobody worries when buying or renting a house for the heating.

Bye,

Bill

Annierobrigado · Testing The Water Joined: 30 Jun 2004 Posts: 5

Hello Bill

Yes, a winter wonderland, I can only imagine or read about. I am still waiting for my first taste of snow. It would be nice to see Canada too.

Here's wishing you all the best on your move to NZ.

Annie

(Would you like to visit a tropical country? It might be hot and humid for you, but if you feel you need to escape the cold, maybe a warm climate would do you good too.)

anakin · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:11 am Post subject:

Hi Bill,

My wife and I (and family) will be making the move from Vancouver to Christchurch in September. Can't answer any of the your questions at present but will be happy to undate once we are there. My salary will be roughly the same in NZ as you quote (a 20% cut for me) so I'm also curious how far that will go. Our needs are few so I'm not worried.

cheers, and what a fantastic forum...have been peeking in now for several months.

dan

Graham Barnes · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:27 am Post subject:

Hi Anakin,

Have been to Vancouver/Van Island three times over the last four years on school rugby tours and personal holiday...and loved it. Nice city (quite large sprawl though), friendly people, skiing at Grouse Mountain and Whistler, Vancouver Island on your doorstep, great mountains (if conifer forests are your thing), Stanley Park...they even play rugby there!! Nice One

We thought about moving to BC, but there is a very looooong queue to become a secondary teacher....

It seemed a very agreeable place to live, and my wife actually preferred it to NZ...is there a downside to the city which nobody told me about??

Graham

Laurie · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 2:45 am Post subject:

Hi Dan

Just curious if not too personal why are you leaving Vancouver...I can understand Bill and myself living in cold Quebec wanting to go some place warmer but Vancouver has the weather...the mountains...the sea...so what is drawing you to New Zealand.

My reasons are not only weather but also the political situation that I am not too happy about being so close neighbours with.

As I said just curious about your situation..Are you going down with kids and had you visited New Zealand before...do you have family already down there?

Laurie

anakin · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:11 am Post subject:

Hi Laurie and Graham,

We have actually had a lot of people ask why we would want to leave Vancouver. It's a difficult question to answer. I suppose, it's partly because of professional opportunities in NZ not open to me here, partly itchy feet, partly a desire to get out of the big city. The kids are a good age to move, my oldest is about to start school. Neither of us intended to stay here when we arrived several years ago so moving on seems natural.

If you are thinking about moving here there are plenty of positives and only a few negatives. The local mountains/ skiing etc are fabulous, people are generally friendly etc. The only real negatives are the cost of housing (unreal), the quality of housing (poor by North American standards I think) and the traffic.

cheers

dan

Laurie · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 6:21 am Post subject:

Dan

Where are you originally from?

I do understand what you mean about housing...When my husband and I were out there a few years ago checking out the Okanagan valley (we own a vineyard in Quebec) and were checking out the prices of small properties we were astonished at what money was being asked for some of these places.

We are still lucky here in the East at least around my area that houses and land is still pretty reasonable.

Hope New Zealand turns out to be what you are looking for...

Laurie

Graham Barnes · Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2004 7:34 am Post subject:

Ah yes....selective amnesia has clouded my memory a bit!! Embarassed

The traffic around the city on what passed as a ringroad (National 1??) made it very difficult to get from one end of the city to the other. And the less said about the Lions Gate Bridge the better Eek

I also remember our hosts on the Island (Cowichan Rugby Club Nice One

) telling us that houses were even expensive on the Island if you didn't live in the sticks. That means Vancouver would be even more unaffordable I presume.

Weather for March/April was gorgeous though. We cycled around the harbour in warm sunshine during the day...and skiied in the evening under floodlights overlooking the city at night on Grouse Mountain. The views...oh, the views!! Razz

I also remember looking across from English Bay (?) in the South near to UBC, looking across to Downtown and the mountains behind. Wow!!
And you do have what we don't here...namely S P A C E. Doesn't pay the mortgage, but nice to have it if you can!

I can understand the "itchy feet" thing though. We live in an agreeable part of the UK, both have good jobs, are financially comfortable but think "is this all to life??" We'd like a bit of an adventure whilst we still can, even if we do come back to the UK, it's a life experience to remember.

Graham

petersmit · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 1:49 pm Post subject:

Hi bill and Laurie

Another voice from Canada...bad winter and hardly any summer so far...

Hope to head out to Whangarei beginning of October.

Regards
Peter

Laurie · Posted: Thu Aug 12, 2004 11:59 pm Post subject:

Hi Peter

Welcome to the forum...From what part of Canada are you from? Have you gone through the whole PR process or are you going down in October prospecting? Are you taking family?

Sorry for the number of questions but I am really interested in getting a Canadian point of view of what you expect from New Zealand...as we as Canadians are used to high taxes, low wages (compared to our US counterparts), GST so I am interested in what New Zealand has to attract you!!

Laurie

petersmit · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 5:49 am Post subject:

Laurie

Sorry for the late replay...

I have received a very good job offer from a company in Northland. They flew me over for an interview and offered me the job before returning home. They are also paying for my relocation.

They gave me a priority talent visa application plus necessary paperwork that I have submitted directly to the NZ embassy in Ottawa. I am going to do a work to residence as I do not have the additional time it would take to go the PR route...the company wants me to start work asap. We contacted the embassy and asked them how my wife should apply and were told that she should also apply for a work visa and my daughter who is pre-teen had to apply for a student visa. We were also told that the process would take about 2 weeks if all information is supplied.

We have sold our home and I will wait for the work visa before I resign at my current job.

Why NZ?...better weather, near the sea, good job. I lived in NZ for a year in my previous life...exchange student...and I loved it.

This is not the first time on the move, as we went through this 10 years ago moving from Durban, South Africa to Canada. Our prime motivation for the move to Canada was an opportunity for me to gain international experience and the opportunity to travel more. I was very fortunate in the work place in that I have been able to do a fair amount of international work. We made the decision to move based on a newspaper and some supermarket fliers we received from my current employer. It was very tough at first to get settled as we had no support system to speak of in Toronto. We knew 1 lady that lived in the city. We even got chatting to people in the supermarket or park and invited them over for dinner etc.

We have been here for 10 years now and the moving bug has bitten again. Being from a coastal area in South Africa, we really miss the sea and as the years have gone by, the winters here in Toronto have become more of a drag. We also do not see it as a place where we want to retire one day. The work environment is also getting more bureaucratic and at the same time more(very) result driven (...need the money to pay for the CEO's $11 million dollar bonus).

The process does seem to be smoother this time round and I think there are 2 reasons for this. Firstly, we have done this before and have a good idea what to expect. We also insisted this time round that my wife take a trip to NZ before making any commitments in NZ. Secondly, the information available on the internet is amazing. We are far more prepared this time round because we know so much more. It certainly made the decision much easier.

We do not expect it to be smooth sailing, but at least I think that our expectations are more in line with the real world. We are very much looking forward this...

Regards
Peter

anakin · Posted: Wed Aug 18, 2004 8:03 am Post subject:

Hi Peter, Laurie and everyone here in Canada,

Peter, they must have been processing our work-to-residence applications in Ottawa at about the same time :-). We also chose that route rather than PR because of time constraints. They had our passports back to us in about 10 days. We will take all the PR paperwork with us and submit an expression of interest after we arrive in NZ.

We fly in September with plans to travel on the North Island before arriving in Christchurch for work. Like Peter we have travelled a bit...we spent 3 years in England in the mid-1990's. We're aren't expecting paradise by any stretch, just a new adventure and, admittedly, a lifestyle that's a bit more down our alley.

cheers, I'll drop a line once in Christchurch

dan