“Should I move to Canada?”

Hello. My name is Emma, and today we are going

to talk about whether you should move to Canada.

Many people want to come to Canada. As some of

you know, I'm from Canada, I live in Toronto,

and so I thought it would be a great idea

to make a video about what it is like moving

to Canada and living in Canada. Many students

ask me, "Is Canada a good country to move

to? Is it a good country to immigrate to?" My answer is always, "Well, it depends on

what your goals are." So, I'm going to talk

a little bit about that later. Before I talk

about this video, I also wanted to tell you a

bit about my background. So, I teach English,

I have many students from many countries around

the world, I teach immigrants English, I am

the granddaughter of an immigrant, so my grandfather

immigrated to Canada, and I have a lot of

friends who are immigrants. In fact, more than half of Toronto... More than half of

the people from Toronto were actually born in other countries. So, we are a place and

a city of immigrants. So, in this video, I'm going to talk a little bit about life

in Canada. We'll talk about the first question

a lot of people wonder, "Are Canadians rich?

Are there jobs in Canada? What about housing?

Is it easy to buy a house or find an apartment?

What are the good things about living in Canada,

and what are the bad things?" I hope by the

end of this video, you will have more information

to help you make your decision about moving

to Canada.

All right. So, one thing many people in the

world believe is that all Canadians are rich,

and if you come to Canada, it is easy to become

rich; you just need to work hard. Unfortunately,

this is not exactly true. So, let's talk a bit about this. The Canadian dollar, so the

Canadian currency, is very strong. So, when Canadians go to other countries, we often

can buy quite a lot of things because we have

a strong currency. But here's the problem.

When you live in Canada, everything is very expensive. So, I'll give you some examples

of this. Let's start here. So, in Canada, in

2022, the average salary was about $41,000

US. So, that's what the average Canadian made.

There's some Canadians that make more money

than this, and there's a lot of Canadians who

make less money than this. Now, the problem

is you might think, "Well, that's a lot of money." But if you think how much money a

house is in Canada, it's over $800,000 US.

You might think, "Well, what about if I rent?"

Rent is also extremely expensive in this

country. Food is very expensive. Pretty much

everything is very expensive. So, you make a lot of money, but then you lose most of

your money every month because of the cost of daily living. So, yes, Canadians make a

lot of money in general, but we also spend a

lot of money on rent, food, transportation.

It's an expensive country to live in. We also

have very high taxes. So, a lot of the money

you get goes back to the government. So, again,

life in Canada is very expensive, so it might

seem like Canadians are rich. When many immigrants

come here, they start to work, and they think,

"Great. I'm making so much money." But then they have to spend all the money they make

on the cost of daily living and on rent. So, it's a very expensive country.

A lot of people don't realize also that Canada

has a problem with homelessness. There's many

people who are poor in Canada and actually

live on the streets. You might not know this

because when you think of Canada, you probably

picture a beautiful country with a lot of

nature. That exists, but in the cities, many

cities have problems with homelessness. It

might even be worse than where you're from, or there might be less homeless people, but

I can tell you, Canada has a lot of homeless people.

So, let's learn a little bit more about this

country and whether you should move here or

not. Okay, so a lot of people want to know, "Is it easy to find a job in Canada?" Well,

here is what the problem is. In Canada, we

actually need many immigrants. We have a lot

of jobs and not enough people to work the

jobs. We really need doctors, we need nurses,

we need engineers, we need people in IT, we need construction workers, we need people.

It's a big problem here. There are a lot of

jobs, but here is the bigger problem. Canada

has a problem with red tape. "Red tape" might

be a new word for you. What red tape means

is bureaucracy. There's many people who come to

Canada who were doctors, they were engineers,

they have great skills. We could really use

them, but the problem is because of regulations,

paperwork, visa requirements, college rules,

maybe translation of education, a lot of people

come to Canada with great skills, but they

cannot work in these professions, even though

they want to, and the reason is because of red

tape. For example, imagine you are a doctor in

your country. You come to Canada and you want to

be a doctor in Canada. You know we need doctors

here. The problem is to become a doctor, you will

have to go through many different tests. It could

take years. It takes a lot of money. Your previous

experience might not count, and so even though you

have this great experience, you might not succeed

in becoming a doctor in Canada. This, to me,

is heartbreaking. It's very frustrating because we

need people. There's people who have the skills,

but for some reason, we're not getting these

people in the professions we need them in.

So, if you want to learn a little bit more about

immigration, my colleague Alex actually has a

good video where he talks to somebody who helps

immigrants come to Canada. So, you can check out

that video and learn more if you're interested.

The bottom line is for many people, they come to

Canada, they can't find the job they want, and

they actually leave Canada, or they work in an

industry completely different because they can't

do what they were trained to do. Okay, so let me

tell you a little bit about some of the good

things about Canada because there are a lot of

good things about living in Canada. First of all,

Canada is a pretty safe country. There are crimes,

yes, but there are less crimes than maybe in other

countries or other places. I like the fact that as

a woman, I can walk around in the evening time

alone and still feel pretty safe. You have to be

careful, but it's overall safer than a lot of places

in the world. Canada is also very multicultural,

especially some of the cities like Vancouver,

Toronto, and Montreal. We have many immigrants

who come to Canada, so we are used to immigrants.

There are different restaurants with different

types of foods from around the world. You can hear

different languages being spoken in these cities.

Overall, Canadians love immigrants, and so we are

used to immigrants, we love immigrants coming here,

we love learning about different cultures and

different beliefs, so we're very welcoming

towards people from other countries. Another

positive about living in Canada is freedom.

You have the freedom to say what you want to say

or to express your beliefs. We accept people from

different political beliefs, different religious

beliefs, different sexual orientations, different

races. So, overall, if there's... The beautiful

thing about Canada is there's a lot of freedom,

especially compared to other places, so some

people like to come here for that reason.

Another good thing about Canada is nature.

There's a lot of nature here. Even in the cities,

like Toronto, where I'm from, there's a lot of

green space, lots of parks, you can see wildlife,

so it's a great country for people who love nature. In fact, many Canadians during the

summertime go to the forest to cabins or cottages,

they go camping, they go on fishing trips, so these

are popular pastimes. So, if you like nature,

this is a great country to visit or move to.

We have great libraries in Canada, especially in

the cities. I mention this because when immigrants

come here, you can get a lot of information, a

lot of resources, sometimes even free English

lessons through the libraries, so they're always

a great thing to check out if you come here.

Another thing that is good about living in Canada

is we have a lot of support for people who have

disabilities. It's not perfect, but it might

be better than the supports in other countries.

So, I'll give you an example. I had one student

who was in a wheelchair, and I remember when he

came to Canada, his world opened up because he

was able to take the bus to different places.

They have special buses for people in wheelchairs,

so he could go to different parks, things were

accessible. So, he really enjoyed coming to Canada

because where he was from, there wasn't a lot,

but coming to Canada for people with disabilities,

there can be a lot more supports or more

accessibility. Another thing I just wanted to

mention was healthcare. So, Canada has a healthcare

system where, in general, because we pay high

taxes, in general, we don't have to pay for a lot of

our healthcare. If I want to go to a doctor, I

don't have to pay. If I need a surgery, in general,

I don't need to pay. If I have to go to the

hospital, I don't need to pay. So, this is very...

this is amazing in a lot of ways, especially if

you don't have insurance or you don't have a lot

of money. Having free healthcare is great. The

problem, this is why I put a question mark,

is there's a downside to this, and that is that

sometimes there are long wait times to see a

doctor or to get a surgery. So, on the one hand,

it's really good, things are free in general, but

on the other hand, you might have to wait or you

might have difficulty finding a family doctor.

So, there's good and bad when it comes to the

healthcare system. So, I'm just going to tell you

a little bit more about immigrating to Canada

and what that might be like, and hopefully this

will help you make a decision. Okay, so let's talk

about some of the negative aspects of living in

Canada or immigrating here. For many immigrants,

the weather can be a big surprise. Canada can be

very cold in the wintertime. The main thing I

notice, though, is the weather really changes.

So, it can be suddenly very cold, and then a week later, very hot. Then it's raining,

and then it's snowing, and then it's perfect

weather, and everybody's happy. So, you may

come from a country where things are usually

the same. In Canada, the weather really changes.

I think, on the one hand, though, because of

global warming, many places are getting very,

very hot. Many places are becoming too hot. I

think Canada might actually be a good country

to be in in the future if some of these things continue to happen.

Transportation. One of the issues with living in Canada is it's a big country,

so there's a lot of difficulties when it comes

to transportation. If you want to travel between

cities, it can be very big distances, so you might

have to drive a lot. Even if you live in the city,

like, for example, I live in Toronto, to get to

work, it can be very difficult because we only

have a certain number of highways, everybody

takes the same highways, so there's a lot of

traffic jams and a lot of very long commutes.

So, many people find it difficult to get around,

especially on workdays, just because there's a lot of traffic.

Rent can be a big problem in Canada, especially

in the cities like Vancouver and Toronto.

Rent is expensive here. I think... And these

numbers frequently change and increase,

but when I last checked, the average cost of a

one-bedroom apartment, so an apartment with just

one bedroom in Toronto, was $2,100 per month.

Now, even trying to find an apartment can be very

difficult. A lot of people try to find an apartment, there's not enough apartments,

so there's a shortage of housing and apartments.

So, this can be very stressful, and it can be

really hard on immigrants because they come here and they can't find a place to live.

So, before you come to Canada, really, really think about where you will live,

and do you have enough money for rent for the first year you're living here.

Finally, another thing I wanted to mention

about maybe some of the negatives about Canada

is we have a problem with career colleges. So, in Canada, we have universities,

like the University of Toronto, or the University

of British Columbia, or McGill University. These

are great universities, and, you know, they

have great professors, they have a lot of great

programs. We also have what we call "career colleges". So, these are not universities,

they are these almost fake colleges that are

created. They try to get a lot of international

students, they do not have good professors, they

don't have good programs. The diploma in Canada

is not seen as useful or, you know, it's seen as a scam. There's a lot of fraud

with these colleges. So, the government is trying to close down these colleges,

but they keep coming up. So, if you are coming

to Canada for education, please be careful.

Look at the reviews for the university, make sure it's a real university.

So, be careful because some of these career colleges charge a lot of money,

and they're not good programs. So, these are

some of the issues with moving to Canada.

I've talked about some of the positives of living in Canada.

So, should you move here? Is Canada a good

place to live? I would say, again, it depends.

Many people believe they will come here, they'll

be very rich, they'll have a great house,

life will be easy, and everything will be perfect. I don't think that's true.

I think that it's difficult to be an immigrant

in Canada. I know a lot of people come to Canada

and then leave Canada because they find the life here too difficult.

On the other hand, I think that there's a lot of good reasons to come to Canada.

I think that if you are looking for a safe

country with freedom, I think that if you are

looking for a country where it might be a good

place to have children and raise your children

in a good environment, I think there's a lot of positives about living in Canada.

So, I think you need to ask yourself, "Why am I immigrating?" and then decide

if the reasons for immigration match with the Canadian life.

So, thank you so much for watching this video.

We talked about a lot of different things.

For those of you who have immigrated to Canada,

please write in the comments below about your

experiences. I think it's a very good topic,

and I think people could really benefit from

understanding if you had a good experience

moving to Canada, or if you had a bad experience

moving to Canada, and what your advice would be.

So, thank you again for watching, and until next time, take care.