How To Immigrate To Canada II

I continue with my answer to a friend, started in .

ttempchart[8]These days, of extreme and fast warming, “cold” is a very subjective term. I haven’t looked at all the data, but I’m guessing these curves are moving up every decade. To my mind and my [thick] skin, Toronto is not cold enough and it’s getting warmer every year. That may also be because in my childhood, I used to spend every winter in a ski camp.

Perhaps it’s best to just Google for average temperatures (results: cr-avgtemp).

Since rain and humidity are also important, click on the map to find that too.

BTW, Toronto is also known as (aka) T.O., Tdot, 6ix.

2. rental properties

There are lots of properties in Canada, both for sale and for rent. Most of them are advertised in classifieds websites:

  • craigslist – Famous non-profit classified list started by some dude named Craig in San Fran, decades ago causing the printed press downward slide. Kijiji bought the shares from one of the co-founders and has been surreptitiously driving it into the ground ever since. The CEO is an idiot who helps with the latter.
  • kijiji – A spinoff from eBay, started as a defensive move against Craigslist, offers a slightly more user-friendly interface with Google Ads, but will start charging as soon as Craigslist disappears.
  • viewit – These guys started not long ago by offering free signs, taking photos and making ads. Many lazy property managers and superintendents of large buildings use them and don’t bother with the other free services, so searching this website might be a good idea.

Most of the other rental classifieds republish ads from the above and are not worth your time. However, you might want to give places4students or 4rent.ca a go, if you feel adventurous.

Some rentals appear also on MLS, but that’s mostly for buying and selling real estate.

If you have school-aged children, I would suggest picking an area to live in based on the school rating (but as a rule of thumb, schools in more affluent areas do better than schools in poor areas, so going for the most expensive neighbourhood you can afford may be a time-saving strategy for some). In Fraser Institute (a conservative think-tank) rankings, top finishers can be found West of 404 between Steeles and Finch: Hillmount, Arbor Glen and Seneca Hill, and they’re all public schools in a not-so-expensive, suburban/uptown area.

The Ontario legislation governing rentals empowers the renter quite a bit, even though it has been severely weakened lately. It does not apply to new buildings such as condos. The newcomer federal website has a link to CMHC Provincial and Territorial Fact Sheets, containing info on laws of the land, while Rentseeker’s infographic helps you get an idea of rental costs in 2014-2015 and there is even some 2016 data.

Some people come to Canada in “one go”, taking everything with them, sometimes even doing the rental arrangements online. While that is possible, I would advise against that. It is best to rent in person and sign the papers yourself rather than through an intermediary, as YOU know best what you like and what you want. You can stay at first in a temporary place, such as a hostel where you pay by the day or by the week, and don’t bring everything with you. Booking dot com or AirBNB are also options worth considering.

I know of a high-income individual who came to Canada from South Africa with his expensive furniture, shipped and insured separately. By the time his furniture had arrived, he still hadn’t found a place to live big enough for it all. Obviously, I strongly suggest you sell or give away as much as you can and come here only with a few important items and sufficient cash reserves.

Finally, “Toronto-living” refers to living downtown. If you live uptown or in the suburbia, you are not really living in Toronto. The downtown core is where the life of the city flows. (LE: here's a millennial showing off her home 2.5h away from Toronto.)

3. level of education

According to the latest PISA results, the Canadian school system ranks 4th in OECD, tied with Finland. This was a surprise to me, as I found it substandard and disappointing, but that was long time ago. Individual school performance varies but, as stated above, is mostly a factor of parental background. As Canada is an immigrant country, that universal logic is a bit skewed by a large influx of immigrants who are sometimes highly educated but live at first in low-income neighbourhoods. For elementary schools, Fraser’s comparison of school rankings is a pretty good tool.

4. immigration consultants

My first impulse would be to tell you to go to the government website (in English and French) and do all the work yourself. Many immigration consultants, I suspect even some certified by the government, will gladly take your money and do nothing for you, or, at most, nothing that you couldn’t do yourself.

On the other hand, I have not immigrated myself, I was brought here, as previously explained. For what is worth, I did have to do some paperwork, do medical exams and so on, and did it all myself while a minor, without paying a consultant or bribing anybody. Even if I had gone through the full immigration process, the law has changed since then a few times, so my personal experience would not be useful to you. In my interview with an immigrant friend, she told me that she had hired someone and she probably could not have done it herself. Additionally, as a French speaker, she came via Quebec where it was easier, as Quebec did at that time (and probably still does) have their own immigration policy, which may be more favorable to Francophones.

I do not provide such services myself and cannot recommend anybody. Whatever you decide, I would recommend you read the government pamphlet on immigration fraud.

Out of curiosity, I looked at what advice is available to Romanian immigrants in Romanian. I provide them here for the sake of completion, but do not recommend or endorse any of them.

Some of the “consultants” advertising in Romania tell you, on their website, that you should lie in your application and claim that you did it yourself even if you hired them to do it. Remember that any lie (though usually more serious ones) in your application can be grounds for your citizenship (if you ever get it) to be revoked. Additionally, it’s unlikely that they are licensed with the Canadian government (as those in Canada may be), as the Canadian government does not have jurisdiction in this matter in Romania. Anyway, you can verify certification status.

5. working

I’ve no idea how hard or difficult it is for professions I don’t have to find work here and don't want to give you bad or inaccurate advice. I would start with a Google search, such as this one: http://bfy.tw/93Ou. What I know (but could be wrong) is that to work as a teacher in Ontario you need Masters level studies, such as what you get at OISE. There are probably other places where you can get the required diploma. To see where you can get your existing diploma “assessed”, try http://bfy.tw/948j and look at the first few results, especially government websites (they end in gc.ca). I see they even have a video.

A while back, the North American job market talked mostly about a resume, while a CV was a longer version used primarily in Europe and elsewhere, but globalization seems to have erased the differences.

The federal government has a pretty good starting point for your job search. Spend some time studying the differences between your local business culture and the Canadian one.

Some menial jobs could be found on the aforementioned classifieds sites, but for more “serious” jobs, you want to look at the government’s JobBank, or Workopolis, Indeed, Monster, Eluta, Jobs. Some professionals in high-demand prefer working with third party recruiters who get a cut out of your salary; I worked with something like this earlier in my career, but on subsequent contracts I cut out the middleman. For teaching jobs, try TeachingJobs, JobsInEducation, EducationCanada.

Apart from the aforementioned federal site for newcomers, Ontario has its own information repository at Settlement.org, together with a discussion forum where you can ask questions or find answers.

In the next and (hopefully) final part, a few more .

Sources / More info: cr-avgtemp, huffpo-infogr, rs-infographics

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