Moving from Sydney to Kamloops would be like somebody from New York moving to Alice Springs.
Photo of Kamloops:
Image:Kamloops.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photo of Alice Springs:
Image:Alice Springs Australia.jpg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Okay, so Kamloops is not nearly as isolated or as tiny as Alice Springs. It's a small city located in a dry, semi-arid part of Canada and is not particularly known as being the most exciting place to live. Safety would not at all be my concern!
I know very little about the Thompson River University, so do take my advice with a grain of salt. From the looks of it, it looks like it was a former community college that was granted university status three years ago. As a name, outside of Kamloops it will not be as recognized as some other Canadian universities such as the University of British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, University of Toronto, etc, and I would not know if it would prohibit you in any way of obtaining a job. However, I don't see how moving to Kamloops would in any way make it easier for you to move to Canada permanently. You'd still have to go jump through the same hoops and you'd have to deal with the same kind of red tape that those studying in major Canadian cities would have to go through.
Certainly, as an immigrant with permanent resident status, there would be less job competition in Kamloops than say Vancouver or Toronto, however, there would also be much less career choices. Kamloops has a population of just over 80,000. But you won't be able to secure a job until you have a work visa... and it's getting that will be the difficult part. Perhaps your friend was thinking that you might be able to befriend some companies out in Kamloops to the point where they could sponsor you for a work visa. That is a possibility, but that's also a possibility anywhere in Canada.
Edit: Now that I remember, a former colleague of mine went to TRU to do her undergrad and she quite enjoyed it because it was a small school in a small city so you tend to know absolutely everyone. However, I don't know if she had a car or not. Outside of major cities in Canada, public transit, if it exists at all, tends to be quite limited. That colleague is now doing her masters at a major university out in Ontario.
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