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Believe me, that numbers tell nothing
For locals, crime is not the matter, it can be avoided with no problems. Corruption is not the problem too, many things changed. Poverty is the issue, but not as big as you may think I want to immigrate because of my own ambition. Living well in here, is absolutely different from what you suppose it to mean. RamseCA
I am stunned!
Can't be that bad out there
I do consider other places too, like USA, France and UK, but Canada was a real dream to me for a long time.
Moreover, France do recognize my diploma and UK offered just 1 year program to recognize it.
I am planning to visit Canada and France this summer, so I will be deciding after that.
Thank you for the comment, you helped me to see thing from different angle
Canada recognizes absolutely NO education or experience outside of the country. You will find doctorates driving taxi cabs in Toronto.
Canadians live in a culture of debt. This gives off an illusion of prosperity because you see big paper homes and everyone driving new cars. Everything can be had on a "payment plan". Ontario has crumbling infrastructure, congested roadways, high taxation and social regulations.
Canada does an excellent job of spreading the "MYTH" of its quality of living.
All of your savings will be depleted fast and you will be taking on large amounts of debt. You will get stuck in a 8-5 50 hour work week for the remainder of your life. This is how most Canadians live.
Canada will be a culture shock to you if you are used to European living.
You will see 40-50hour work weeks, plus another 20 hours a week of just being stuck in traffic to get to work! All this while paying seemingly endless bills.
Now how's THIS different from the American, e.g. CA, way?
Did you watch the Olympics? Vancouver is a fantastic city to live in. Don't listen to any naysayers about Canada. It's a wonderful land to live in. Visit Vancouver if you come to Canada to visit. I have two sons that live here in Van. The older one is 35 and is a medical Doctor. The other is 33 and is in his first year of law school at UBC. The thing I want to tell you is that they really don't live a much different lifestyle even though my Doctor son and his wife who are both Doctors by the way, make a huge income and my lawyer student son and his wife who is a chartered accountant student have a very small income. I could imagine a very good future for a Canadian lawyer who also is a Georgian lawyer. In the future trade and commercial contacts between Canada and the former Soviet Union is going to keep on growing. Obvoiusly for this they need lawyers.
Don't worry about the money. If you get accepted into Canada then you can go back to school with student loans. Actually here in Canada it even pays to have a couple of kids already when you go back to school. My youngest daughter is a single mother with 2 kids. She went back to school this year and the Ontario student loans gave her about $20,000 for the year. Because she has kids she will only have to repay about $4000 of that when she startes working. As someone who already is a lawyer I'm sure you know how important it is to know how to WORK the system to your advantage. If you come to Canada, take every advantage you can get and you will be fine.
I can't think of one other country in the world where an immigrant as youself will be totally accepted and face no problems because of your country of origin.
If you do move to this country get yourself politically connected as soon as possible. Join a political party and become active in it. You know here most political leaders are lawyers. You get yourself connected and you will never be one of those hungry lawyers but will spend your days on the golf course if that's what you want. When you are working on a contract for the government at $500 an hour you don't need to put in to much time and in fact your legal assistants can do most of the work.
Did you watch the Olympics? Vancouver is a fantastic city to live in. Don't listen to any naysayers about Canada. It's a wonderful land to live in. Visit Vancouver if you come to Canada to visit. I have two sons that live here in Van. The older one is 35 and is a medical Doctor. The other is 33 and is in his first year of law school at UBC. The thing I want to tell you is that they really don't live a much different lifestyle even though my Doctor son and his wife who are both Doctors by the way, make a huge income and my lawyer student son and his wife who is a chartered accountant student have a very small income. I could imagine a very good future for a Canadian lawyer who also is a Georgian lawyer. In the future trade and commercial contacts between Canada and the former Soviet Union is going to keep on growing. Obvoiusly for this they need lawyers.
Don't worry about the money. If you get accepted into Canada then you can go back to school with student loans. Actually here in Canada it even pays to have a couple of kids already when you go back to school. My youngest daughter is a single mother with 2 kids. She went back to school this year and the Ontario student loans gave her about $20,000 for the year. Because she has kids she will only have to repay about $4000 of that when she startes working. As someone who already is a lawyer I'm sure you know how important it is to know how to WORK the system to your advantage. If you come to Canada, take every advantage you can get and you will be fine.
I can't think of one other country in the world where an immigrant as youself will be totally accepted and face no problems because of your country of origin.
If you do move to this country get yourself politically connected as soon as possible. Join a political party and become active in it. You know here most political leaders are lawyers. You get yourself connected and you will never be one of those hungry lawyers but will spend your days on the golf course if that's what you want. When you are working on a contract for the government at $500 an hour you don't need to put in to much time and in fact your legal assistants can do most of the work.
-- Well Vancouver is a wonderful city. So that's not a fairytale.
-- The student loan information is certainly not a fairytale. My daughter is not even a single mother and she has gotten a combination of bursary and loan each year from the government for her university studies. So that's not a fairytale.
-- Many politicians in Canada do have law as their background. In fact the current Prime Minister is the first in one in over 40 years to not have studied law. In Canada politics and the law profession go hand-in-hand. So that's not a fairytale.
-- As I know first hand that many regular lawyers in Canada charge upwards of $250.00 an hour (http://www.legalhelp.ca/Tips-Checkli...wyer-Cost.html), it would not surprise me at all if the government is stupid enough to fork out $500 an hour. So that one is the only possible fairytale.
Last edited by sunshineleith; 03-12-2010 at 08:18 AM..
-- Well Vancouver is a wonderful city. So that's not a fairytale.
-- The student loan information is certainly not a fairytale. My daughter is not even a single mother and she has gotten a combination of bursary and loan each year from the government for her university studies. So that's not a fairytale.
-- Many politicians in Canada do have law as their background. In fact the current Prime Minister is the first in one in over 40 years to not have studied law. In Canada politics and the law profession go hand-in-hand. So that's not a fairytale.
-- As I know first hand that many regular lawyers in Canada charge upwards of $250.00 an hour (Legal Help.ca Yellow Pages Group - Learn about lawyers), it would not surprise me at all if the government is stupid enough to fork out $500 an hour. So that one is the only possible fairytale.
For an immigrant-lawyer, who will have to start from scratch in Canada, it will be very hard, if possible at all, to reach the lifestyle Lucknow preaches. This is what I meant when I labeled this post as a fairytale. Let's see what immigrants in Canada say regarding this post.
However, I agree that Vancouver is a wonderful city to live (again, if you can afford the lifestyle the city offers).
Now how's THIS different from the American, e.g. CA, way?
Well I can just speak on the two Industries I have experience with (Medical and Legal-my wife is a Legal Recruiter)
For a Doctor to qualify:
In Canada:
- Validation process of Foreign Education and Medical License.
- Lingual Exam
- Medical Exam
- Apply for Residency program depending on Province
- Once accepted you have to complete at least a 2 year Canadian Medical residency
- Apply for License to practice.
- Complete residency and apply for job.
**The major issues that stand out are forcing foreign trained doctors with years of experience overseas to start all over and complete a residency in Canada, even when they are overqualified to do so. In addition Foreign trained/experienced Doctors only get consideration for residency once all Canadian trained graduates have been placed, which leaves minimal spaces for foreign trained doctors to compete for.
In the USA:
- Validation of Foreign Education and Medical License.
- Medical Exams (Clinical, Medical and Lingual)
- Apply for License in US.
- Once this is complete you can apply for a position.
***As you can see the process is much more streamlined, and foreign experience is recognized and foreign trained doctors are not required to RE-apply for a residency they already completed in their home country.
The US system is more accepting of Foreign trained doctors. At last count 25% of all Phsysicians practicing in the US were foreign trained.
For Attorneys:
In Canada:
- Validation of Foreign Education and Legal License.
- After the board has reviewed the above the following could be the next step:
A) Re-apply for Law School in Canada if not recognized (2 years)
B) Complete between 6-12 qualification exams depending on the boards ruling. (each exam is only offered twice a year)
- 1-2 year articling depending on Province
- Bar Exam
- Apply for position
***A couple points to consider. If your education is approved and you can challenge the exams, based on the amount (6-12) it usually takes at least two years with no failures to complete. Then you can article and take the bar exam. With this timeline it sometimes makes more sense for a foreign trained lawyer to start all over again and apply for a LLB at a Canadian institution.
Another issue is asking an experienced lawyer in their home country to article with Law students, I find that somewhat insulting personally.
In the USA:
- Validation of Foreign Education and Legal License.
- Depending on State (Mass allows foreign trained lawyers) you are able to challenge/sit for the Bar exam.
- Once passed no additional courses or articling period is required, you can immediately apply for a position with a Law Firm.
***My wife in the past year for the Law Firm she works for has recruited 2 Canadian lawyers (UofT graduates) and 2 from Tel-Aviv. All were allowed to sit for the bar and work as associates after.
Obviously all of the above are in addition to Visa/Immigration processes in each country.
So that is the difference between the two countries. As a side point we are both educated in Canada (Toronto) and currently work in the US.
[quote=lucknow;13260667]Did you watch the Olympics? Vancouver is a fantastic city to live in. Don't listen to any naysayers about Canada. It's a wonderful land to live in.[quote]
Hmmm... so it's all a wonderland huh? "Don't listen to any naysaters about Canada" eh?
Is that why I fled Vancouver in the early '80s for California? When there was literally no work there, and I didn't want to go onto the famous "dole" which everyone relies on up there? No, the US isn't all roses either, but certainly the Canadian health care system, which pretty much put my father into an early grave, is nothing to run on about. It took mom 17 weeks to get an MRI in Vancouver. By then it was too late. At St. Joseph's hospital in downtown Vancouver, the emerg waiting room is overflowing with druggies they happily let in out of the cold. The free-needle, free food, free room social system has generated a surplus of social outcasts who now expect it all for nothing. They were the primary protesters during the Olympics ("free housing for us, versus these costly Olympics!"), but then neither NBC or CBC covered that stuff, now did they?
Strikes? All the time. Labor unions in their death throes. Teacher's Unions, Postal employee strikes, almost always at Christmas time, when it will disrupt the most people. Canadian productivity is much lower than other industriualized nations. It's reflected in their dollar's value compared to the Euro for instance. (No, not compared to the dropping US $. I am NOT saying it's perfect down here, just that it's not so wonderful up there, as was suggested in the previous post...)
High incomes? Yep. I made a bundle as a consultant and later as a Crown Corp employee (B.C. Hydro, since you asked...). But the tax structure? Ouch! There goes that "free health care" concept.
In the US, it's surely not all good, but at least I and others herre and in Canada are realists. There are simply NO fairytale countries, and to suggest Canada is one? Silliness. A reasonable criticism is that it's like a country run by a college sociology department; all theoretical and cutsy-liberal, but overrun by the realities of gang warfare in the streets (Vancouver, Toronto, even Winnipeg), vast government involvement in everything, and truly mediocre healthcare technology, all paid for by the apparently willing taxpayers.
If Canada were standing on it's own, without the US to lean on economically and for it's international defense since the early '50s, it would be a minor third-world country.
Tell you what: if or when you come down with some problematic disease, you can choose between Vancouver General or the Mayo Clinics. Many of Canada's top legislators and gov'mint officials seem to take the taxpayer-funded private jet across Lake Ontario to the Rochester, NY, Mayo. You know; where they'll get truly best-in-class diagnostics, at a reasonable price.
So please, no fairy tales, OK? (BTW, don't you Canadians think it was awfully kind of us Mur-kans to give you that final hockey goal? I thought so... you're welcome). (now we'll see if they really have a sense of humor.. Dons bulletproof vest....)
(BTW, I got censured by the mods here once before for daring to critique Canada. Hey; I am a Canuck, and at least here in the US we have freedom of speech.)
[quote/]Don't worry about the money. If you get accepted into Canada then you can go back to school with student loans. Actually here in Canada it even pays to have a couple of kids already when you go back to school. My youngest daughter is a single mother with 2 kids. She went back to school this year and the Ontario student loans gave her about $20,000 for the year. Because she has kids she will only have to repay about $4000 of that when she started working.
So. You recommend going after government largess right off the bat. In the US, we sorta like to see immigrants make their own way, which is imminently possible here. whatever you want to achieve, you can. Just ask scores of immigrant Vietnamese, Koreans, Canadians [me] and Mexicans, all willing to work hard for self-improvement. No government dole required. Too bad you choose the dependency route!
Quote:
If you do move to this country get yourself politically connected as soon as possible. Join a political party and become active in it. You know here most political leaders are lawyers. You get yourself connected and you will never be one of those hungry lawyers but will spend your days on the golf course if that's what you want. When you are working on a contract for the government at $500 an hour you don't need to put in to much time and in fact your legal assistants can do most of the work.
Interesting advice: become a lawyer-politician. Way to go! Actually, we need non-legalistic types in government more than ever. How's about a few biologists like me, who care about the environment, which has been devastated in BC by clear-cut logging, mining and poor forestry practices. Look at those industries today in BC. Yikes or perhaps a few more women legislators, or teachers? David Suzuki for Premier?
Quote:
Originally Posted by movingwiththewind
What a fairy tale!
Agreed!
Quote:
Originally Posted by movingwiththewind
For an immigrant-lawyer, who will have to start from scratch in Canada, it will be very hard, if possible at all, to reach the lifestyle Lucknow preaches. This is what I meant when I labeled this post as a fairytale. Let's see what immigrants in Canada say regarding this post.
However, I agree that Vancouver is a wonderful city to live (again, if you can afford the lifestyle the city offers).
Agreed. A Very expensive place to live, hence the population migration out to Maple Ridge, Coquitlam, Surrey, Burnaby, etc., but essentially unsupported by the current transportation infrastructure as regards automobiles, and their light rail system is only getting started. rush hour is horrendous. If you move there, locate near the Skytrain system so you do not have to use your car. Downtown parking is like New York city; hyper-expensive.
Great Asian food though, esp. Japanese and Chinese. Oh, and Thai and Vietnamese. Yum!
Last edited by rifleman; 03-12-2010 at 10:43 AM..
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