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I've been living in Montreal as Permanent Resident since April 2014. We, my wife and I, are perfectly billingual however we are finding it hard to get jobs in Montreal. The language factor too is becoming a barrier as we are more fluent in english than french. we are thinking to shift to Gatineau and i will be grateful if you can help us with the following questions:
Rent - how much will it cost to rent a 2 bedroom appartment/house in Gatineau?
Cost of living - is it the same as compared to downtown Montreal?
Job market - i work in HR and my wife in customer service. will it be tough to get jobs there? this is our main concern for the moment
Raising a Family - how is it compared to Montreal? in terms of education/quality if life- we are also looking to live in a less hectic environment.
we are thinking to move to visit gatineau next week to see if the place suits us and then we will decide and i am sure that all your answers will be very insightfull for us.
The employment situation in Gatineau is better than Montreal statistically with unemployment two or three points less. Of course it is a much smaller city and even with Ottawa included this metro area is still about three times smaller than Montreal's. So it probably evens out as far as job opportunities.
In Gatineau you can work in Ottawa and in Ottawa for many jobs there is often no requirement for French in the private sector at least.
On the other hand many Ottawa-Gatineau jobs are government jobs and they are generally for citizens and as a PR it will be more difficult to get one.
Also many government jobs in Ottawa-Gatineau require English-French bilingualism.
On an everyday level Gatineau is pretty much like Montreal linguistically with a decent present of English and a number of reasonably bilingual areas but overall most of the city functions in French.
Ottawa is a primarily English-speaking city outside of the federal government's operations, and even in the so-called French areas like Vanier and Orleans you hear much more English than French.
As far as cost of living and housing compared to Montreal they would be fairly similar. Gatineau is quite a bit cheaper than Ottawa.
Because Gatineau is much smaller than Montreal or Ottawa, it is much easier to find for example a house with a yard not so far from the city centre for not too high a price.
Pace of life in Gatineau is more relaxed than Montreal. Quality of life is very comparable (education, etc.). It's just that everything is on a smaller scale. With Ottawa next door you do have access to a lot of the big city stuff as well, though obviously not as much as in Montreal.
everything is fine with Ottawa and Gatineau. the only thing is you are not a Canadian Citizen yet and you still have to wait 3 years + application waiting time of one year at least. Ottawa and gatineau jobs are mostly federal jobs that require Canadian citizenship (the good one) .
i don't know your ethnic background but there is a lot of Anglo Ontarians from Ottawa complaining that French grabs all the jobs and discriminate against them.
Thanks for all replies. I'll be taking the bus from montreal to downtown ottawa. how do i get to gatineau from there?
The bus station is near downtown Ottawa, so you're a bit south of Gatineau. You can easily take a short taxi ride ($15?). If you want to take the bus, take the #4 bus on Catherine Street going in the direction of the Rideau Centre. From the Rideau Centre, take an STO (Gatineau bus system) connection over to your Gatineau destination.
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