Moving to Canada isn’t the driving force in my life. It’s more of an idle dream, really. But if the opportunity came, I’d be all over it in a flat second.
So, a few questions, in case I decide to get serious about this:
I’ve got my Master’s degree in Mathematics Education. I’m an adjunct at two community colleges in the Portland, Oregon area. I’m always on the lookout for an elusive full-time permanent position, whether it’s here or somewhere else. Are college math teachers in demand in Canada, as far as immigration points go?
There are two job sites I frequent, HigherEdJobs.com and CommunityCollegeJobs.com. While I’ve seen international ads for teaching positions on these sites, mostly in China and the Middle East, I don’t recall ever seeing an ad for a job in Canada. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but they must be rare. Is there some Canadian website where such ads are posted? Googling just shows the US-centric sites, or individual Canadian college websites.
And then there’s the issue of my girlfriend and her daughter. GF has her Bachelor’s in Accounting, and works as a bookkeeper for a property management company. What would her prospects be, as far as the admission points thing? Would she have to score her own points? If we got married, would that simplify things? And, Daughter is ADHD, and considered special needs by the school system. Would that throw a wrench into things?
Immigration (beyond refugee status!) largely depends on a point system. You get points for things like speaking both languages, having degrees, etc. You can probably download the list from somewhere, I’m not savvy enough to find it, but I know it’s out there.
But getting a job first might be the way to go, look for something further north, they seem to always be hiring. Once you’ve established citizenship you can, of course move anywhere you like and work.
(Too bad you don’t write code, in my city currently there are apparently 1000 such job openings unfilled. Tech firms are, according to the news, attending any and all job fairs, looking to poach people wherever they can!)
Dare I ask why you’d like to move here? Not that I don’t think its awesome, but usually Americans only threaten such things due to political outrage and frothy rhetoric. But that doesn’t seem to be you.
The main reason is climate. I like rain, snow, and cooler weather; I hate heat. As far as where I want to wind up with a permanent job, my target area is the northern half of the US, or Canada. When I’m pursuing job ads, I don’t even look at the ads that don’t fall in this area. I realize I will never escape the summer heat entirely, but I want to live somewhere it is minimized.
Also, I can’t say that politics has nothing to do with it, but a lesser reason is that I’m sick of all the bullshit in the US over health insurance. But I really don’t want this thread to turn in that direction.
Canada is huge, you may want to narrow your job search a tad to determine job market in any given area.
Also, you hate heat. Okay, but you do realize that we are not just an iceblock up here, right? I’ll use my old home town as an example - everyone believes Winnipeg is FREEZING, and in the winter we did get very cold temps with Windchill, but the summers are also among the hottest and also humid (also mosquitoes, but it’s still home to me:)).
Start here. [CIC](http:// http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/index.asp) and look around the points system. It takes a long time, though, many months, and in all honesty, the academic job market is extremely tight. More so than the US, since there are fewer colleges and universities. Are you familiar with the Canadian college and university system?
Getting married to another American will probably only make it more difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. If you can get a job offer in Canada your employer will have to fill out paperwork and submit a form with fee stating that no Canadians were available.
I don’t know of anywhere in Canada with a university or college that isn’t at least moderately warm in the summer, and most places are downright hot.
The list mentioned that “serious health problems” makes you ineligible but doesn’t explain what that means. Does anyone have a link to information about how that is defined? For example, does Canada have an official list of medical diagnoses that it considers to be “serious”? Does it depend on the judgment of a doctor as to whether a condition is serious? Is seriousness more dependent on the formal classification of a diagnosis (e.g. all forms of Bipolar Disorder are deemed serious regardless of how mild they actually are), or is it more based on an overall life impact score where even a minor cut or bruise could be disqualifying if said cut or bruise is holding your life back in a serious way?
An average high of 78.6 F in July is among the hottest? Thank you for the confirmation.
But seriously, I’ve already said I understand that I can’t get away from the heat entirely. But I refuse to live where it’s over 80 F every day for more than six months of the year. I can suffer through a short summer. That’s how it is where I live now. I won’t go somewhere it would be worse. That’s why my job search is confined to the northern portions of the US, and Canada.
I would like to correct one thing upthread. When you become a landed immigrant, you can move anywhere you like; you don’t have to be a citizen.
There are very university professorships, at least in math. Community colleges (just called colleges, any Bachelor granting institution is called a university) might be different; I don’t know. I don’t think there is any shortage of college level math teachers in Quebec.
When I came here, having a family made no difference. Once I got enough points they just came along.
Vancouver and Victoria do not have much hot weather. But then they do not have much cold weather. About like Seattle. The rest of the country has plenty of cold weather and snow. I was once in Calgary during the first week of September and woke up one morning to a light dusting of snow. Also, by the middle of August, summer is over.
A health problem makes you ineligible if your condition is a danger to public health or safety or would cause “excessive demand on health or social services in Canada.”
Like everyone else, though, jobs go to citizens and permanent residents first. I’m making a living here as an adjunct (“sessional”), but I had the citizenship through heritage before I came up. I’m in a different field, so I can’t speak to specific opportunities with permanent positions.
I’ve visited Canada a few times, its nice enough, but not so much nicer than the United States that Canadian can look down their noses at us that much. Theres still some crime, theres a lot MORE racism amongst the denizens than Canadians like to admit, and the weather sucks.
