Welcome to our channel we are Tina and Norm and today we are discussing the real reason
we left the UK to live in Canada what was the primary reason do you think Tina
- I think the biggest thing was definitely a sense of adventure and wanting to live in
a different new country - We had had an opportunity to live in France I had an employment opportunity
there that we considered we had spent a lot of time in France with our summer holidays and
but in the end when this opportunity for Canada came up we decided that would be a lot easier for
our children to cope with because of the language the other thing that we were really keen about
coming to Canada Tina was the dual citizenship - Would give our children a greater opportunity
to either live and work in Europe or North America and we thought that would be a really
good gift that we could give them didn't we - Yeah if they wanted to live in Europe or
the UK now or Canada or the United States they had the ability to do that and that was one of
our motivating factors was dual citizenship for our children - I think another one big reason was
the infrastructure what we noticed was a lot of the like everyday things like pavements and roads
weren't being kept up with and they were very rough the pavements and in actual fact
my Mum she tripped over one and you know they just weren't even were they Norm and you know - It seemed
they were forever digging up the pavements and not laying them back down well enough and a lot of
old people were pensioners were tripping on them and it just didn't seem that England was keeping
up with the infrastructure certainly of where we grew up where our parents were still living
so that's and in comparison Canada looks so fresh and new - Oh it did didn't it - It really did - Yeah it
was like a breath of fresh air to us wasn't it - So the aging infrastructure and lack of maintenance
was another motivator for us to leave the UK I was a sales rep in England when we lived there
and I had been since I was 18 years old working for various companies in the home improvement
industry calling on retailers and selling various decorating or furniture products
over time the traffic just was getting out of control I used to have to drive past that
junction of the M6 and M1 and there could be times where I could be sat in an accident always seemed
to be an accident going on around that area and sitting in traffic for 2 or 3 hours just wasn't
fun - No was it and even in the little high streets hey Norm where you just go to do your shopping it
was the cars were just bumper to bumper weren't they - It just seemed as though there were too many
cars for the size of country - Yeah so when we came and saw how big the roads were here in Canada it
was like wow - They were a lot wider and not as many cars because the population is less than
in the United Kingdom - So that was really appealing to us wasn't it - It was less stressful
being a sales rep in Canada driving than it was in England as far as I was concerned
what is one thing that we absolutely do not miss about the United Kingdom Tina
- Norm that just has to be the grey skies and the rain which just gets enough to drive you nuts every day
just to as seemed to be that same grey sky and it was always raining wasn't it (well yes) when I say
always not literally every day but most of the time and what we found too was that the weather
in that can actually have quite an effect on how people feel they don't feel as happy whereas we
came over here and even say if it snows it's blue skies and the sun's out and people are happier
it's that was one of the big reasons that we don't miss do we - Having more blue sky days
where we live now in comparison to the grey days that we used to have
in England it really lifts your spirits and as Tina said mentally I think people become a
little miserable when the weather is miserable and there's nothing to smile about plus we all
need that vitamin D3 from the sun don't we too - Yeah absolutely to keep us all healthy - So we enjoy
the extremes of weather in Canada but generally we get far more sunshine far more blue sky days than
we were used to in England the other thing that we were seeing more immigration and the changing
nature of society in the UK and also seeing that areas that were once really quite nice were
sort of going through a degentrification growing up and even in our early married life in England
one of the things that we really used to love was Welsh lamb for Sunday lunch it's Tina's
absolute favourite - Oh and with mint sauce too Norm (oh I know) I love that - But then we got Chernobyl
and we got the nuclear fallout to the degree that it wiped out the English lamb industry (yeah)
there was pasture land that could no longer be used for decades and that raised a real worry
in us maybe unfounded about the future and if that was one nuclear reactor meltdown in Russia that
had an effect on our lives in England what else could happen because it's a small geographic area
whereas Canada is one of the second largest countries by land mass
and you know we're further away from any of those dangers that happened in the UK
- Yes we were very concerned about that weren't we - Yeah the environment and the impact on that
so that really made us think probably too much about it but it was a major event that
had an impact (yeah) in England and the UK generally now this next point is extremely
serious (oh) that in itself is enough to make us leave the UK - Oh absolutely Norm
Black Magic chocolates was bought out by another company and they changed the selection
it was no longer the favourite selection that was my favourites - And I mean
the sizes and the quality changed and (yeah) Tina's all-time favourite was the orange cream
(yeah) and it just wasn't as creamy as it used to be it was a little more solid - Yeah they changed
everything didn't they the selection - And that's what we were finding a lot of our favourites like
Macintosh Toffee was bought out and everything was being consolidated by multinational companies into
very few ownerships and I guess things were changing and we didn't feel for the better
but that was just more of a light-hearted thing obviously we didn't leave England because Black
Magic or Roundtree was brought out by Nestle but it's a good story being an island nation
obviously you expect to pay a little bit more for stuff that's imported but the government
has just taken too much advantage over people since post-war years of taxation
look at cars there's a huge amount of tax on cars in comparison to Europe yet we
would brought into the European Union or the EEC and the cars didn't become any more affordable
because of this single market economy yet when we came to Canada we were shocked
that you could buy a similar car for half price than you can in England and so we could see
that our money would go so much further and that ran through into other areas didn't it
Tina - Absolutely it did and one of those biggest areas was housing when we found that we would
be able to buy a house for half the price that it would cost us in England and just before we left
there was a big change in the price of houses and we actually lost a lot of money didn't we Norm
just before we emigrated - Yeah and that was almost the the cold winter boot, booting us out of the
country yeah in the dying days of the Margaret Thatcher Conservative government our house that
we were selling to come to Canada we ended up having to sell it less than what we paid for it
and it was just these type of government policies that were so unfair to the everyday working people
of taxes making things expensive - I think another thing too Norm was that
everybody was the expression of being mortgaged up to the hilt everybody had such huge mortgages
we did and as a young married couple with young children there was no leftover money for vacations
or anything like that everything went on the house didn't it, it cost us everything to just get a nice
house - We couldn't afford to buy those package holidays to go to Majorca or the Canary Islands
so in the end we bought on payments a caravan and towed it behind my company car and that was our
holidays and we would venture over to France to various places - Which we did enjoy
didn't we - We did - That's all we could afford wasn't it we couldn't afford to go on planes
and fly to places - By the time you tried to buy a house and what was it 3 times earnings then
it went up from there (yeah) we could afford the payments but we couldn't afford much else whereas
in Canada they have a very strict lending criteria but it still allowed you to buy a nice house
but have plenty of money left over to pay your bills - Yeah absolutely and then there was money
to be able to go away wasn't there we were able to drive down to Florida and do all sorts of things
like that didn't we it was great - Just when you think you were getting ahead in England
they'd go and increase the VAT the value-added tax that basically doesn't add any value to
any products it's attached to but the more rampant the spending and the government's getting into
debt the more they'd make everyday people pay more for their their goods and it's we found it
difficult because they hid the VAT in the price of the goods so it wasn't that obvious the amount
of tax you were paying and once they raised it a percentage point or what have you you kind of
forgot about it but once again the comparison to Canada is we can see the tax - Yeah absolutely
you go and then you know you're going to be paying tax on top so that's it makes it easier doesn't it
- When we arrived in Canada it was 15% which were the Provincial and Federal taxes on purchase
tax if you like and then they had a change and brought it down to 13% for Ontario and that's
a reasonable amount (yeah) we figured 20% sales tax is just way too much - Yes absolutely it is isn't it
- So that was another reason that we left so that our money would go further I think also for us and
maybe you don't share this but England it has a class system and there's so many privileged people
that the comparison to regular working families is it's difficult to make ends meet whereas there's a
lot of inherited wealth in the UK - One of the big things that we find finding Canada that seems a
lot more like equality - What we found in Canada was a more egalitarian society that wasn't the
ultra posh people there are wealthy people in Canada there's absolutely no doubt about it
but the middle class is a huge wide band whereas in the UK
it was fairly narrow and it was expensive to be in the middle class whereas Canada
a large portion of people can have a very nice life the opportunity to do better we arrived
with no jobs but were able to reinstate all the money that we lost from emigrating in the
UK within about 10 years just because there are great opportunities for work - Yeah and we've been
able to have a really nice lifestyle haven't we and you know this seems so much more available to
everyday people just like what we are is that you can have a great lifestyle because you don't need
as much money as you did in England - So those are the reasons why we left the UK - And thanks
for watching - And we hope you're keeping well - And staying safe until the next time bye bye, bye bye