Wel­come to my new series, Ten Immi­grants, Ten Inter­views.

You guys all know my story by now, and you have a pretty good idea of what my life in Canada looks like. I thought it was time to let other immi­grants and new Cana­di­ans speak. I con­tacted ten of them, who each have their own story, their own rea­sons to come to Canada, their own point of view on how life is up North in the igloos. They all answered ten ques­tions, bring­ing a new per­spec­tive on immigration.

A new post will be pub­lished every Saturday.

Adam and Eric

Let me intro­duce you to Adam and Eric, for­merly of San Fran­cisco, Cal­i­for­nia, and now full-time Toron­to­ni­ans. They have been liv­ing in Canada for two years and they have the mix of pos­i­tive atti­tude and real­ist out­look on their move that make them per­fect to inter­view. Eric and Adam chose Canada almost on a dare and are now plan­ning to apply for per­ma­nent res­i­dence (they cur­rently hold tem­po­rary visas) and even­tu­ally become Cana­dian citizens.

Their blog, Cana­dian Boom­di­ada, has lit­tle snip­pets of their lives as well as great prac­ti­cal advices, such as the gen­eral immi­gra­tion advice series, posts about Cana­dian bank­ing, cul­ture, health care, job search and many oth­ers cat­e­gories — a must read!

What brought you to Canada?

It was my part­ner Eric who lit the fire to move to Canada.

We lived in San Fran­cisco and dur­ing dis­cus­sions of pos­si­ble Hol­i­day des­ti­na­tions he kept men­tion­ing how he loved Canada, Van­cou­ver in par­tic­u­lar — and how he really wanted to take me there. He was con­vinced I would fall in love with the city and not want to leave. I heard this one too many times and I started research­ing Van­cou­ver and Canada in gen­eral. I did a mas­sive amount of research and decided Van­cou­ver would be a great place to live. I’ve lived in upstate and down­state N.Y., Boston and San Fran­cisco. I love to move to new places and have always wanted to live out­side the U.S.

So…one day Eric men­tions that he was going to pur­sue new employ­ment. I had already bab­bled that mov­ing to Canada would be fine with me and at this point I sug­gested he post his resume on the inter­net on the major Cana­dian job sites. He was taken by sur­prise and didn’t take me seri­ously at first. One thing led to another, he accepted a job in Toronto and we moved about six months after he first posted his resume.

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process dif­fi­cult?

We legally moved to Canada from the U.S. with Tem­po­rary Work Per­mits, not as Per­ma­nent Res­i­dents. Immi­grat­ing with Work Per­mits is very straight for­ward and not dif­fi­cult. The more chal­leng­ing aspect of immi­gra­tion is cross­ing the bor­der with your per­sonal belong­ings and re-establishing all aspects of your life. Do your research so that when some aspect of the move doesn’t go as planned it doesn’t become a crisis.

How long did it take you to find a job that you liked in Canada?

Find­ing your first job, let alone one in your cho­sen field, is noto­ri­ously dif­fi­cult for a new immi­grant. I was a Real­tor in San Fran­cisco and didn’t want to re-enter that field imme­di­ately after mov­ing to Toronto.

Find­ing other work has been a real chal­lenge. There is sub­tle dis­crim­i­na­tion against new immi­grants no mat­ter how much edu­ca­tion they have. All the U.S. to Canada immi­grants we know have had a tough time find­ing sat­is­fac­tory employ­ment. Clearly the econ­omy hasn’t helped, we know edu­cated Cana­di­ans with expe­ri­ence who have also had a lengthy unem­ploy­ment. I was out of work for over a year. The job I have will do for now though I con­tinue to pur­sue more a more sat­is­fy­ing position.

Where did you learn French/ Eng­lish? What was your sec­ond lan­guage level when you first came to Canada?

Being from the U.S., Eng­lish is my native lan­guage. I had taken French in Col­lege (Uni­ver­sity) and Eric and I took a French class before mov­ing to Canada. We”ll prob­a­bly con­tinue French study-we enjoyed it.

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

Good ques­tion. Canada and the U.S. are clearly both part of ‘North Amer­i­can’ cul­ture so we weren’t hit hard with cul­ture shock. Sim­ply put, Canada is not the U.S. despite the fact that it is so sim­i­lar. One gets used to the myr­iad of sub­tle differences.

What haven’t you got­ten used to yet in Canada?

There is a pas­sive aggres­sive qual­ity here that dri­ves me crazy…and I lived in Cal­i­for­nia where I used to say that they spoon fed pas­sive aggres­sive to their new­borns. I am a native New Yorker though so that might explain everything.

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

Eric and I were incred­i­bly well researched and pre­pared. I think our expec­ta­tions were com­pletely met. I might add that we are very pleased to live here.

Do you find life expen­sive in Canada com­pared to your home country?

Liv­ing in Toronto is not cheap. Cost of liv­ing in the U.S. can be dra­mat­i­cally dif­fer­ent depend­ing on where one lives. I lived in Boston and San Fran­cisco, two U.S. cities with insanely high cost of liv­ing — so Toronto is com­pa­ra­ble if not less expensive.

Are you plan­ning to apply for Cana­dian cit­i­zen­ship when you will meet the requirements?

As men­tioned, we moved to Canada on Tem­po­rary Work Per­mits. Our next step is to apply for PR sta­tus — prob­a­bly through the “Cana­dian Expe­ri­ence” cat­e­gory. We will have legally resided here for two years in August. Assum­ing that appli­ca­tion is approved-and I don’t expect any issues, I would prob­a­bly go ahead with Cit­i­zen­ship when the time comes. Both Canada and the U.S. allow dual citizenship.

What advice would you give to some­one inter­ested in immi­grat­ing to Canada?

Do your research. One can’t be too pre­pared. Even suc­cess­ful immi­grants will have chal­lenges here in Canada. Thor­ough research means proper and real­is­tic expec­ta­tions. Read offi­cial web­sites. Read immi­grant blogs like this one. Read both the words and “in between” the lines. Pre­pare your­self. If one is mov­ing with a part­ner, make sure that the both of you are of one mind. Mov­ing to a new coun­try may chal­lenge your rela­tion­ship in ways that you don’t expect.

Related arti­cles:

1. Mehmet Kaya: From Turkey To Toronto
2. Neeraj: From India to Toronto
3. Nel­son: From Venezuela to Toronto
4. Andres Berrio: From Colom­bia To Toronto
5. Down­town Toronto