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.

Gill

Today, I’d like you to meet my final inter­vie­wee: Gill, also known as That British Woman. Orig­i­nally from a small 2,000 peo­ple town in Cum­bria, Britain, her hus­band and she decided to move to Canada, look­ing for a bet­ter future for their chil­dren. In 1989, they set­tled in Bramp­ton, Ontario. The city of then 200,000 sur­prised them and she later declared the expe­ri­ence had been an eye-opened.

Their chil­dren grew up, went to uni­ver­sity and left home. By the fall of 2008, Gill and her hus­band decided to move back in the coun­try – but they did stay in Canada. They now live an hour from Bramp­ton, in a Farm­house on five acres of land. Gill knows the best of both worlds, as a city girl who also enjoy small farm­ing com­mu­ni­ties and she explains that liv­ing the coun­try dream again is like an adven­ture for her.

Gil enjoys talk­ing about life in Canada from a British point of view. She writes a weekly col­umn for the Orangeville Ban­ner about her adop­tive coun­try and tack­les top­ics such as British or Cana­dian, Char­ity Begins At Home and Lead Feet.

What brought you to Canada?

We lived in a small com­mu­nity where the main employer was British Gyp­sum, they made dry­wall. The mines were due to close by the time my hus­band turned around 40, and for him to get as good a job it meant we had to move from the area. Also we knew the career prospects for our chil­dren were going to be lim­ited where we lived, so we decided to emi­grate while the kids were lit­tle and while we were still young enough to do it.

Did you find the immi­gra­tion process dif­fi­cult?

YES!! We filled out the paper­work and sent it in and we were rejected. Despite the fact that my hus­band is a qual­i­fied trades­per­son and my dad lived here. So we decided to leave the kids with my mother for a week, we flew over, and my hus­band picked up the Toronto Sun and looked through the news­pa­per to see who was hir­ing elec­tri­cians and went door to door ask­ing for a job. A Dutch guy was will­ing to take him on and was will­ing to deal with Immi­gra­tion and wait another 6 months it took us to get approved to move over here.

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

I stayed at home with my chil­dren as they were young (3 1/2 & 5), how­ever I did work on and off in offices within a year of arriv­ing here. Please remem­ber this was 1989/1990 and jobs were a lot eas­ier to find.

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

Being British Eng­lish is my first lan­guage. How­ever, there is a dif­fer­ence between British Eng­lish and Cana­dian Eng­lish, so even for us it wasn’t plain sail­ing; and even to this day when I say cer­tain things, I may as well be speak­ing Chi­nese. The one word that most peo­ple, espe­cially Ital­ians have trou­ble under­stand­ing from me is the word, “but­ter.” I have no idea why, but I can’t say it the Cana­dian way which sounds more like “bud­der!” I don’t speak a word of French, although I may be able to fig­ure of what some­one is ask­ing if they write it down. Also on my son’s Kinder­garten record, he has a nota­tion that says he has a speech imped­i­ment. You know what that is.……his British accent. The silly teacher found him dif­fi­cult to under­stand so fig­ured he had a speech imped­i­ment, and as we were new to the coun­try I didn’t try and fight it, I did sug­gest though it could be his accent. No way would I allow that to hap­pen now!!

What was your biggest cul­ture shock?

Well we moved from a town of 2,500 to a city of 250,000, which has now grown to over 500,000 I would say that is a huge shock. Plus where we lived in Britain there was an Indian lady and the rest of the pop­u­la­tion was white. We move to Bramp­ton, Ontario and the major­ity of the pop­u­la­tion was from another coun­try, so that too took a bit of get­ting used to. Then there was the way every­one went over the top at hol­i­days, and I don’t mean just Christ­mas, but Easter, Valentine’s Day etc, etc. We weren’t used to that.

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

How every­one embraces the out­doors espe­cially Win­ter. Not a huge fan of trudg­ing through a foot of snow. Hate the humid­ity in Sum­mer, and hate mosquito’s, black flies and all other fly­ing bit­ing bugs, that still love me despite the fact they have bit­ten me for the past 20 years!!

Did immi­grat­ing to Canada match your expectations?

Gill does not wish to answer this ques­tion.

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

No, in Britain every­thing is twice the price, other than vaca­tions, they always seem to have great deals on vaca­tions over there.

Will you apply for Cana­dian citizenship?

We applied for our Cana­dian Cit­i­zen­ship as soon as we could as we knew this was where we going to live for the rest of our lives. We both wanted to have a say in how the coun­try is run, and you can’t do this with­out voting.

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

It’s hard, you leave your fam­ily behind nine times out of ten. Granted they are only a phone call or email away, but it’s not the same as being a short drive away. We were lucky as we are British so had an eas­ier time adapt­ing to the coun­try than a lot of peo­ple may have, as we speak the lan­guage. Things have changed a lot in the 20 years we have lived here, it’s a whole other ball game from when we moved over here. Be pre­pared to start from the bot­tom and work your way up the lad­der. Things aren’t handed on a plate to you, you have to work hard to achieve the suc­cess. Would I do it again.…..not at my age, we were in our 20’s when we arrived, and that is the right age in my opin­ion. If you have chil­dren in this coun­try, they have great oppor­tu­ni­ties if they work hard at school and keep out of trouble.

Related posts:

1. Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism (7÷10)
2. John Erick: from Venezuela to Montreal
3. Lucile And Mur­taza: From France and India to Montreal
4. Mehmet Kaya: From Turkey To Toronto
5. French And Eng­lish (3÷10)