About e-and immigration. This time - Montreal

My family and I moved to Montreal from Kiev in April of this year. Almost half a year has already passed. So far, it has not been possible to compare with other Canadian cities, but I will try to describe in more detail, and I hope that my experience will be useful to someone.

A bit of history.

We have lived in Kiev since 2006, for almost 5 years. They had, in general, not the worst “standard of living”, there was something to lose: friends, quite good, as it seemed, work, relatives (though not in Kiev, but still not across the ocean).
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My wife and I decided to go to Canada as soon as we got married, but all the time something was missing: either money, or points, or the profession ceased to fit into the list (I am a programmer). But it was necessary to do something, we did not intend to give up and abandon our goal. Somewhere in 2007, we accidentally met the guys who were going to go to Canada according to the program of the province of Quebec. They went to an interview at a firm that was engaged in the process of immigration to Quebec. There we were counted points, said that we go through, that they will take on our process. But it cost about 4 thousand euros, which we did not have any extras. Therefore, we decided to do everything on our own. And they started by learning French.

Languages)

With English, it so happened, we both had no problems. But French was taught with different teachers, with variable intensity, sometimes without any intensity at all. In the end, we submitted the documents in the fall of 2009, when we were sure that we were passing by points (by that time the necessary amount of experience had accumulated “in white”) that we would have enough money for the first time at the time of entry. so that by the time of the interview we will have enough French to give us the necessary selection certificates. After the submission of documents, we intensified preparations for the interview, we began to devote more time to the language. In fact, French is the thing that most repels the process of immigration to Quebec. The language is not the easiest (English is much simpler), and it takes a lot of efforts to really master it at a decent level. But the trick is that an interview with an immigration officer is, in fact, quite limited French, especially if it’s with a margin. I know examples when people were preparing for several months and successfully passed interviews with a priority specialty, good education and French, leaving much to be desired.

Forum

More information on the process and individual nuances can be read and consulted on, for example, this forum . The first advice you can get there is not to get involved (if several thousand are not superfluous for you) with consultants who do a very simple job of filling out your forms, taking away a lot of money from you, without guaranteeing anything, and often making mistakes and causing additional problems.

Our process

I don’t know how your process will develop, dear habrachelovek, if you decide to immigrate through the Quebec program. But I can describe how approximately ours happened. Having sent the documents on November 20, 2009 to the consulate of Vienna, we waited for the so-called “Accuse”, in other words, confirmation that our case was accepted for consideration. After 3 weeks they removed money from the Visa card for consideration and sent this very Accuse on December 29, 2009. On April 3, 2010, an invitation came for an interview, which we passed on June 9, 2010. I must say that the immigration process in the province of Quebec has 2 stages: provincial and federal. The provincial begins with the submission of documents to the consulate with the department of the Government of Quebec, which belongs to your country of residence (with regards to Ukraine, and, it seems, Russia is a consulate in Vienna), this stage usually ends in an interview with the receipt of a selection certificate, which is the basis for providing federal government canadian visa. The federal stage - begins with the submission of documents to the Embassy of Canada in your country and ends with the receipt of visas. We filed a document for the federal stage on July 5, 2010, on October 14, 2010, honey passed. inspection, and on January 24, 2011 received long-awaited visas. In total, our process took 430 days, which is quite good. They say now - the time in Ukraine has increased slightly. With regards to money, we did not keep accurate records, but approximately, without taking into account the costs of learning French (this is difficult to calculate, we learned too unevenly), the process and tickets took about $ 7,000. In addition, we took 15,000 dollars with us for the first time.

Moving

When visas are received, tickets are purchased, it remains to say goodbye to relatives and friends who had time to fall in love with Kiev and try to pack their lives in 6 trunks, 3 hand luggage suitcases, laptop bag, camera bag and not forget the cat. Tickets were purchased through the international migration organization, which allowed saving a little and taking not one bag per bag, but two per person. About the move is not worth much to say. I can only say that moving to another country with all the belongings is an incredibly difficult thing, and when we arrived at the place, we were weary with fatigue.

Job

I, oddly enough, was not going to look for work. A couple of months went by in attempts to continue the work that I did in Kiev, already from home as a contract. But it soon became clear that the work turned out to be less than previously assumed, which was particularly unpleasant, given that the payment was hourly. In spite of the fact that the rate was not bad, due to the low load, money continued to melt catastrophically quickly. And it was necessary to quickly look for something else. A recruiter who contacted me back in Kiev helped. As soon as I arrived in Montreal - we talked to him live, made contact, so to speak :) And when I asked to find me a job - after specifying my preferences for technology and salary, I scheduled 2 interviews the next day. Both, I must say, I successfully passed, and since the end of June I have been working in a local company as a modest senior programmer with a good salary, as for a start. Finding a job from a call to a recruiter asking me to find a job took me exactly 6 days before signing the proposal. All communication took place exclusively in English, although mostly people here have a native language - French. But in the field of IT, English is a standard, although, they say, knowledge of French significantly expands the circle of potential employers in Montreal. The initial refusal to find a job was in my case an obvious mistake, which cost us almost all of our savings. And the work found was actually very helpful.

Taxes

They are tall here. They say that higher than here to find a place in Canada is difficult. But, on the other hand, if you take it from a low start: for example, getting an education, earning not very much in the beginning, it helps a lot. Because here is leveling. They take it away from the rich, give it to the richer :) (for example, those who build roads, by the way, lousy, somewhere in Kiev) and, importantly, it falls to the poor quite a lot. There is still a lot of medicine going on, but this is a separate song. In short, if something serious happens, they will try to cure, probably quickly and for free. But if you have a cold, you can’t wait for a doctor.

Arrangement in a new place

We rented a house for the first time in the very center. In Montreal, there is a place like the Latin Quarter. A lot of students, parties, cafes, night clubs, theaters, cinema ... in short, life is in full swing. And we took pictures there simply because we could not find anything else at a similar, though very rather big, price. And all because with a cat it is not clear to whom from it is not clear what country no one wanted to temporarily hand over anything. Especially with the cat. Without a cat, a few hundred would probably save :) The attitude to animals here is twofold. On the one hand, they are all loved, on the other - with them it is more difficult to rent a house.

In general, we lived in such a wonderful (in fact, I would not refuse to spend there student years) place from April 12 to May 1. On May-June, they found another temporary apartment, and from July 1, at the same time, in April, they agreed on a permanent one. If in the center we lived three together in the studio, paid $ 350 per week of stay, then May-June lived in a 2-bedroom apartment (which, by the way, has been handed over to other people since July, everything is done here in advance) and paid 950 dollars per month. The house had a sauna and a swimming pool, the house itself was tall and rather ordinary-looking. And since July, they moved to permanent housing, a little more, also with 2 bedrooms, with a fee of $ 1,150 a month, water and heating included in the price. This is the price of an apartment in a good area, in a relatively quiet place, in a concrete house. The apartment is about 1000 sq. M. ft (90-100 sq. m.). I liked the large square balcony, the large living room, the kitchen - cupboards, refrigerator, stove and dishwasher. I also like it here very much that in each bedroom there is a large built-in wardrobe. Very convenient, no need to buy extra furniture. But the most important reason for choosing this district and this apartment was a good primary school in the vicinity of reviews. Furniture almost all had to buy. Good help Ikea. Although the furniture is not the highest class, it is quite functional, especially if the money is not very much.

Products

Many products are very different from those that can be found in Kiev supermarkets. In general, we can say that they are more expensive. But on average, I prefer the quality. If you aim to buy only natural - it is quite possible to implement. To taste the local eggs from the store I like much more than eggs from the store in Kiev. If desired, the market can buy local products. Perhaps a little more expensive, but in terms of quality, everything is simply excellent. For money, probably, it costs around $ 1000 a month for a family, and at the same time I cannot say that we are denying ourselves something.

Languages

Montreal is a bilingual city. But Quebec is a province where one official language is French. Canada is a country where two official languages ​​are French and English. In the second half of the 20th century there was a very strong surge of nationalism in Quebec, which almost led to the separation of the province from Canada. Now the passions are a little settled, and apparently, the majority of the population has already changed their minds to secede.

I can say that almost everyone here knows English, almost everyone knows French. But many people prefer to speak in one language, which often depends on the region. Knowing one of the languages ​​- you can live here quite well, but without knowing both a huge part of the labor market (especially the part where you need to communicate with customers) will not be available. And if you want to live and never hear French, Quebec is clearly not for you. There are plenty of opportunities to learn both languages, the main thing is time and desire. A lot of state-sponsored courses, available university programs for which you can get a loan and still pay a scholarship ... In addition, the fact of immersion in the language environment is important, which happens if you find a local job.

To summarize, I can say that we like it here :) We did not receive a higher standard of living, as a percentage, probably, expenses and incomes have not changed globally. But we got more peace of mind, a sense of security and something that can be considered a quality of life: better products, water that can be drunk from a tap, an area where you can never meet a homeless person and an understanding of the fact that in those areas where the homeless there is - they are only because they themselves decided to choose such a life.

I also want to note one thing. Visiting local restaurants and looking at the drivers in these expensive cars, I am amazed at the number of pensioners. A granddaddy for 80, creeping out of an expensive restaurant and sitting down in her sports piston - such a sight in Kiev is almost impossible to meet.

If you have questions - I will be glad to answer.