Starting a family in Vancouver

Karen Harrison’s love for skiing meant that Canada would always be a favourite destination, should she ever decide to leave the UK. When her husband and her first started discussing plans of moving abroad, she was thrilled to find out he favoured the same destination.

“We talked about it for a while, maybe a year or two, before actually sitting down and started planning it.

Karen and her husband Damon started by attending the Opportunities Canada Expo where they gathered “precious information” about what visas to choose and the different regions in Canada. “We were trying to decide between Toronto and Vancouver and we eventually settled for Vancouver. I applied for a position and, even though I didn’t have a job when we moved, I had a few interviews line-up and was optimistic about it,” recalls Karen.

The optimism paid off: Karen found work as a nurse within two months of their arrival, nearly two years ago. Her husband Damon moved has also found a job in his area of expertise, as an IT engineer.

“I don’t work crazy hours like I used to back in the UK and we get to spend a lot more time together,” comments Karen. “It’s a shame we are far from the rest of our family but we do keep in touch a lot. I even got my parents into Skype!”

The process of applying for a visa had its bureaucratic moments but, according to Karen, it was “nothing that couldn’t be sorted, with a little bit of patience”.

“We had left the expo with a fair idea of what needed to be done and it was just a matter of getting ourselves organised and defining timeframes for each task.” Karen’s advice for people thinking about making the move to Canada is simply to “understand that it takes its time and there are a lot of things to organise, but remember that it’s totally worth it”.

The couple is now awaiting the arrival of their first child and couldn’t be happier about starting their family in Canada.