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Wow, Canada has lit up the emigration thread and its good to read some objective real experiences that add actual value rather than sensationalized rants that are grossly generalized.

A few weeks backs I saw the below infographic from The Australian about skilled migration in Australia. I was intrigued to see the below,

• Canada ranked high across multiple age groups in, "Relative attractiveness for potential migration demographics".
• Share of skilled migrants
  • In 1990, India ranked 10!
  • A small country like Israel ranked 10 in 2010 and 2020!
  • Australia's share has consistently reduced from 1990.

I tried to find the source data or similar metrics but I couldn't find any. Would experienced members know if India really had a rise in migration in 1990? If yes, was it because of the liberalization era?

I agree and point taken. As someone who has transitioned from a brash young man to a boring parent, as much as I can see "attitude and disrespect" in the tones of young people, I also see the passive-aggressive condescending and patronising tones in others. Nothing personal against anyone, I sincerely mean it. It's more like I am going through a learning phase to be good at communicating with my own kids and I see things differently.

I agree totally except that we are comparing his hometown (where things are taken care of) with a new big city where there is no support. He expected and prepared himself for some struggle but he is overwhelmed.

Do I have message or word of advice for Imran? No. I just posted here to thank him and express my support for sharing his personal experiences. If I have understood him right, he has not come here to seek help (though help or advice is welcome I guess) but to share his experiences for other to read and make their own conclusions.

If you are from GCC where permanent residency is not possible (I am guessing), you need to find a new home. Given the excellent standard of living offered by GCC (ignoring other aspects), it's going be a real challenge for him to find it and I hope succeeds and has what it takes to do so. Maybe he is not eloquent and went on a rant mode (why do we even have internet forums, if we can't rant!) but his post will be counted as one of the most useful posts on this thread in recent times.

Ok, so here is the issue. If your parents can support you in India or Gulf (hometown) they can very well support you in Canada too. But if one does not want to take help, there are some very good schemes for newcomers. Just that you cannot dream multi-million dollar homes without a support or a very high salary.

Here are some-

https://wowa.ca/newcomers-mortgage

Also

Budget 2023 announced the official launch of the new Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA).

The plan gives prospective first-time home buyers the ability to save up to $40,000 on a tax-free basis. The annual maximum contribution to the account is $8,000 per year. Contributions to the plan will be tax-deductible and withdrawals to purchase a first home will be non-taxable, similar to a Tax-Free Savings Account.

https://www.cicnews.com/2023/04/buyi...html#gs.wx80f6



Ok, but something that's not correct needs to be questioned - right? Just because something does not match my expectations, I crib about everything from Catalytic converters to Homeless to how expensive are homes and how you die unattended at hospitals?


Ok, you mean he would have loved to live in Canada had housing was cheaper and there were not crimes like he mentioned or treatment was easier like Gulf, sorry, I won't have an answer as I have no experience with Gulf.


Good, but I don't agree with most of the things he or the guy in that video has mentioned, from my own experiences. I thought it appropriate to reply here, readers can draw their own conclusions based on their own understanding as you have.

How much can we really trust these metrics? According to some respected international metrics, we should all be migrating to Afganistan.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/video/mone...ex/vi-AA1aSqhf

Wow!

What an engrossing read these last few pages have been. Sitting here in Toronto at 2 AM in the night, it surely has been interesting.

What I have observed though, on the thread, is that it is actually a reflection of the mindset of a lot of people who have been immigrating to Canada, specially in the last 2-3 years. They can be broadly classified as:

Students: The segment which has, in my personal opinion, the toughest life here in Canada. Moving from India, enjoying home comforts to struggle towards getting that haloed PR, it is a tough journey. I applaud the people taking that journey, I personally may not have been able to. Their outlook on the country is majorly inclined towards hope.

Professionals: This segment further has people who do end up getting their foot in the Canadian job market in their field of expertise, in a timely manner, and those who have to struggle for a while to get the job that they desire.
The despair and frustration from this segment, is understandable, considering a lot of them are working towards major life goals (buying a house, starting a family, buying a car - which is not that tough here anyway).

I think those who arrive here accepting the fact that it takes a certain amount of struggle and effort (and courage) to completely uproot their life in their home country and essentially establish themselves from scratch, are generally at peace with their decision. Sure there are short term economic factors at play here that do place a stress on daily living, but everyone understands that it is temporary.

I personally feel that the outlook and thought process of the students, understanding and appreciating the struggle and effort that lies ahead to establish themselves in the country, is more evolved and is something that is wonderful to see.

Any individual moving to a new country with a sense of entitlement and not accepting of the tough road ahead, ends up with frustration, which ultimately transcends to regret.

So my opinion (advice) is, and I would not rank any countries basis immigration suitability, wherever one decides to move (if they do so) - Buckle up, because it is going to be a bumpy ride. (But do enjoy the ride, else the entire process of moving to a new place is futile)

I read a lot about housing being expensive in Canada. However, Australia is even more expensive housing-wise.

Housing affordability is generally defined as how many years of median income buys a median house. One of the worst in this measure among the developed countries is Australia, which is where I've been living for over 15 years now.

Taking the example of Sydney, which is the most expensive city in Australia,

Median house price: AU$1.23 million
Median household income: AU$108k per year as per FY21 census
ie about 12 years

(median house = independent 4 bedroom house, not apartment, within city limits)
(median income based on jobs of all types, not just professional jobs)

Canadian cities seem more affordable than this (http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf).

Anecdotally friends/ex-colleagues in Bangalore say this would be even worse there. I couldn't find any official figures for cities in India. For the purpose of comparison, does anyone know what the similar figures are for say Bangalore/Mumbai/Gurgaon/Hyderabad?

@hdus, median figures can be very different from the on ground reality. I think someone making 108k in Sydney pre taxes will struggle to save enough for the down payment on a house, considering the high cost of living. So the figure of 12 years may not be meaningful.

On the other hand, in major indian cities, a white collar professional who has the equivalent skills of his western counterpart who makes 100k dollars/year should make, at a conservative estimate, at least 20 lakhs/annum, that too during the initial phase of his career. So he has a better shot of paying for an apartment which costs in the 1-1.5 cr range, given that rentals and general cost of living is still lower in India. I know you talked about a house and I am talking about an apartment, since it is the latter which most aspiring home owners have in their crosshairs in Indian metros. I don't know if there is a median price available for urban dwellings in India and I am no expert, but one should get a decent apartment set available in the price range I quoted. Also I would keep mumbai out of this as the cost of real estate there is at par with other major cities internationally.

Rentals are so high in the cities of the West that beg borrow or steal, buying housing is the only viable option.

As mentioned in my post, this is the median household income across ALL jobs from part-time supermarket ground staff to hospitality staff to specialized doctors, not just highly paid professional IT/Medical jobs (for whom the income would be typically a few multiples of this number).

I guess the purpose of using medians is to make comparisons more apples to apples.

ps: the $108k figure is the household income, not the individual salary. The median individual salary is around $75k I think.

Why exclude it? Especially when comparing against other financial capital cities? The house prices outside main cities are significantly lower in other countries too.

To be honest, I don't know and hence, I asked the question. :)

I don't know about the press freedom ranking issue but just asking, does the press have the freedom to ask a question to the Prime Minister of India face-to-face and hope to get an answer? I'm referring to non-manufactured interviews.

If people say, what does a PM answering questions have anything to do with press freedom then, I guess we have fundamental differences in our understanding of the role of press in a mature democracy.

A bloke interrupted the press briefing of the then Prime Minister of Australia to say, "Get off my lawn."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t17O2AKa2FU

I'm surely not expecting that level of freedom of speech in India but may be, just may be think a bit before ridiculing Afghanistan/Taliban with respect to press freedom.

Sorry for going off-topic and I don't want to derail the discussion on emigration. :thumbs up

Love that video :). It's fantastic that the PM took no offense, with an "all good" and no one made a big deal about the whole incident. Imagine someone at a Yogi or Modi or even Pinarayi meeting saying something like this :)

Here is another one, this time someone (IMO rightly) calling him an idiot to his face and people refusing to shake hands: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az4lkKjAsdI

I have some visibility here, studied in the UK, worked in India for global firms, currently in Toronto.

GCC is not the fairyland people think it is. A colleague who moved here from the UAE member firm says she's making more here even post tax (low tax is an advantage of UAE). Another friend who worked in Bahrain said it's the worst work culture he's seen. Top MBA working for a big firm, in the UK now.

ASEAN is a hit or miss. Cousin works in SG and he's making bank but it's expensive. It's also getting more and more closed out, not so welcoming anymore. Philippines is seeing massive migration itself. Indonesia and Thailand - you'd be better off in India probably.

My brother and other cousins work in the US, they're happy, I'd rank this top.

UK beats Canada in weather but cost of living is getting high there too. A lot of Indian students moving there.

For Canada, it is expensive but many Indians in Tech / Finance look forward to moving to the US once they get their passport. Real estate / rental proces are the biggest challenge here. You could move to other provinces but ON and BC see the bulk of new people which pushes up the price of everything. A lot of Indians have done well here, especially in the Real estate space. I would say Indian and Chinese land lords are very common in Toronto and Vancouver.

My list would be:
US
UK/ Canada
DXB or SG if you have no interest in getting the passport
India if you're making bank. I'd probably still send kids abroad for studies so I'm just skipping a generation at this stage. Everyone who can afford it is doing it. 80% of IB/IGCSE students end up going abroad, if my cousins 2012 batch and his seniors / juniors are a good estimate.

Moderators, the P factor is creeping in. Not started by me but allow me to respond. Sorry but totally off topic. I'm using @kiku007's & @hdus001's posts as a reference point only. My response is in general and not directed at to @kiku007 or to @hdus001 in particular

Warning: Long & strong post follows.
All,

The answer is the current PM, as much as the one before him, does not feel comfortable giving impromptu interviews or unprepared ones. That's it. Vajpayee, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi were good at it but PVNR wasn't. What does that have to do with freedom of press. I am no lover of the current dispensation, but I'd rather have a stable Govt with the guts to consistently implement fundamental policy changes hanging fire for 25 years than measure a PM on his elocution skills.
I agree we have a fundamental difference as you clearly believe that Afghanistan enjoys freedom of press per se. We are so far out on this that a dialogue might be futile. Freedom of the press in India has taken a hit in these 9 years without a doubt but to place us behind Afghanistan and Pakistan reflects a pre-determined political bias that was established before the alleged survey was conducted. And NRIs probably get a full dose of the negative barrage from the free press of CNN, BBC, Washington Post, NY Times etc. so it is no surprise they think everything in India is going to the dogs.

The English Western media would do itself a favour to objectively review the bias amongst their own star news feeds like the ones listed above. The wars perpetrated by the West {USA and NATO}; the overthrow of a democratically elected President Yanokovich in 2014 to bring in their chosen man in Kiev*; the humbug of cornering the covid19 vaccine supply for themselves in 2020-2021^; time expired covid19 vaccines being 'donated' by the West to Africa#; the playing along with Bush Junior and Tony Blair over the lies of WMD in Iraq and so much more - these are reported or not reported with a bias so perfectly aligned with US Govt's voice box that you really wonder if they have a free press. I could list 20 more things but would risk getting banned by GTO.

USA tacitly funds and supports outfits that do surveys so as to use it as one more of their many levers against nations who don't fall in line obediently. A survey conducted through just one lens, in this case Western, covering a diverse world of 180+ countries and 8 billion people and then purporting itself to be fair sounds like a joke. If you want a truly unbiased coverage put together a multi-lateral team with neutral observers, publish the methodology for others to review and pull together a jury panel representing the different population pockets of the globe. Then we could say with some degree of confidence that an attempt has been made to do a fair job. As EAM Dr. Jaishankar said these are mind games played by the Western powers and clearly they have many believers right here.

That is their culture. Good for them. Worth admiring but not imitating. It isn't our culture. Here, whether good or bad, deference to figures of authority is a part and parcel of our upbringing.% And it is not going to change in a hurry, and why should it. I simply don't buy the contention that simply because a certain behaviour is lauded in the West it is a universally right thing to do. Different lands, different cultures different norms. Disrespecting your elders, breaking up your marriages, {and in USA} killing school children every week are also traits of that very same culture! So how many on Team BHP, in India, who worship Westen norms blindly, seat their maid servants at the dining table every evening to eat dinner together - let's answer to ourselves honestly and avoid sanctimonious claims.

I could write a tome on the lies of the so called free western press that might shatter the illusions of some :-) . Just one tiny example for those whose news feeds are limited to Western Anglo-Saxon press. Last week Portugal, tiny Portugal, was threatened by USA, directly by the American ambassador in Lisbon that if they, i.e. Portugal, expanded their trade and FDI ties with China then USA will have to take drastic action against Portugal. This is how USA treats its NATO allies. USA also hinted that they may forcefully take over the strategically placed Azores Islands. Not one English language news feed - digital or print reported this, not one. Portugal, good for them told the US Ambassador to get lost and that they will do what is good for Portugal's economy. Period. The so called free press did not report such a demeaning military threat-cum-insult hurled at a NATO ally. If India had issued a similar threat to Maldives or China to Okinawa the Western press would not stop bleating about it. To learn this you need to read the Portuguese press in Portugal and Brazil. I learnt of it from my US University's WA group which has one alumni from Lisbon** and quite a few from Brazil. The American alumni, of whom there are several refused to accept this because it wasn't on CNN! Readers can draw their own conclusions.

Freedom of press is determined as much by what you write as by what you chose to stay silent over.

Yes, let's get back to the main theme.

^Canada, amongst other First World countries bought out 9X their population worth of covid19 vaccines thus creating artificial shortages for African and Asian nations. The very same Canada being discussed above where the Govt poses as a paragon of virtue
# My S-i-L works for the WHO and was posted in east Africa covering Kenya, Somalia, Uganda for the covid19 vaccination programme. He told me on a video call in 2021 that container fulls being donated by Scandinavian countries are time expired and his white superiors refuse to believe it. And these holy cows are sitting in judgement over us.
*He wanted to be neutral between USA and Russia; exactly what the Americans did not want.
**This alumni from Lisbon helped evacuate our classmate from Ukraine and get him a job in his own company in Portugal.
% that citizen yelling, 'get off my lawn' seems like seeking publicity for himself at the expense of the PM more than anything else. Yes this cannot happen in India. Culture and fear would both come in the way. That does not mean insulting your PM is a great thing to be put on a pedestal

No, that is exactly freedom of press I believe. They determine what they write about. Unfortunately, these days there are not an awful lot of news outlets that don’t have a certain bias. The other thing is simply a matter of choosing what to report. We live in a global society. It is simply impossible to report on everything, so every news outlet has to decide what it is going to report, and subsequently what not.

I believe in order to stay well informed you need to sign up to multiple news outlets with preferably different political orientation. And of course different cultural orientation. And if you happen to master different languages, make sure to subscribe some other language media too!

In the west you can chose to read about any topic under the sun, on multiple different formats too. Whether you do so, or choose to stay with only Fox, CNN, or BBC is a personal choice.

There is so much news and different flavour of news out there, that it is one’s personal interest how to deal with it. There are no news outlets that deal with everything unbiased. Never have been, never will. Freedom of press, means we have all these different news outlets. How to make sense of them is up to each individual.

Plenty of western media that took exception to George and Tony. I think we should be cautious by calling English media, western media. Most very large media conglomerates are Englis based, so they do wield a big stick. But in most countries, local news outlets in local language determine what the news is. And it often represents a very different perspective from the standard “English/Western orientation.

English media, is not the sole proprietor of the free press by a very long shot!

Jeroen

In countries where the media is more-or-less free, it is free to be biased. It may not sing the song of official watchers, but it sings the song of its proprietors. That can be very biased, and wield great power.

I believe the recent increase in Canada as work/settle destination is also driven by
1. More (India based) companies are opening centers in Canada as an option to retain talent, especially during the great resignation era of 2021/22. It allows to tap into the untapped talent pool of people slogging out in survival jobs by hiring them
2. Canada has become the route to eventually get into US. Slog it out for 4 years, apply for citizenship and you get eligible for TN1 visa to work in the US.