Quote:
Originally posted by lafemmefatale
anywhere in quebec: quebec is really like the north american europe...incredible place, very very rich in arts and culture...and they get a lot of money from the gov...tons. the taxes are lower there too i believe...unfourtunately the province [not the ppl] treat other canadians like foreigners ie. out of prov. university students must pay a higher tuition...but other universities don't do that to quebecers...but nonetheless it's still very cool especially if you're into the french thing
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It's true, Quebec universities charge higher tuition fees to non-Quebec residents, for reasons I don't really understand, but our taxes are definitely not lower. Aside from the GST (Goods and Services Tax), we have the TVQ (Taxe de vente du Québec - our provincial sales tax). Income tax obviously varies according to your income, but expect 30-40% of your salary to disappear to pay for free health care (ironic, isn't it?), the provincial pension rate, unemployment insurance, etc.
We do get a lot of money from the federal government, but we are the largest province. Also, if you have no knowledge of French and aren't an extremely fast learner, move to Montreal (specifically, the west part of the island). Quebecers are generally friendly and accomodating, but if you end up in Lac-St-Jean and stick to English, well that would be like for me to move to Texas and speak only French. The novelty would wear off in about 2 seconds.
A few American friends of mine (from Boston) have moved to Toronto and love it there. The whole application process was fairly simple, but they already had colleagues there who helped them get settled and since they already had a job waiting for them, it was just a simple matter of securing appartments and getting their medicare cards. The whole thing took about 3 months. However, immigrating anywhere is really a case-by-case issue, so I can't give a definite timetable here.
As for jobs, well any large city like Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, etc. pretty much run the whole gamut of job types. I can't speak for other cities, but Montreal has a booming communications/multimedia sector and any skilled blue-collar worker can find a job relatively easily.
I wish you the best of luck in finding a new place to live!