Moving to Calgary

[MerklandRed]

Hi I'm a new user to this forum and I am here looking for some much needed information.

I am thinking about moving my family over to Calgary. I can get in on a skilled worker type visa and I know there is work in Calgary as a few ex colleagues are currently working there and the company is still recruiting.

Any help or information anyone can provide me would be greatly appreciated.

My family will include myself, my wife and our 2 year old son. We are also planning on bringing my wifes parents with us. I believe they can get the super visa and basically come for 2 years at a time. Has anyone had any of experience of this with parents or grandparents?

Also regarding my son, what age would he start Pre-school Nursery in Canada? Also how much does child care cost if we were to put him into a crèche/nursery before then if my wife had to go to work?

I have a good idea of what my salary would be but at this time I don’t quite understand how much I would pay in taxes etc. so could anyone help me to work out what my take home pay would be?

We would be renting a place for us all so i gather that the property tax is included in that cost. What would be average household costs i.e. Heating, Water, Food etc etc? How does living costs in Calgary in particular compare to costs in Britain?

What is the situation with Healthcare? Would we need to take out Insurance? I know that my wifes parents need insurance as part of the super visa and we have a cost for this. Just wondering if there is anything else in this category I must take into account?

What other things are the major things I would have to consider?

Thanks in advance for all your help and guidance.

[rhornal]

OK,

So you get accepted on a skilled workers visa, When you get to Alberta, they'll let you and your family go onto the provincial health care system. Here's a link to the Alberta health info.

Average tax rate is 20% in Canada, although that's only on the first $45k, after that it'll become 30%, so if you're making good money, you'll keep 75%. I can't really say what costs are like out there. Kids go to school at 5, there's daycare places around for all ages, but you pay for them. Perhaps as much as $600-800/month. Housing might cost $1000-2000 depending if your parents were with you. Soon, you'd outgrow the low end of that. Calgary should be slightly less expensive overall than Britain.

In terms of the super visa, I believe that it is only permanent residents, and Canadian citizens that can sponsor their parents and grandparents for the new super visa. So you might be out of luck with that, unless there are other relatives in the mix. If you are looking into super visa insurance requirements, details and options, you'll need a good resource like you can find at BestQuote Travel Insurance's main super visa page.


You'll find links to other super visa insurance info from that page, as well as to the government websites.

Hope this helps. There must be a wealth of info here on this forum smorgasbord to help you look more closely at costs and relocating issues. Good luck.