Hello my fellow Canadians! My fiance and I are planning to live in the US for several years, mostly due to his career, but our long term goal is to come back to Canada down the road. Are any of you also thinking of doing this?

Argh, after this seemingly neverending K-1 visa process, I need to deal with immigration again like I need a hole in the head! Oh well, at least the next time around we'll be together while we wait!

I'm just curious about my fellow Can-Am couples and what your stories are. I wonder if there's a Visajourney type website for Canadian Immigration?

I would like to but I don't think so... hubby said that maybe one day we could buy a vacation home up in Canada but I don't think he wants to move there....

Bee and I have discussed it, but since it's so far down the road we're putting it off for now. Would be nice to have a vacation home up there

yes, as soon as possible. which means as soon as I finish school and find a tenure track position at a Canadian Uni. I'm really hoping that we'll be moving back in 5 years or less. it's funny, my husband (the Canadian) is in much less of a hurry to move back than I am

We have already done my Husband's immigration stuff, and once that is done it's done - that's another benefit of the Canadian system - once your Husband/Wife is a permanent resident they remain one as long as they are living with the Canadian spouse - even if that is in another country.

We have actually applied for his Canadian citizenship - that was before I read about the above, however it apparently takes about a year to get to the ceremony and whether he will bother or not, well we will see at the time - probably not, long trip for a ceremony!

I don't know if we will move back to Canada or not, who can say! Once we get firmly planted down in Florida it will seem far far away haha!

Delicia, who posts here, just went through most of the Canadian immigration process (she cancelled it) but she gave a link to a U.S. to Canada website, just can't remember what it is but hopefully she will read this and post it again.

Good luck with your visa application, may it be speedy!

Hell no, well not me anyways. If anything I'd rather live somewhere else if it's not the US (like Europe or something). Wife (the full blooded American) mentioned she wouldn't have any problem doing it though and even suggested it. She has been a few times and can't understand my agnst of ever wanting to live there again. Visits once every few years is good enough for me...

Hard to say! Wife does like Canada, but there are other places in the world to see as well! Were hoping to move to South America for a few yrs soon after I finish School. Her family has a "summer" home in New Port RI, which would be a super place to "retire" to!!

My husband (the USC) would like to retire in Canada. I think we'll just see what happens when the time comes. All the hurdles of my immigrating to the US are still too fresh in my mind to consider doing it in reverse.

Sara has never been to Canada, although she lived in Wisconsin for a year or so and hated it. So I can only assume she would hate my home area.

I would like to go back but I doubt even I could live there. The weather the people the environment... it just isn't me anymore. We have talked about the UK, but who knows.

We've talked about it. C. wants to retire to Canada as he'll be inheriting land there, and I wouldn't mind moving there sooner. But we've agreed to follow my career for a bit, and NOTHING happens until he gets citizenship because I am not putting up with US immigration more than necessary.

Seeing as I'm not a US resident yet, we haven't even talked about moving back to Canada. We may discuss living here in the spring and maybe the fall. I know we won't live here in the winter as it gets to temps sometimes of -40 to -50....brrrrrrrrr

Nope, I have 2 visits to Canada left in me: one for the Montreal interview and the other to make the drive to the U.S. after my hubby is approved. Other than that, I don't even want to be in Canadian airspace flying over on my way to Iceland or somewhere else. I have a real bad taste in my mouth for Canada. *apologizes for the bluntness to the Canadians*

Who can blame you?

We've talked about it.. but for right now and until Hubby's children are grown, the US will be our home. Hard to imagine retirement.. that's still about 30 years away for us

I get the 'I don't like Canadian Immigration' stuff, I don't really get the I don't like Canada or Canadians part (if that is what you are saying?).

If people held immigration against a whole country, there would be a lot of hate (mis)directed at Americans

When I retire and the kid (maybe kids) are out of the house, I hope to spend the summers at the lake in Canada and the winters somewhere down south in the US. Maybe we will official move to Canada to avoid being old timers with a huge US health insurance premiums. But then again who knows what state of affairs the Canadian healthcare system will be in or if there will even be such a thing by then.

I am planning to become a dual citizen, and then we will be seriously looking at moving back to Canada. Our ultimate plan is to set things up in such a way that we could move back and forth between countries when/if needed.

Nope. Not to Canada, but I wouldn't be surprised if we decided to make the move to sunny Mexico soon enough.

i just want to be closer to my family.... I miss them

Im the USC at some point in the future I'd like to get my Canadian Citizenship, from my trip up to get Nancy I really liked it up there near Toronto. Nancy says we should live in Vancouver. What is Vancouver like? Where do you all suggest?

Humbly,
Ramos

I love Vancouver - it's beautiful, clean, lots of opportunity for outdoor sports like skiing and hiking, but the cost of living there right now is ridiculously expensive. If housing prices hadn't been so frightfully high, Bee and I might have stayed there.

We've been talking about Paris recently as well. I've never been, but he really loved the city. Maybe it's just the romantic part in us both

Nick and I have also discussed this and it is the plan.
He thinks I'll be very unhappy in the U.S., sometimes the thought kind of scares me but I think we'll be ok. He loves Canada as well.

Right now I want to go to school and he has a really good job so, it just makes more sense for me to go down there now.

The plan is we'll go for dual citizenship for me, then we will eventually move back to Canada. We say that now but who knows where we will be in 5 years. I could be working at a fantastic job, we could have a home we absolutely adore....the future is unknown. We both really want to move back though.

Hmm, I don't know your story, but I'm reading between the lines here that the immigration process to Canada is just as big a pain in the butt as immigration to the US? *sigh*

My fiance was living in Canada when we met, he was here on a work visa and liked it so much he had even gone so far as to get the immigration paperwork (although he hadn't filled it out yet...) But, then the 'dream job offer' came along and off he went...and so this whole rollercoaster started!

I am wondering how I am going to adjust to life in the US. Oh well, I'm moving to Michigan, so if I miss my people it's only a 3 hour drive to Canada!

I don't think I would ever move back. I really love NYC, where we plan to live and its only a short flight away if I ever wanted to go back home.

I say this now when we haven't even applied yet...

Depends. Ours was no big deal. All the paperwork gets sent at the same time (how novel!), your spouse gets to live with you while you are waiting etc etc.

It's not smooth for everyone but in general it's a fairly straight forward process.

I just don't like the government, CIC, CRA, the politicians, anything that I have had contact with has been an exercise in futility for me. I haven't had any really poor experiences with Canadians and oddly enough, I met only 3 that I can think of that were born-Canadians. Everyone else was an immigrant.

As a PR of Canada, I really didnt know that... I ASSumed I would lose my PR once we move to the US... So glad I read this and started researching it!

I also have to say that my Canadian Immigration experience was very easy and took exactly 8 months from start to finish..I applied as a spouse within back in 2002

I'd like to say yes, but it's not written in stone. I'd love to return there soon after Gene retires, however we'll have to see how it goes. If we don't move back to Canada, we will however be moving "north". We're thinking Wisconsin, Minnesota, maybe Michigan. But that's about 8 years away, and by then I might not want that snow!

Carla

We have talked about it, I can see us doing it down the road.

But who knows, I try not to plan these kinds of things, we're just getting started with our new life down here, to think of packing up and moving again is hard.

We would love to move back to Canada but I doubt that will happen any time soon. We are here for his job; my line of work is much more flexible!



Hmm, 'north' sounds like a good idea - we'd be a lot closer to my family - practically just the border away!

Hmm good point!

Your little one is so adorable!



I've never been to Vancouver except in the airport but I know it is absolutely beautiful. Friends of mine who have been there or lived there, loved it. Except the crime rate is apparently higher than say Ottawa and it rains a lot. But it's definitely a lot warmer than eastern Canada from what I understand!

Perhaps someday we will go to PEI for summer holidays however the winters will not be missed. I called my kids yesterday who said they were in the middle of a snow storm (New Brunswick) and the snow was already up to my 12 yr old daughters waist. Not much snow is Tennessee.......

I know from my personal experience (I am the US citizen) immigrating to Canada was very very easy. Granted, my husband remained in Canada and I returned to the US while we filed my packet. The longest part for us was gathering the important documents(all in all my fingerprints from the FBI took the longest to get). From the date that my husband sent in the first packet to the day I arrived in Canada as a permanent resident took a little under 3 months. To me, that was not to horrible, considering I was still able to come to Canada and visit my husband while my immigration packet was being processed. I would have to say the big difference in immigration processes would be:

1)Canada liked to see proof of our relationship (pictures, emails, phone bills, travel proof -- border stamps, airline ticket stubs, joint lease, cards to one/or both of us,etc) where US wanted just the basic forms (wedding certficate). Now I am not sure if that kind of proof is needed for K-1 because we filed IR-1.

2)While packet is pending, Canada let me enter with no hassles, whereas my husband could not enter while the immigration packet was in process.

3)For Canada immigration, we never had to have a single interview of any sort, for the US, we had 2 interviews.

4)My Canadian immigration packet weighed a fair amount ( i had 2 accordion folders filled with paperwork), US immigration packet fit into one folder, hehe.

If anyone has any questions, I will be more than happy to help where I can. Just a note , I did file OUT of Canada packet not INSIDE Canada packet. I do know from the board I was on at the time, things are a bit different depending on which route you do file for Canadian Immigration (ei time frames, proof of relation, etc.)




Now....for Vancouver! My husband was born and raised in British Columbia, so for him, it was like a child in a candy store when he took me back home! I absolutely loved B.C. I did a lot of first's while I was there. First airplane flight, first time to ride a skytrain,seabus,ferry,electric bus(although not toooo much different from a regular bus). We went in the beginning of April, and the weather was perfect. We were there for 3 weeks, and it only rained 2 days outta the whole stretch, got very lucky My favorite time was going to the island. We took a drive up into the mountains, and boy was is it beautiful. I remember standing and just looking up and seeing snow on the trees at the very very top and the looking at the trees right in front of me with no snow. My husband took me to several different waterfalls, the hotsprings (I actually sat in a hotspring pool. Talk about relaxation at its finest!) We also went to the pacific ocean. All in all, I would have loved the chance to live there, but "other" things prevented our decision to move there. If anyone gets the chance to go and visit, I would highly suggest it. We only did about 1/3 of the things on my husbands list of places to go/and see. LOL.

The Island is gorgeous.

Awesome everyone, I need to plan a trip to Vancouver then to check it out. If you all could provide some places that I definitely should visit, please.

Currently, I am hoping to drive out to the Toronto area with Nancy, she needs to get a new passport as it is expiring. Mmmm cold weather and snow, should be a fun drive!!

Ramos

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I think the CBC should do a TV show called "Island Wars".. I think PEI & NFLD can give Victoria Island a run for her money

I think you are right. I have never been that far east, however from what I have seen those two spots are beautiful, it's like a country secret!

I wish someone had kept Calgary a secret