₦airaland Forum

I am looking forward to this experience you are yet to share with us, as I have always looked forward to every one of your experiences. I see your posts as much more realistic and the norm, while I see others testimonials, though welcome and pleasant, as more of an exception than the norm in the life of a 9jaAlien. Please do not be discouraged to share by some comments, one person's meat will always be another's poison, I am sure I am not the only one on this thread that is following your experiences. I really wish we could be more tolerant of each other, learn to ignore what we don't want.

I would also like to request for tips on survival jobs whilst seeking our dream job, to minimise the rate of POF depletion and ensure we do not come back on this thread like one poster crying for help. What kind of jobs and skill-set do we need to survive so that if it is possible to learn it in Nigeria before emigrating, e.g. driving for Uber, hairdressing, cooking,etc.
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czaratwork:
We need to be more humane. That said. In a shortwhile i will share one of my experience.

I believe it is the spirit and not the letter of the intention we should follow here, the author could not have envisaged all topics that could be discussed under this thread as at the time of writing this post.

We have had well meaning contributors on this thread debate on what should be posted or not - from the debate on comparing life in UK to Canada to the current issues on job struggles. Unfortunately, these debates have prevented the dissemination of information to those who would actually benefit from them, either in real life or per knowledge sake. Both sides of the debate may be correct but because they refuse to view the situation from the other side, the argument goes on longer than if the original issue was left to die naturally.

Let us all try and be more tolerant of each other, open to other views and always remember that one person's poison is another one's apple, hence what is not valuable to you may just be the information another person has been searching for, different strokes for different folks. We have some of the best professionals in Nigeria on this thread, skilled workers wanting more than their country can offer (including culture).

So, as we celebrate International Women's day today, I would like to wish all the Professional ladies in the house a very HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY. They say children are the leaders of tomorrow, I say women are !!! Hence, please lead by example.

Fusion23:
I wanted to comment on the back and forth ..but no energy
So I went to the first page, to get an idea of what the creator of this group had in mind. @oohunt.

Just to add some people are private and some are public , and some are both..

Anyways main point is we should keep doing more of this. Thou we do some if not most of this


This thread is about Life in Canada for immigrants or Permanent Residents.
It is an avenue for people that have emigrated to Canada (with their families) to share their experiences to help future hopefuls.
Kindly share your personal experiences and comments on:

* When you landed at the airport?
* What are the immigration rules to follow?
* How do you carry all that cash with you? For example: a family of 5 will need $25,923.
* Which province did you settle in and why.
* Where you live and why you like it or don't like it? Tips on choosing the right neighborhood, mortgage plans, proximity to work etc.
* How easy was it to settle in, with your kids? How did you go about finding the right schools for them? What is their school system like for toddlers (age 5 and below)?
* Can a mother combine work and taking care of the kids with the husband being in Nigeria?
* What culture shock have you experienced?
* Tips on how to cloth and cope with the cold weather
* Are there Nigerian food/restaurants etc? Are they very expensive?
* Can one start a business (exportation, consultancy) in Canada?
* How much does your family survive on in a month?
* And any other ...[font=Lucida Sans Unicode][/font]

Thank you for this response, now we know the process. If we can also shed some light on personal experiences applying for one. Is it as straight forward as getting a license or is it much more difficult than it seems as is the case for jobs? Cos only one person have confirmed getting the passport on this thread, which is a very small percentage of those that have stayed over 3 years. Like someone said, let it not be only testimonies we share, let us also share our struggles to enable others make informed decisions and have realistic expectations. If one cannot achieve economic prosperity, like someone else said -
Canada cannot work for everyone, let the person achieve Passport, at all at all they say, na im bad pass.

salford1:
To qualify for the passport is pretty straightforward. 3 years of residency as a PR and around 1 year of processing.
If you come in as a student, 2 years plus on a trv can count up to a max of one year credit towards the 3 years resudency rule i.e 1 year from TRV, 2 years as a PR and around 1 year of processing.
Processing is around one year if no criminal record, well completed application form, pass citizenship test, and all requested extra document request from cic are submitted before the given deadline on the request letter.
Just keep your copr and pr cards as they may request for it too.

@landed seniors who have stayed over 3 years in Canada, please share your experience about getting a Canadian passport, can one really get the passport after 3 years or is it like this job hustle too. Please let put this in perspective as we balance the conversation, cos for some esp. those with biz in 9ja, it is the passport that is the ultimate prize.

gentleiphy:
Welcome to our YYC Wura and Tone23...we have a solely naija calgarian whatsapp forum created by myself to bring those landing newly together and help them stay together and mingle with the old ones like us who landed 4yrs ago.send me mail if you are landed already with your whatsapp phone number at iphyonyeabor@yahoo.com and i will sure add you to the forum.its called NaijaCalgarians.

What of Nairaland customer service as exhibited by the moderators such as @justwise that do not take feedback from new members, we should also mark our own to international markets.

happytbaby:
Please do not benchmark CPA with ACCA people abeg. In terms of customer service; "ACCA on ki n se egbe iyalaya anybody".

The organisation is too organised, too professional. I was at a meeting of another professional body recently, the CEO of the body came from America to Nigeria for that meeting and every question was like 'ACCA does this, why can't this body do this?' Guy had to say they would benchmark ACCA since they seemed to have everything on point.

Do Canadian feel this way too? Learning the culture is important and I believe a forum like this can help 9ja Aliens blend with their new country. Someone said earlier in other words, the act of one of us tends to rub off on all of us, so 9ja Aliens are known not to tip. So one may as well just follow your lead, of which the tips @ 15% is more than tithe sef. quote author=Augenblick post=64816896] Nah, tipping isn't compulsory here. I choose to tip if I want to or not. I tip if the customer service is excellent and I can't imagine leaving the restaurant without giving the waiter or waitress a little something as a form of gratitude. Sometimes it can make their day too. But it's not a must at all.[/quote]

A work month is made up of 4 weeks or 28 days, all calendar months with the exception of February has over 28 days, if you add all the excess days, it makes up an extra month, hence why employers that pay monthly (in Canada or 9ja) pays 13th month. This problem is solved when payment is done biweekly - every 2 weeks. Bi monthly as described by @AZeD1 (twice a month), is basically splitting your monthly salary into two equal or non equal parts and paid on 2 days of the month, this is very common in 9ja especially among senior staff, this form of payment also warrants 13th month.

AZeD1:
I have not heard of 13th month here oh. I know some give bonuses though.

Tipping in restaurants is quite common even in 9ja, not as much for cabs though. I was just wondering what other kind of situations is a tip required that was why I gave the example of hairdo, do we tip in d supermarket or stores, as we know it's not in our culture, we are more concerned on avoiding being cheated. So that we can unlearn and relearn.

salford1:
It's not compulsory, but it's kind of a norm/courtsey and popular. I have do not tip for an hairdo, except a particular time when my kid gave the barber a tough time, but I have always tipped at a restaurant and in cabs. This is what keeps alot if waiters/waitress on the job. They usually make more on tips than their hourly wage. Infact an engineer I worked with still does table waiting on weekends cos of tips! Waiting at tables helped her with cost of schooling, and she is still waiting at tables for extra income

At restaurants, pos terminals have programmed tip options usually starting at 15%. I have also been to other restaurants where tips were not optional but compulsory e.g. fine dining ones.

I would like to ask about the tipping culture over there. As a 9ja citizen, I only tip when am pleased with a service, but I hear it is almost compulsory in Canada. Does this cover every service we receive such as having a hairdo or is there a clue for us to know when to tip?!

I would like to appeal that when we post information like this and start it with themes such as - am an expert in this subject,
we support it with research materials (weblink). Providing information as a matter of fact when at best is debatable can be misleading especially info like this that is medical and knowledge is limited. Let us give others a chance to read up on their own.
Thanks @vcole for your post, which is such a relief from this scary one.

freeradical:
Sorry for bringing u back to this but I just feel to chip in my own position on this matter because it's a health issue and a little baby is involved. I studied biochemistry and I know for a fact that X-ray damage DNA. Then if u consider that the neonate you are carrying is still undergoing a lot of cell division as they grow the risk of DNA damage resulting in a mutation is quite high at this stage.

I know others have done it and their children came out fine but that doesn't in any way eliminate the risk. The lead apron mitigates the risk but doesn't eliminate it completely. DNA damage once it occurs can never be reversed. Sometimes these things go unnoticed because it may not present any symptoms now until much later when d damaged DNA needs to start producing it's own protein. That may be at puberty or even much later in the child's life and then no one will link the effect to the real cause.

So based on this I advise you wait. Canada is always there and will still be there after ur baby is born. I was in the same boat too. My wife was 7months pregnant when we got ITA and I had to make this choice. I chose to not put my baby at risk in any way cos I would not forgive myself if anything were to happen to him as a result of a poor decision from me.

Now you know the full gist. Make an informed decision and I wish you a successful resettlement in Canada

As for settling in Toronto racism aside, I think you have successfully made intending immigrants here reconsider settling there. But, like others before me have also stated here, everybody's story is different, and economic reasons are not the only reasons for migration.

maternal:
You can't settle anywhere else but Toronto because you don't have that hustler spirit to go and explore the rest of Canada. You like the status quote and that's okay. I've lived in Toronto for years and it's very racist like the rest of Canada. The sad part is other minority communities hate on each other. You think the Chinese community in Markham or Scarborough love and respect the black community in North York ? The whole multicultural thing is just a cover up. Toronto's racism is just covert, while maybe in the west coast is more overt. I prefer overt racism personally. But I'd rather face racism while making 6 figures in Alberta, than face racism in Toronto while barely scraping by. After all I came here to make money not to be liked or live in a multicultural utopia. Lastly, why do Africans come abroad and act like racism/discrimination/tribalism wasn't worse in their home country ? Racism/discrimination in African countries are 100 times worse than abroad.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-black-racism-plan-vote-1.4431951

Black Torontonians, the document says, remain significantly more likely to be expelled from school, unemployed, incarcerated, or victimized in hate crimes.

Thank you for the insights, we learn everyday in this our canny hustle. However, I think I prefer the covert racism to the overt one, at least when it is covert I can explain it away to other reasons as the cause of the event happening, which most or sometimes maybe the case and not racism as one may think, like I tried to explain earlier with the subway event which @vcole responded to. The one I was really worried about was like I also mentioned earlier, someone on this thread shared their experience of pple throwing eggs at them in canny and telling them to go back to their country, that chilled me. Imagine they had been with kids, how do you explain that to them esp if canada is the only country they know. It is this kind of behavior I was referring to that cannot happen in Toronto, however, pls correct me if am wrong.

maternal:
You can't settle anywhere else but Toronto because you don't have that hustler spirit to go and explore the rest of Canada. You like the status quote and that's okay. I've lived in Toronto for years and it's very racist like the rest of Canada. The sad part is other minority communities hate on each other. You think the Chinese community in Markham or Scarborough love and respect the black community in North York ? The whole multicultural thing is just a cover up. Toronto's racism is just covert, while maybe in the west coast is more overt. I prefer overt racism personally. But I'd rather face racism while making 6 figures in Alberta, than face racism in Toronto while barely scraping by. After all I came here to make money not to be liked or live in a multicultural utopia. Lastly, why do Africans come abroad and act like racism/discrimination/tribalism wasn't worse in their home country ? Racism/discrimination in African countries are 100 times worse than abroad.


http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anti-black-racism-plan-vote-1.4431951

Black Torontonians, the document says, remain significantly more likely to be expelled from school, unemployed, incarcerated, or victimized in hate crimes.

Racism is the main reason why I probably cannot settle anywhere else than Toronto where over half of the pple there are immigrants. It is like living in a house where the landlord does not live in and you are all tenants. Someone mentioned here that they have had eggs thrown at them and told to go back to their country, which is quite sad.
I sometimes interprete racism as anger, because the ones that usually display it are the unsuccessful ones who believe you have come to deprive them. It's like owning a house and you let a room out to a tenant, sometime later, the tenant buys your house and you are now the tenant, you are bound to feel some form of resentment.

9jaAlien:
Thank you for this reply, I have observed that most times pple are quick to ascribe certain actions that have other justifications as racist. @maternal wants us to admit that Nigeria is a failed state, otherwise we won't be on this thread, makes one wonder which black nation is truly developed and why the outrage when we are referred to as shithole countries, when these are things we say to ourselves in not so many words. Video posts like these make pple paranoid about racism and colour their views about events.

Thank you for this reply, I have observed that most times pple are quick to ascribe certain actions that have other justifications as racist. @maternal wants us to admit that Nigeria is a failed state, otherwise we won't be on this thread, makes one wonder which black nation is truly developed and why the outrage when we are referred to as shithole countries, when these are things we say to ourselves in not so many words. Video posts like these make pple paranoid about racism and colour their views about events.

vcole:
Ppl sit beside me all the time even when i have my bag on the empty seat beside me, they have asked if I could move it so they can sit. However, ppl stand all the time. I choose to stand a lot in transit even when the train is empty or bus. On the flip side, I have opted to stand up when 2 persons who speak the same language are beside me and are in conversation a bit loudly mostly because I feel uncomfortable when that happens.

If you do not mind my asking and/or if the reason is not personal, can you please share why you moved from Mississauga esp. given the great set-up you just described. I have observed that most people here seem to avoid Toronto, I intend to settle in downtown Toronto and was hoping to read the experiences of someone living there. I had hoped @czaratwork would settle in Toronto per her finance career background, but for some reason she opted for Mississauga. Now you are moving from Missi which is closest to Toronto, to Brampton which is further out, hence, my question - asides the high cost of living, are there other reasons to live far especially if one is working in Toronto? I have always thought that Toronto is to Ontario, what Island is to Lagos, hence, if you lived on the Island in Lagos, you generally should have no qualms living in Toronto, but it is looking like this view may not be entirely correct.

Blackbuddy:
Hi, you can actually check rents for different spec of accommodation on kijiji.ca, viewit.ca, rentfaster.ca, 4rent.ca to mention a few. Just enter the details of what you want and what is available will be provided to you for review.

Most of Mississauga is safe to live in as crazy as that might sound but I never heard a bad story while I lived there. This is not to say that is absolutely no bad area but as with any major city, there are good and bad sides. For me, it actually turned out to be a great place for the year I resided there. I lived in Erindale very close to a shopping mall, opposite a bank branch with a barber and doctor's clinic next door. My kids' school was a walkable distance with the library close by (the neighborhood high school shares property with the library). 2 major bustops outside my apartment building made my commuting life easy as a job hunter then and my wife got her job opposite my kids school! That was a big plus and a remarkable coincidence. So she could drive to the kids school, drop them off and cross down the road to her office. I would catch a ride with her and walk across the street to Erindale GO Station for my train ride to Toronto to get to work, very nice arrangement at the time.

Other nice neighborhoods include Erin Mills, Churchil Meadows, City Centre, Creditview, Meadowvale and Dixie off the top of my head. I have friends living in these areas who have had no cause to complain. Once you find an accommodation you like, just Google about the property and the neighborhood to find out if there are any averse issues. You'll do fine though, Mississaug is a great place to live.

In my opinion, the lack of Canadian experience holds no water after being invited for an interview, as this is clear from your CV. I prefer to see it this way - if you are thirsty in a foreign land and you are presented with 3 drinks, a coke, a drink with a strange label and a non-labelled drink, which would you choose if they all have the same colour and in similar bottles? Naturally, you would pick the coke because it is familiar (safe), but if you taste all three before making a choice, it can no longer be said that the choice is based on familiarity.

vcole:
you got the wrong message from my post. It'll be ridiculous for me to view this issue from a racist perspective. It is not about being white or black. It is about competence. On a global playing field, where does a Nigerian educational qualification rank and how does it compete with a Canadian or European qualification? In professional fields, how do Nigerian certifications rank on a global scale? How many countries have a reciprocal agreement with Nigerian professional organizations? What is the work culture in Nigeria and how similar or divergent is it from that of Canada? Is the European work culture more similar to that of Canada? And how do these factors affect the job seeking Nigerian on a global scale?
As a hiring manager, it is imperative to choose a candidate who is best qualified and skilled for the job.

If things are viewed from this perspective then I believe it is in the best interest of a landed immigrant looking to build a rewarding career to explore opportunities that would enhance his/her qualifications or gain relevant experience that would open doors for advancement.

Try not to get stuck on a survival job (which is what the current job is), have heard that immigrants tend to fall into this trap. Getting too comfortable in their comfort zone.

pauloverdi:
Anytime I read though he comments hear I'm always pleasantly amazed at the depth o knowledge and insight we have access to for free here. God bless all of you who share your experience freely here. It really helps a lot of people around the world. Pls I need advice on an issue. I just got a new job offer that's in my field (technical maintenance and repairs) and I like the learning opportunity it offers and also the Canadian experience in my field. But I'm having second tots about taking it for the following reasons: 1. It's 3 hrs away from the city where I currently reside with my family so I will have to commute daily, weekly, or move there. 2. I already have a customer service job that pays like $7 less but my present job has opportunities for bonuses from sales which can be more than your salary in a good month. My wife works at same job and if we move together for d New job she will have to stop work. That means temporary loss of second income. 3. The new job is a one man business but my present job is with a national organization so the medical and other plans are better than with the new offer and I'm considering this cos I have kids. 4. If I move alone temporarily I will have to incure additional rent expenses and other costs that would've been shared if I dey with family. 5. Because the loction of the new job offer is in a bigger city, expenses there are a bit higher ( cost of renting, childcare, future house purchase etc) than where I am now. But there are also more job opportunities in a bigger city with higher salaries.

The main reason I'm still considering the new offer is because it's in my field and the few days I spent trying it out showed there is a lot to learn from the job. I'm just scared of jumping from a tree I am familiar with to an unknown, smaller, but promising tree. The bills are already lined up and there is no room for error (lol) but my heart really wants the new job cos it's in my field and I will derive joy from doing it. But is joy all that matters? Please advice

Glad to see a landed 9ja immigrant with a Canadian passport, I was going to ask the landed seniors who have been there for more than 3 years, why if they do not yet have theirs

mosquitoway:
Hi everyone, i am not sure if this is the right thread, but i will try, i welcome all the new comers to canada, it is indeed a splendid place. I came to Canada in 2013 and recently bagged my canadian passport, i am a commercial pilot flying private planes based out of ottawa. I am writing this post as i intend returning to Nigeria, I will call it an invitation to swap lives if it makes sense..lol, i see a lot of people are moving to ottawa. I am looking for an opportunity for a house, car and furniture exchange. I am looking for a place in ikeja to be close to the airport. I stay in a modern 2 bedroom apartment with utilities etc. I am a bachelor and happy to go home so please do not try to convince me otherwise.my aim is to hit the ground running like i never left, any help is appreciated.

is it against the rules?!

justwise:
You registered few minutes ago just to say this?

it would do well to warn first before suspension

justwise:
He was banned for breaking rule number 22 on too many occasions. Its really annoying to see people asking for pm or contact me rather than asking questions openly here.

If you are unable to ask questions here so that others can learn then don't bother at all.