Canada: the lifestyle choice

Why expats choose Canada over Australia

(Argentina did not make the list)

By Dave Simms CBC News

A survey of 3,100 expatriates — people who work outside their own countries — found our land of ice and snow provided them with the best improvement over their old lives compared with the place of sun, surf and sand.

Canada beat Australia in the second annual Expat Explorer survey by HSBC Bank International — the world's largest survey of expats from 50 countries — when it came to lifestyle, especially for families. Australia came second and Thailand third.

A bank spokesman says Canada leads the world because of the ease of finding the right house and being able to fit in, especially when it comes to making friends.

"It's predominately what I call quality-of-life attributes," Matthew Bosrock, deputy CEO of HSBC Canada, told CBC News from his office in Vancouver. In Canada, it's "easy to locate, easy to start a new life."
That resonates with John Hankins, an expat who moved to Calgary from England more than nine years ago.

"We were comfortably off in the U.K., had a good job, didn't really want for anything, but really fancied a change," he says. "Canada was always top of the list."

That's not surprising, given his job as vice-president of investment and trade development for Calgary economic development, the municipal agency with the job of promoting the city as a business destination. But it's also obvious he prefers Canada and that the decision to move was about more than money.

"What Canada offers is the outdoor lifestyle," Hankins says. "The U.K. alone could fit into Alberta three or four times, so just the scale of the space here in Alberta and in Canada just is mind-blowing compared to the U.K."

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/1...se-canada.html