Migratory Meanderings

Why We're Emigrating

Garry forwarded a post made by a Sunday Times newspaper reporter to the British Ex-pat mailing list (I don’t read the list, mainly because I don’t have time but it sounds really interesting). Basically this reporter was doing an article on why Brits emigrate to other countries and wanted some reasons why people were leaving and how they came to that decision. My curiousity was piqued so I wrote my feelings to him. Apparently this reporter was “deluged with responses” from people and is even thinking of doing a two-part article because of it. I guess I’ve really bottled up a lot of feelings that I have about emigrating back.

I’m quite a bubbly and generally upbeat person in real life, so the underlying bitterness of my response kind of shocked me.

Garry said that I shouldn’t be ashamed of writing what I did because it was more honest than anything but I’m still shocked and confused at how/why I’ve felt this way. I’m really interested in reading the article when it comes out, and I’ll try to post it up on here so that other people can read it as well. But I guess I did this as kind of a Migratory Manifesto, in order to have our voices heard and to let people know that there are good reasons behind it. I don’t know if I should even write our MP about it. I think that the mass emigration of Brits to other countries should be a huge wake-up call to the Government, but who knows.

Anyway, here it is. I have modified it slightly from the original.

After Garry and I were married in 1998 I moved over here, fully intending to stay for a while but we’d talked about eventually moving back to Canada; we both knew, however, that it could be some time before we did, so we wanted to create a life here in Britain in the meantime.

But last year, after my husband lost his job in the IT sector and couldn’t find anything permanent (he’s just worked some contracts here and there and even did warehouse work just to get some money coming in) we had to consider emigrating to Canada sooner than we originally planned. We’re on the verge of submitting the our visa application (as a Canadian citizen I have to sponsor Garry but to be honest, after about 9 years living over here in total, I will feel like an immigrant myself). We have so many mixed emotions about the move. We feel a bit bitter because we really tried to make a go of it; I work basically full time (albeit at a relatively low-paying job, but it’s still a job nonetheless), I am not a drain on the UK services—we don’t have kids, and I rarely go to the doctor; it was only since Garry was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes last year that we’ve had to use the medical system over here but we feel frustrated with it.

I’ve volunteered in the community and we’ve really tried to mix in with our neighbours (I feel proud of the fact that I’m not stuck in an ex-pat enclave in London but am living where there are only a few other ex-pat North Americans around so I’m getting a true picture of life in Britain) BUT we feel like we’ve
never truly fit in—our neighbours aren’t friendly to us, and we wanted to find a good Church to attend but haven’t felt “at home” there either.

I find it upsetting when I hear all these news stories about asylum seekers being able to claim benefit right away, and the latest revelations about “sham marriages” just to be able to eventually claim UK naturalization, because even though I came into the country legally and have contributed, I feel like I’m being categorized and labelled as being a “drain” on the UK and taking jobs away from British citizens—as I keep explaining to Brits who equate all immigration with asylum seekers, being a landed immigrant is a whole different thing to being an asylum seeker; when I was applying for my UK Visa and being interviewed by the Home Office I was told in no uncertain terms that if I dared touch public funds in three years I’d be kicked out of the country. We’ve had a really hard time over the past year but we didn’t want to claim benefit or anything, Garry just wanted to find another decent-paying job after being made redundant but even though he applied for probably upwards of 200 jobs in less than 12 months he hasn’t found anything…

But we’ve felt that the UK isn’t offering us anything anymore. Both Garry and I have talked at length about the reasons for going; they essentially boil down to the whole attitude of the UK—that it’s becoming a society for the “takers”.

Of course Canada has its share of problems and is by no means a perfect society but it just seems to have a much more optimistic attitude, and we just feel there’s more opportunity for a better lifestyle (not necessarily money-wise, but just a slower pace of life and more space). The taxes, especially all the stealth-taxes like the road tax and TV licence, are too high here; we both have to work full time just to make ends meet (we don’t jet off to Europe every year on holiday and we don’t spend a lot on “extras”) and with every big rise in Council Tax and utility bills we feel a bit panicky that our wages won’t be enough to cover them.

We feel like we’re working for the State in order to support those people who are on Benefit rather than those, like us, who are working to help themselves. I’ve never stopped missing my family back home and friends and that’s a big catalyst for us to move but I was willing to make a go of it here. But it’s just not happening.

All this is probably really surprising to a lot of people because the perception that North Americans have about Britain is that it’s a strong country with lots of history and culture and a great lifestyle and a lot of people want to move here for that reason—hence all the mass immigration. But even a lot of native Brits that I’ve talked to echo my own sentiments of how they feel the UK is deteriorating and they can’t figure out why the heck I chose to live here in the first place, rather than Canada.

I will always love Britain and have a place in my heart for it; Garry is finding the move very emotional because it’s hard in some ways to leave his home country. I keep thinking “what if”… we lived in a different area, what if I had a different job, would our experiences be different….but I think all the negative news reports and just how Brits don’t look very happy as they’re walking on the street tells me that we have a better future in Canada, especially if we want to start a family. I just feel Canada is a better place to raise children.

This is such an ambivalent decision for us simply because we’ve had some good things here, and there are aspects of the UK that we do like. But even though we’ll wobble like crazy (mainly because we aren’t big risk-takers) we ultimately, deep-down feel that this is the right decision. It’s just getting to that stage where we can take a deep breath, take a running leap and JUST DO IT.

Posted by Carla at September 29, 2004 09:19 AM