People & Places
Building a new life in BC
Any building project can fall foul of shoddy workmanship, and this includes building a new life in Canada
Thankfully, though, Penny and Carl Rowan are over the hassles caused by less than satisfactory emigration assistance, and are now planning to put the finishing touches to their fresh start in British Columbia
When I catch up with Penny Rowan, she's just returned from walking son Mason, 4, to pre-school, through the neatly hedgerowed suburb of Richmond, which is 20 minutes south of downtown Vancouver. Penny's only just got back to the Rowan's rented property due to the fact that her youngest son, Jonty, is only 2, "and he's quite slow at walking, as you'd expect." At this point Jonty can be heard shouting in the background, and Penny says in soothing tones, "Here sweetheart. Mummy's got it for you." Her accent is unmistakably English – which, Penny says, has frequently surprised the largely Chinese residents of Richmond, who due to her Asian appearance expect a West Coast accent with a Chinese twang. The Rowan's house, a three-bedroom property with a small garden, is rented, and Penny (34) and husband Carl (43), a bricklayer, are now itching to move to somewhere with a bigger garden so the kids – Jonty, Mason and big brother Louis, 6 – have more space to run around in. The more affordable suburbs of Langley and Maple Ridge are at the top of the shopping list.
But, despite having emigrated in December last year, they still can't buy a property in Canada – because their old house in Saltdean, East Sussex, has not yet sold. "Although my sister-in-law is looking after the house and letting it to students, it certainly doesn't cover all of the payments," says Penny, a note of desperation creeping into her voice.
"We pay £1,300 a month on the house in England, and as our entire savings only allowed for a maximum of four months of paying the mortgage and three months of rent on our Vancouver property, our breathing space is running out."
Luckily, Carl has recently been given a pay rise, and now earns CDN$33 an hour for 40 hours a week. Carl, who worked on his own in the UK, is pleased to be working for a company, meaning he gets a consistent income, although Penny thinks there's plenty of domestic building work available for someone self-employed, too. "There are plenty of small jobs for builders. As the bigger companies quote ridiculous money for domestic jobs, you could literally write your own pay cheque. As wood is the predominant building material here, brick facing is a sought-after material, as are brick drives, to show one's wealth."
And it was BC's chronic shortage of construction workers that paved the way for Penny, Carl and the kids to emigrate. "If I look out of a window, there are cranes as far as the eye can see," says Penny. "This real shortage in the face of massive construction projects meant that Carl easily found himself a job with a bricklaying company, and then applied for a work permit. It then took four months to get permanent residency through the BC Provincial Nominee Programme, and a further three-and-a-half to receive their Permanent Residence cards.
Although the Rowan's managed to get set up in BC "in about a week – the landlord also turned out to be really helpful," it's just about the only part of their emigration that's gone smoothly. Even the PR cards met with an unexpected hitch. "We were told we'd get our PR cards in 12 weeks," Penny explains, the unexpected frustration of the process still evident in her voice. "But after 12 weeks we'd heard nothing, so we rang Immigration and were told that they'd lost our photos – and about 200 other people's photos as well! So we sent new ones, and a couple of weeks later our cards arrived – by normal post!!" This was only the most recent obstacle for the Rowans. Initially, they fell foul of shoddy workmanship on the part of their hired immigration help. "In December we attended a seminar in Brighton [where Penny was running a Chinese restaurant] held by a large emigration consultancy. We arranged a private interview and found out that Carl had 69 points as he had completed a four-year apprenticeship in bricklaying with George Wimpey. We were sent away with the forms to complete and given step by step instructions on getting documents certified. This took a couple of months and several hundred pounds."
So far so good, but the apparently firm foundations of the Rowan's emigration plans were soon suffering from subsidence. "After sending in the second load of forms (work history)," Penny continues, "we were told by the consultants that although Carl had been bricklaying, his main job was at the Royal Mail, and he would need to prove eight years of work records in bricklaying part time. It was impossible for us to prove this," Penny recalls with a frustrated sigh. The emigration consultants then recommended that Penny and Carl use an associate of the company that specialised in job searches and gave them a refund in full of the £4,000 pounds they had paid for the services. Penny continues, "After contacting the associate, a job search specialist, we were told that if we got a job offer this would help in our application. He seemed to be very attentive and at first was phoning everyday to tell us what to send him to put in Carl's resume. He told us that he would need US$1,000 to write the cover letter and résumé, which he would send out to 100 firms in BC. When we received interviews regardless of how many, we would then have to pay a further US$1,000 and a further US$1,000 when receiving a job offer. So we paid US$1,000 but I decided to produce a cover letter and résumé for Carl and send them out to a few firms." Penny obviously did a very good job as the next day she was surprised to get an email asking for Carl to contact the company for a phone interview. "Carl was on the phone for 45 minutes and was given a job offer there and then." But the job search specialist could still have played a role, and told Penny that they had to pay the balance of US$2,000 for him to get the offer in writing and approved by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (now Service Canada). "He got us the offer in writing but did not get it approved (the hardest bit of the process) and we have not heard from him since," Penny reports. "In all honesty we don't think he even got as far as writing the cover letter."
At this point, the Rowans read in Emigrate Canada that if you had a job offer it could add a further 15 points to your score. They contacted contacted an employment counsellor, who recommended that they apply through BC's Provincial Nominee Programme because of the job offer and that processing times were approximately four months. "Sure enough, in July 2005 we got news that we had been approved by the BC PNP and that we could live and work in BC on a temporary work permit until our PR visas were issued. We submitted our PR applications in September and were asked to attend medicals in October. By December we were living in Canada." Penny pauses as the engines of an aircraft can be heard droning into the sky over the Rowan's house, which is only a few miles from Vancouver International Airport. The skies fall quiet again and Penny continues, "We took the first four weeks before Carl went to work to get settled. The first thing we did when we arrived was to get a bank account and go to HRSDC to apply for Carl's SIN (social insurance number). You cannot work without one so it was top of the list of things to do." The family next organised some personal transport, first hiring then buying a car. Although they managed to get some insurance discount through producing evidence of no claims in the UK, if they'd have proved ten years worth of no claims they would have got an even bigger discount. "Car insurance is really hefty," says Penny, "so any way to reduce the cost is a real bonus. "Next we had to see the headmistress of Louis's new school and get him a place. It's a fantastic school, ten kids in his class, 30 in the whole school, well equipped with a computer for each child!" It is reasons such as this that will make Penny sorry to leave Richmond. "The kids have settled in so well – beyond our expectations. Besides Louis loving school, Mason loves preschool. They won't want to move. And the people round here are so nice…" Penny pauses again, but this time I can almost hear her cogs turning, before she says "But Richmond's top dollar, and it doesn't tick all the boxes."
And what about BC as a whole? "It's great here. Don't be put off by challenges along the way. Everything we wanted to achieve by emigrating to Canada has been achieved: spending more time together as a family, enjoying a better standard of living, a reduced crime rate – the usual motivations, really."
So, Penny clearly doesn't have regrets about emigrating, but does she feel she and Carl made any slip ups along the way? Penny takes a deep breath before answering: "The only thing I wish I'd done differently is sold our house in the UK before we moved to Canada." Building a new life in Canada, it seems, can really benefit from not rushing the foundations.
Register for your FREE emigration starter pack
Subscribe to Emigrate Canada. Read more ...
Read another Canadian case history:
Alberta's home to the Woodies