Paul Brogan swapped Straffan in Co. Kildare for Montreal, Québec in Canada, where he has lived with his wife Alisa and their daughter Ava (4) since 2008.
So, what led to your move?
We moved to Québec in 2008 because Alisa was offered a faculty position as a professor of biology at Concordia University in Montreal. Before that, we lived in Chicago for two years, and I lived in Vienna, Austria from 2004-2005, which is where we met.
Wow, you get around! What made you decide to leave Ireland initially?
I graduated from DIT with a bachelors in international business and languages. As part of my degree, I spent my third year living and studying in Kufstein in Austria. I learned the language and loved the country, so vowed that when I graduated, I would try to move back. I always worked weekends and summers from around the age of sixteen, and I was excited to have a ‘real’ job in a new country. It was 2004 – right at the height of the boom – and some people thought I was crazy to leave but I couldn’t wait to get out, to be independent and travel.
What were your first impressions of your new country?
I loved it. Canada is a fantastic multi-cultural country, with all sorts of people; you hear all kinds of languages on public transport. We moved from the southside of Chicago, which was a totally different environment – very tense, with serious crime problems. Montreal gave me a much safer and more open vibe. We arrived in June, so the weather was fantastic, but the winters are tough. They take some getting used to. The ground is usually snow-covered from December until March or April, and it’s not uncommon to have the ‘high’ temperature below -10C in January and February.
How is Quebec different to Ireland?
Even though Québec is seen as a ‘catholic,’ more conservative province, it is still streets ahead of Ireland in terms of social openness. The catholic schools here are mostly private, and the public schools teach classes on religion and ethics, covering all religions evenly. I can still remember being in primary school and being marched down to the church to sing hymns and practise for our communion mass…that just wouldn’t happen here. We had no intention to get Ava baptised, and I am glad this won’t impact on which school she will get into but it probably would back home. Here, the issue is whether your child can attend English school or French school, but that’s a whole other story!
There are a lot of first and second generation immigrants here – so Ava is not alone in her daycare – there are kids with Anglo-Canadian parents, French-Canadian parents, Mexican parents, American parents, and lots of kids of different religions and faiths that she gets exposed to, which I see as a huge positive for her.
How does the cost of living compare to Ireland?
Compared to Dublin, Montreal is much cheaper. We live about a fifteen-minute drive from the city centre (maybe Palmerstown would be a good comparison distance-wise), and we bought a three bedroom house with a garden and a garage for less than $400k but his can vary wildly across Canada.
In Québec, daycare is cheap – we pay about $15 a day for a very high-quality daycare – it’s heavily subsidised by the provincial government. This is great as it allows both me and Alisa to work full time, but also a big benefit is that it has allowed Ava, who is an only child, to become very comfortable around other kids and become a great social animal! We’ve had Ava in daycare since she was seven months old. Her first daycare was private, and cost $40 a day. This was subsidised in part by the government who would send us a monthly cheque that would bring this down to the equivalent of $25 per day. We then got her into a government-supported centre, where we pay $8 a day up front, and then at ‘tax time’ in April, we pay the balance, based on our combined income. So it brings us up to about $15 a day. I hear horror stories of friends back home paying over a thousand euro per month per child.
What are your opinions on the Canadian healthcare system?
It’s completely free, which is nice, but the waiting times are appalling. We have a brand new children’s hospital, which is very fancy, but again, the wait times are long. The government makes sure that every child can get a pediatric doctor, and we found one after about fifteen phone calls. But, the closer you are to the centre of Montreal, the harder it is to find a family doctor. They are so over-subscribed that you basically have to wait for a new doctor to move in or an existing doctor’s patient to die, to get one! I made a load of calls a few years ago and honestly gave up.
That being said, if you do have an emergency, the system is amazing. Our son was born in 2010 prematurely and was in an NICU here for twenty-four days before he passed away. We got fantastic treatment from the unit here, and one of the nurse practitioners explained that we had received about $750k worth of treatment; we paid nothing out of pocket. A small relief at the time.
What’s the food like and how does it compare to home?
It tastes like something other than salt and pepper! Ah no…we have restaurants and grocery stores ranging from local to Korean, to European, to Middle Eastern and everything in between right on our doorstep. We also have plenty of fresh fruit and veg markets that are open year-round where you can buy cheap produce.
What’s your favourite family thing to do at the weekends?
We take Ava to her dance class on Saturday mornings and her swim class on Sunday afternoons. We love to go swimming with her as she has a real joy for it. We also like to build puzzles and lego and go for walks by the river.
What’s the worst thing about living in your adopted city?
Quebec is Quebec – it has relatively high taxes and a unique political environment where Francophones are nationally a minority, but provincially they are a majority, and policies are in place to reflect this – making it an incredible challenge to get our daughter into a bilingual school.
Also, it is hard being so far from friends and family. We don’t have any family here (mine are in Ireland and Australia, and Alisa’s all live in Ontario) so we don’t have that in-built network of babysitters. If we want to plan a night out it usually involves weeks of planning and babysitters!
And the best?
Montreal is a multicultural city that is affordable for us as a family.
Is your move temporary or permanent?
Permanent. Alisa is a tenured professor, I am building a career myself, we have a house, and we are looking at elementary schools for Ava – which is scary!
Are you thinking about emigrating with your family? Email Alison.Bough@herfamily.ie or let us know your thoughts in the Facebook comments.
