Hi list.

This is a message mostly intended for those of you living in that
giant island known as Australia, or to anyone else which considers
that his thoughts on the matter might worth the hassle of posting
back.

I live in a beautiful and graceful piece of land in South America
called Venezuela. This place is so blessed with natural richness that
even the most cold hearted will be marvelled with some of its sights.
We have also a huge amounts of underground treasures, mostly oil, gas,
iron and aluminum. But we are also suffering from other things that I
could gladly discuss off-list with anyone interested to avoid getting
into non-piclist-suitable talks as I am already stretching the rope a
little bit with this post.

So, my family (wife and 18 months old daughter) and I are seriously
contemplating emigration.

Top candidate countries are the usual suspects: Canada and Australia,
as those are the ones which: a) Seem to offer the kind of prospecting
life we want for ourselves and for our kid (mostly for her) and b)
Seem to have the most immigrant-friendly policies.

Canada was our first place of interest as some families, friends and
people we know are/were either preparing to go there or already living
there. We have been for around five months gathering all the
information we can regarding immigration, living and working in
Canada. We are pretty much informed that it is very hard, initially
and sometimes even forever, to get jobs in the same line of work or
areas as the ones we currently have and that it is usual for
immigrants to work in a wide range of survival jobs or lowly paid
jobs. We know that it is relatively expensive to own a house or even a
new car. We know that health services are OK but have found pretty
discomfort or "not satisfaction" among immigrants and Canadian
citizens. We have found that nurseries (places for taking care of
small children - 4 years an less- while their parents work) are hard
to find and expensive when living on a low hour rate job. We know that
weather is a major actor in the Canadian style of living. We have lots
of facts, well, we have as much "facts" as you can get without
actually living there.

Australia is, in the other hand, a mysterious land for us. We have had
trouble to fill in the blanks in the answers to our questions. Most of
the info we have is based on the official gov of Australia which, by
the way, have very nice sites regarding instructions and info for
possible immigrants but they are official sites and we want more "on
the ground" stories. Here is where we would appreciate any info from
the fellow piclisters with any experience on this matter.

Some additional info, I am an Electronics Engineer; 6 years of
experience working as a Maintenance Engineer II at one of the biggest
hydro electrical complex in the world, mainly doing maintenance,
failure diagnosis and repair of power electronic controlled systems
(excitation systems for hydro gens, ups, inverters), speed and power
electric/electronic regulators for governor systems, synchronization
systems. I have had also experience in basic and detail engineering,
mainly for governor and excitation systems. I have been in charge of
the Maintenance team (we called them "sections") and have been trained
in SAP based maintenance strategies. As a hobbyist I have been
involved with programming in ASM on some micro controllers (pics,
8051's) but it have not been my "official" job. I am 31. My wife is
also an EE, with a couple of years experience in basic and detail
engineering in hydro generation automation, has had a couple hiatus
for raising our child.

Our biggest concerns are regarding: job possibilities and public
health and education systems for our daughter.

We figure that the possibilities for working in our fields are a
little remote as in Canada, and we are going to begin working in some
lower paid jobs. That is OK for us as long as there are real
possibilities of raising our kid in a safe, modern and tolerant
environment. But if there are a possibilities of working as
professionals that would be a huge plus.

I am aware that every experience is unique to those involved in it but
any guidance, info, pointers and/or help will be truly and sincerely
appreciated. We are in a break point in our life where we must try to
make the best choice as we are not getting any younger and actions
must be taken with the important notion that the future of our loved
young lad is in our hands.

Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for your time and help.

Regards,

Carlos.
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