Very OT: Moving from UK to Canada

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I moved from Australia to Canada, not quite the same situation, but I can try to help.  Australia has the same voltage and standards as the UK for what it's worth.  

Since you're just thinking about it, be aware that if you don't have a wife/girlfriend/partner or parent from Canada, immigration will take a long time.  Skilled migration is a couple of years minimum and the UK office is very busy.

Canada is ~120V/60Hz and NTSC.  Most PC PSUs have a switch between 240 and 120V, so that's pretty easy.  I think many LCDs have auto-switching power supplies, other monitors probably not.

Transformers for anything beefy are going to blow your budget.  For tiny appliances (stuff that runs off of those little wall wart DC adapters) they're OK, but transformers for bigger hardware can cost a bit.  Some devices don't like transformers because they generally don't do a proper sine wave.  Your consoles _should_ be OK with a transformer, but you'll need a TV that can do PAL - we had to hunt these out specifically, but most of the new plasma or LCD TVs seem to be able to do PAL.

Shipping can get expensive, especially because you may have to pay GST+provincial tax for what you import.  If you kept your receipts for stuff you bought, you may be able to get VAT refunds when you leave.

If you have a UK drivers licence, you should be able to convert it to a Canadian one without much trouble, but they will take your UK one away.

Any ideas where specifically you might want to live?

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There's no TV licence, but you really have to have cable - although you get much more from it.

Futureshop isn't the worst amongst "electronics" stores by any means.  Best Buy is the worst.  Neither are great places to buy computer parts from.  NCIX is good and so is Tigerdirect.ca if you can't find it locally.

You'll probably enjoy the lower prices for just about anything electronic too, and probably most other stuff compared to the UK.  It's also much roomier, especially if you've lived in a big city like London.  

You'll maybe miss some home TV (although BBC Canada is tolerable apart from the stupid renovation shows) and home food.  They seem to have only 5 flavours of crisps here, bland "cookies" and crappy "candy".  It may be hard to get a good curry.  Winter is obviously an adjustment although Vancouver is very mild.

I'd say the reason people like it in Montreal is that it's a single man's paradise  Montreal is a great city if you can get past the winter.

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Almost all DVD players should be able to do PAL nowadays, but unless you can set them up to output PAL, you'll get PAL converted to NTSC on the fly.  Maybe the more expensive players do a good job of it, but for the most part, PAL converted to NTSC looks washed out and sluggish - picture it being played underwater.

I use a modded XBox to play DVDs on, and a rather cheap but large "Prima" CRT TV that does proper PAL on a couple of inputs.  It took some hunting to find it.

Pretty crap really that we have such a hard time getting TVs that do PAL in North America, considering if you're in a PAL region practically every TV from the last 15 years will do NTSC.

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I have been to Quebec City.  It's very pretty, but even putting aside language issues (although my French is slowly improving), I'd never want to live there.  Each to their own though.

Futureshop is a big chain.  You can buy most major appliances there.  We also have EB Games which is the same thing as Electronics Boutique/Gamestop.

The only Free to Air stuff I've gotten is CBC/Radio Canada stations, so cable is a requirement.  Some people in Vancouver claim to get Seattle/Washington TV which has much more available.  By the same token we should probably be able to get Vermont/New York TV here, but I've had no luck.  You might get CTV, Global or Vancouver specific stations too.  CTV and Global cover basically everything good on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, so if you can get those you could probably live without cable.

We have digital TV here, cable/satellite is naturally the best source for it, but again I believe it's possible to get it free to air, but it's a different standard (ATSC?) so no need to bring the freeview box.

Phonewise you can do either pay-as-you-go or contract.  Check rogers.ca or fido.ca.  I'm not sure if you have Virgin in BC, but I think they're pay-as-you-go.  One weird thing about Canada/North America is that they charge you for both incoming calls and outgoing calls, but they finally seem to be changing that now.

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The missus got an international licence when she came to Australia with me a while back.  It lasts a year.  The reason she got it is because hers is in French, which doesn't mean much to the average Aussie police officer.  Obviously a UK licence will be in English so that won't be a problem.

You should be allowed to drive under your UK one for a while, not sure exactly for how long, but if you do become a real resident you're supposed to get a Canadian one.

You might want to check or ask at British Expats.  Plenty of good advice there.