yeah just from 2 days research i think our standard of life there would be so much better than here, we're thinking of moving anyway in a year or so and as it is we can just about stretch to 150,000 pounds which will buy us a 2 bed semi in a rubbish area with a teeny tiny garden around here. looking at areas like orangeville, kitchener, keswick (all sort of around but outside of toronto) we can get a $200,000 house so be paying less mortgage and get a beautiful house in a lovely area with a garage 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms etc etc. we could even afford it if we had to go back to basically step one of our respective careers and take big pay cuts. it just seems like the perfect way to get the quality of life that we want without bankrupting ourselves for it.
anyway cheers for the help everyone, any more links and info you can give us would be great. it'd be really good if you could give us a rough idea of the cost of living, gas bills, electric bills, average food shop etc.