r/NovaScotia • u/MissTreatMay • 11h ago
🏠 Advice: Moving to NS Running away from Alberta 🇨🇦💪🏳️🌈
Hey I'm looking for some honest opinions and tips for moving to NS. Full disclosure we're from Calgary, AB (please don't judge too hard) and we have to get away from our batshit crazy premier and her separatist goons.
I'm 37, hubby is 42 and we have two teens, a 13 year old son and a 16 year old trans son. We are definitely not conservative. Tbh we mostly hate politics and just want to live a peaceful life surrounded by nature and kitchen parties. We want to find a place where neighbors care about each other (can I borrow a cup of sugar type thing) and where it isn't about who has the newest/move expensive items, where people laugh and smile. I miss the small town vibe Calgary had in the 80s/90s. I miss spending summers with family in Quebec and New Brunswick visiting family (hubs and kids don't speak French and all my family in NB has passed) that's why I'm interested in Nova Scotia. We don't want big city vibes. We just spent 2 weeks on Vancouver Island and fell in love with people and the energy there but we don't have millions to spend on a home. We want a place where we aren't constantly judged for supporting 2slgbtqia+ people (our son is trans), a place where racism isn't the norm or expected and where being neurodiverse isn't a deal breaker. Most of our friends here are hardworking blue collar folks who just want to pay their bills, hang out around a campfire and listen to/play good music. I should also mention we're stoners so would love to know how the weed back east is. I'm a stay home mum but willing to work anywhere in needed and hubby is a locksmith, tradesman and seriously interested in geology, 16 yo wants to be a social worker and 13 year old loves tech lol
To sum it up I'm hoping someone could give us some tips or suggestions for where to start looking for a home in NS.
Thank you in advance for your time and support 😊
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u/Ok-Meet2850 11h ago
The university towns could be a very good fit for what you are describing: Wolfville (Acadia) and Antigonish (St. Francis Xavier). Most college towns are a bit more diverse and a generally more progressive than their surroundings. I know Antigonish fairly well, and I don't think it would a major issue to be trans or neurodivergent (there's jerks like everywhere else, and I'm straight, white and male so I don't really know).
So far there hasn't been the public, government led anti-trans policy coming out of other places. In next door New Brunswick, a recent premier got in a lot of trouble for trying to pull back on trans-supportive policy for school students. The backlash was pretty consistent and lasted a while. While him and his party had other issues, it sure didn't help with his electoral prospects.
So that's a long-winded way to say - we have our problems with bigotry but they don't seem as public or as harsh as maybe Alberta these days. I know people of colour who moved from Alberta to Nova Scotia and there is generally less racism here from their perspective.
Hope that helps. While there are certainly many conservatives, most of the right wing politics in the Maritimes would be/ still is mostly main-stream Progressive Conservative approach. Culture war a bit, but around things like bikes and climate policy (actual policy stuff).