Yes, it's incredibly difficult. Basically if you aren't a high flying businessman, a genius academic or a top sportsman you can forget it.

This is from the US immigration site:

"Eligibility

There are four categories for granting permanent residence to foreign nationals based upon employment:

EB-1 Priority workers

* Foreign nationals of extraordinary ability in the sciences, arts, education, business or athletics
* Foreign national that are outstanding professors or researchers
* Foreign nationals that are managers and executives subject to international transfer to the United States


EB-2 Professionals with advanced degrees or persons with exceptional ability

* Foreign nationals of exceptional ability in the sciences, arts or business
* Foreign nationals that are advanced degree professionals
* Qualified alien physicians who will practice medicine in an area of the U.S. which is underserved. Read more about this particular program.


EB-3 Skilled or professional workers

* Foreign national professionals with bachelor's degrees (not qualifying for a higher preference category)
* Foreign national skilled workers (minimum two years training and experience)
* Foreign national unskilled workers


EB-4 Special Immigrants

* Foreign national religious workers
* Employees and former employees of the U.S. Government abroad"

My only possibility is through EB-3 and the site says there's a long queue and you require a long-term, full-time job offer before applying. Your potential employer has to sponsor you which is a very lengthy process and costs $20,000 plus. The government can reject the application at any time and the employer loses all their money. No employer is going to go through that unless you're really something amazing. And of course all the advertised jobs say you have to be a US resident to apply!

When you say you like to shoot, do you mean handguns or rifles?

Alberta is expanding quickly in population because of is oil boom. Therefore, people with a liberal attitude towards judging others is being diluted.

Here is the religious make-up of Alberta:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Alberta#Religion
According to the article, which must be based on Statistics Canada research, 24% of the population identifies with no religion.

The philosophy behind their provincial government is to keep is as small as possible. Where as in my province, Quebec, any surplus would be used to create a new social program to limit people's choices, such as our 7$ a day child care. In 2005, Alberta cut a cheque for 400$ to each adult in who had been in the province for a given amount of time. The reasoning of their then Premier Ralph Kline was that if it was left in the coffers of the government, then civil servants would find a way to spend it. So he perfered to give it back to his citizens. (It's provincial debts have been paid off for years.)

That's the kind of government attitude I like and it is the type of government Albertans vote for.

EDIT@RocketPig

"They even go so far as to restrict radio and television personalities on the basis of their saying "unpopular" things. Still, it's a very nice country and has a lot of great things about it."

That was true during the days of the Liberals, but under the current Conservative government, the CRTC is much more lenient. Either way, I don't care. That was the very reason I bought Satellite Radio.

*Don't let the names Liberal Party and Conservative Party fool you Ferret. The Conservative should really be called a libertarian party and the liberal party is near socialist.

Great we need a 'how to emigrate to canada thread'.

Lolz.

@Ferret thx for the link.

Libertarians believe the government should be limited to the protection of life, liberty and property. Full stop.

Yeah, because I'm sure you know everything about life. When I was 9 years old I was diagnosed with bone cancer and given a 10% chance of surviving. I had course after course of chemotherapy while my friends around me were dropping dead. I had my leg sliced open, my muscles cut from my bone, my femur sawed out and replaced with a metal prosthesis. I spent a year in a wheelchair and had to learn to walk again. I fought and I survived. Don't you ever, ever be such an arrogant c**t as to claim that you know more about life than anyone else. Age means nothing. I don't know whether you're 5 or 50 but you're the one who needs to grow up.

Good to know. Thanks for the info. I didn't know that Canada had changed its ways in that regard. It was one of the more disturbing things about the country IMO. Censorship of unpopular ideas really, really bothers me.

The thing is I hate to use the term Liberal in Canada because two of our biggest political parties are called the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party and both are somewhat misnomers as explained in my Edit of my last post.

"Do you mean that people in Alberta are becoming more liberal and less judging of others?"

I prefer to say that it is becoming more open-minded (therefore less judgmental) and its government is not interventionist (unless you're an oil company, which judging by your post history you are not) and it will remain that way as far as I can ever imagine. Your only worry would therefore be the Federal government, which for now is mostly libertarian, and you'd be subjected to them no matter what province you chose.

EDIT @ RocketPig

Were you refering to the Jeff Fillion incident? Because I was one of the 50 000 listeners and sympathisers that marched the streets in protest. That day was a changing point in some sence that showed that many Canadians were sick of too much government intervention and it is what openned Quebeckers hearts to electing some Conservative members of Parliament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHOI-FM#Dispute_with_the_CRTC 

Because when I was 9 I knew what the NHS was? And no, it isn't hypocritical. My taxes go to fund the NHS and I would therefore use it. In an ideal world I wouldn't have to fund the NHS and could therefore spend that money on private medical insurance.