Despite what Canada’s nation hating extreme right would have you believe.
I don’t think you have to be extreme right wing to have legitimate concerns for the future of Canada. The country is literally on fire. Houses are over $1 million and health care is barely functioning.
I’d hate to see the other guys I guess.
Groceries are fucked, gasoline is fucked, interest rates are fucked, can’t buy a house, can’t buy a car (or probably shouldn’t right now), dollar is fucked, schools probably going on strike again, a Canadian team hasn’t won the Stanley cup in 30 years ……
No, but the extreme right call Canada a dictatorship, a third world country, a shithole, etc. Hell, the leader of the official opposition called our freely and fairly elected right of center milquetoast Prime Minister and his father, “Marxists.” It’s ridiculous. Literally worthy of ridicule.
Most of the people who are complaining have no frame of reference other than being brought up in the safe, warm busom of one of the best countries in the world.
It is scary. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t disagree that Canada is a great place to live. However, we can’t take that for granted.
Yes. This is correct however making it more on fire which is what the extreme right want to do is not the way. The majority of provinces have had Conservative governments over the last 8 years, until we resolve that issue Canada isn’t going to get better anytime soon. People don’t realize that the provinces have way more involvement in their day to day lives than the federal government. Many of our issues can be fixed by the provinces but they literally choose to make things worse instead, pass the blame to the federal government and morons eat it up
Tbh for most people I know there’s just no trust in the gov period
See, that’s the thing. The 10 factors in the ranking include 1) Entrepreneurship, 2) “Open for Business”, 3) “Movers”, 4) Power, and 5) “Agility”, or a place that is ‘efficient in its actions, adopt and accept modern solutions’
So, like, half the factors are “how badly do you screw the environment and average non-capital-class citizen”
And in case you think I might be wrong about what they mean by “Movers”, the top 5 are the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and India.
Of COURSE our country, which is composed a bunch of oil, gas, and mining corps in a trenchcoat shaking hands with a couple of oligipolistic banks and telecoms will score well.
Look at the source: its a law firm who brings immigrants over to Canada. Of course they’re going to pump our tires. It helps them with business.
This comment needs to be higher up.
This kind of article isn’t news, it’s marketing.
As a Canadian expat, these sorts of surveys are an embarrassment. Canada is not that great. It has some good things going for it, but “second best in the world” is a laughable statement.
- The wealth disparity is terrible
- Nearly every inhabited patch of land is a suburban hellscape.
- The government is routinely dedicated to accomplishing as little as possible, especially on climate
- The fossil fuel lobby is embarrassingly strong
- The cost of living is extreme for many, with little effort to reign it in
- The country suffers from an inferiority complex in relation to the US of all places.
- The electoral system is broken
I mean, I love my country, but I’ve seen a lot of places that I’d rather live. The idea that we’re 2nd best compared to even half of the countries I’ve visited in the last 10 years is just silly.
I can really relate to this. I lived outside of Canada for 25 years. I recently-ish moved back to Canada and am totally blown away by things here. Life isn’t always amazing in any place you pick on the planet, but god damn, Canadians need to stop contemplating their collective belly button lint and focus on some of the massive issues that need attention.
Meanwhile my girlfriend just got back from travelling around Europe and all of those “superior” countries, and couldn’t wait to get home.
Said everyone was rude, taxis scammed her frequently, the public transit was pretty subpar with no other choice, the food was pretty mediocre, she had to be extra careful about pick pocketers, and lastly she said everyone stunk so bad from perfume that she had a constant headache.
Canada isn’t perfect, but it does have a ton going for it.
Sounds like your girlfriend did the typical North American thing of visiting “Europe” by hitting a bunch of major cities and sticking to the touristy centres.
- The Netherlands is gorgeous, quiet, and safe, but if you don’t wander further than one or two kilometres from Amsterdam Centraal, you’ll never see that. Rent a bike and ride through Haarlem or Utrecht if you want a proper experience.
- Brussels has some of the best food I’ve ever tasted, but you have to break away from the tourist traps first.
- Athens is an exciting, “young” city with ancient treasures literally on display in the subway stations. You’ll never see that if you just wander around the Parthenon. The food everywhere is great too, though the best spots are usually well outside the touristy areas.
- Paris has some really exciting stuff happening with cycling right now, and the view from Momatre is amazeballs. Yes, the locals can be rude, but fuck it, take the train and get out of the city!
Which brings me to the other important point: Europe is not just the (impressive) cities, but rather a continental patchwork of interconnected but distinct cultures. Have breakfast in a B&B in Arras before you trek out to see the Vimy memorial, then board a train and be in Nyon by dinnertime where you can sit on a clear blue lake and munch on baguette. Hop on the train again and you’re in Torino, Venice, or Florence which is just gorgeous. I had the best pizza in my life there in a dodgy little place at 1am.
Stay a few nights in Warsaw and take a stroll through the old city. Gobble some perogi in Krakow and then push yourself to visit Auschwitz. Then take the train across the now undefended border to Berlin where you can walk the path of the former wall, and the next night go for the best danishes in the world… in Denmark.
Seriously, your girlfriend is out to lunch if that’s her impression of “Europe”. You two need to take another trip and rethink your priorities.
First world problems.
That is sort of an assumption when talking about a list of the best countries.
The best countries in the world are at the top of the list. There are 204 countries on the list.
That makes me really depressed about the world
I was thinking Canada was going down the tube for years and then I left vancouver to go to a smaller city. I just don’t see the point of struggling every single day just to have some temperate weather and nice mountains in the background. Even if I liked skiing or hiking I didn’t have the time or money to reap the benefits of that city. In 2 years since I left I have bought a house, with a yard for my dog. sure the Prarie winters are hard but at least I’m saving for my future. my advice to anyone who is barely making it by those large city centre, go somewhere that will value your effort and provide the opportunity for you to be happy. It’s not as scary as you would think.
Very positive message.
United States is fifth.
Yeah, “best” is a rather vague metric, and in this case, simply bullshit
Hey the USA is a great place to live if you make good money. Not a great place to be poor though.
How does it compare to canada? I legit have no idea. I just remember reading in a thread like 2 days ago how an american person moved to canada and one of the main complaints was how pay was less and housing was way more.
House prices are much more reasonable in the USA. Obviously it’s a huge country and it depends where you want to live, but in comparison house prices in Canada make no sense whatsoever.
Culturally, very similar. There are subtle differences. Americans are louder and more confident in general I think. Also way more business oriented. People in general seem less healthy but the disparity with Canada isn’t that big anymore. Wealth disparity is though. Way more very poor people, way more really rich people. In Canada I’m a top 1% earner. In the USA I’m not really even close.
The obvious major difference from Canada is health insurance. If it’s not covered by your employer (92% of Americans have coverage last I checked), I hope you have some disposable income to pay to pay for health insurance. That being said, taxes are usually way lower depending on which state you’re in, so you very well might come out ahead, even with copay and deductible. For reference, I had a global health insurance plan with Cigna. It had 1 mil USD coverage and max out of pocket per year for me was like 3 k USD. That was 205 USD/month. This didn’t cover general doctors visits, or anything related to that. It was basically for visits to the emergency room. So if you’re looking for coverage at the same level as Canada, you’re going to be paying more. I have heard from numerous sources that the health care in the USA is way better than in Canada–as long as you can pay for it.
These are broad generalizations. USA is a very diverse place. Of all places I’ve been in the world, USA is the most similar to Canada, and Australia probably comes second.
I’m about to shake your world. Ready?
What you believe doesn’t change reality. Your feelings don’t matter.
Sorry.
Relevance?
You believe it’s bullshit.
What you believe doesn’t change reality. The report is as the report is, the metrics are all there, and whether you believe it or not makes absolutely zero difference.
If I find a rival study then will it no longer be true?
Best country Winner: South Africa Second: New Zealand Third: Maldives
What if we use the happiness index?
I think you can see how it’s subjective even if you present the metrics that you used
Not even close to the same metrics but if it makes your fee fees happy then you do you.
So what makes how you (USNews) weigh metrics the correct one?
Sorry…you’ve bored me. There are YouTube videos calling to me.
Fee fees? That’s Sarah Palin talk
How?
“Welcome to Canada! I’m sorry, are you not a millionaire? Then you can live on the streets.”
Go Canada, but I think this might show how much more of a depressing state the rest of the world is in
That’s what it looks like from Finland as well. Often in high rankings, it’s just horrible to know what others are going through
USA #5 and UK #9 lol
But Poilievre says Canada is the worst place on earth!
He also says that it milquetoast right of center Prime Minister is a Marxist. He’s a liar but the people who believe his nonsense are fucking idiots.
Through a survey of over 17,000 people from 36 countries
Oh, so subjectively “better”? What about objective measurements, like how many people are a paycheck away from losing it all? Or the cost of living? Or worker rights?
Specifically, Canada was chosen as the:
- 2nd best country to start a career
- 4th best country for education
- 7th best country for studying abroad
- 7th best country for raising kids
- 2nd best country for racial equality
- 6th best country for women
- 6th best country for comfortable retirement
- 6th most transparent country
- 2nd best country to headquarter a corporation
Imagine a sports team coming in 6th place for most tournaments, and never winning first in any of them, yet they win an award for being the 2nd best team in the league… makes no sense to me.
2nd out of 204.
Would you love your child less if they came in 2nd? I sure as fuck wouldn’t.
Well, don’t I feel like a real Mexico right now…
- USABack when the Glorious Orange Leader was taking about building a northern border fence my American coworkers asked me how Canadians felt about it. I said that we were all for it since the US was Canada’s Mexico.
Don’t insult Mexico like that!
I didn’t actually read this… because I’m actually supposed to be working right now. After a bit of digging i found their methodology. someone want to look it over and see how legitimate it is? https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/methodology
A set of 73 country attributes
an online survey […] total of 17,195 individuals from 36 countries. Of the respondents, 8,267 were informed elites, 4,622 were business decision-makers and 7,402 were considered general public (43%). Survey participants were given a random subset of countries and country attributes to consider: about half of the attributes for roughly a third of the countries.
Participants assessed whether they associated an attribute with a nation. The more a country was perceived to exemplify a certain characteristic in relation to the average, the higher that country’s attribute score.
Attributes were grouped into 10 thematic subrankings. Subranking scores for each country were determined by averaging the scores that country received in each of the attributes comprising that subranking.
To determine the weight each subranking score had in the overall Best Countries score, using correlation with GDP(PPP) per capita […] a stronger relationship weighted more heavily: Entrepreneurship (14.13%), Quality of Life (14.12%), Agility (14.02%), Social Purpose (12.83%), Movers (11.54%), Cultural Influence (10.44%), Open for Business (9.43%), Adventure (5.37%), Power (5.00%), Heritage (3.13%).
The math sounds alright. My main gripe would be that it’s survey-based (so highly affected by biased perceptions) and that an attribute impact in the overall ranking is dictated by its correlation with wealth, which is kinda arbitrary - and bleak. Great things like “friendly, fun, good for tourism, pleasant climate, scenic” (Adventure) and “culturally accessible, has a rich history, has great food, many cultural attractions, many geographical attractions” (Heritage) are heavily discounted.
To be honest, the only category of attributes I care about in this methodology are in the realm of Quality of Life (Canada #3), but I still find it wildly arbitrary that “good job market” is QoL but things like “pleasant climate” and “good food” are not. Anyway, the top 20 in QoL are the usual suspects, so I don’t really care about minor changes in relative position between these - lol at US #23.
Mission accepted.
Edit: Nevermind, they block me. :(
It might be the second best, but I feel like that’s more of a statement on the rest of the world failing in specific areas than on Canada excelling.
We’re a B- student in every class. Sure, it’s not the highest score and in every subject we’re usually surpassed by other countries, but most other countries don’t have a B- average due to major issues of some kind.
Canada has been in the top two or three for a very long time. Someone challenged that the rest of the world was falling and Canada was probably way lower in 2016. I went back and checked and we were number 2 in 2016 as well.
I have been to a lot of first world countries for extended periods as a digital nomad. Canada is not even in the top 5 imo
as a digital nomad
I don’t know how they measured this at US News either, but the digital nomad experience is pretty different from the local experience. By digital nomad standards certain third world cities are great.
Which one is your favorite county?
I’m not sure I really have a favourite. Every country has good and bad. There are some parts of the USA (ex. Colorado, Washington) that I really like. But also the USA has its own issues that we all know about. France is beautiful but there can be civil unrest, taxes are high, etc. I spent some time in Singapore and it’s very safe, clean, great food, but it’s also stale and far from a lot of places. Culture comes into play a lot. I can recognize that somewhere is a great place to live but it’s not for me. I didn’t grow up there, I don’t speak the language, etc. In Europe I feel most “at home” in the Netherlands.
Different things matter to different people. So saying things like “this country is #2” are meaningless. Countries I personally would rank above Canada: USA, Netherlands, Norway, Australia, New Zealand.
What you believe doesn’t change reality.
What U.S. News believes doesn’t change reality either. These rankings are and always have been subjective BS
Whatever you have to tell yourself, dude.
The big Canadian cities are terrible
I could not stand living in a small NA city lol, it’s Vancouver, Toronto, Monteral or leaving the Americas altogether
Well thanks for explaining why!
