According to the 2023 Best Countries ranking by U.S. News, Canada is the second-best in the world overall this year. The move up to second is an improvement from 2022, when Canada was ranked third overall by U.S. News. To formulate these rankings, U.S. News looked at 10 different sub-categories (where they ranked the top
Despite what Canada’s nation hating extreme right would have you believe.
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
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.
No body said it was the best country - for a citizen - no no no. Its the best country for giant corporations!
Tired of wood, wetlands, and natives being of the way of your accident waiting to happen pipe line? Go Canada!
Don’t want to commit actual genocide on your native population? Rather isolate them in small communities then poison them with water unfit for even the most hearty of a animals? Go Canada!
Your wealthy friends want to make billions buying and selling green protected land? Go Ontario!
Are the homeless an eye sore to your wealthy friends visiting? Don’t worry, here in Canada we have 6 months of winter to clean up those unwanted eye sores.
An asteroid in the outer solar system. If we vote hard enough to have it win in our broken FPTP system. it’ll alter course and end this horrible timeline.
If we had a proportional representation system we’d have the majority of the House of Commons controlled through by an agreement agreement between the Liberals and the NDP. Exactly the situation we have now except the seats would be directly owned by the parties instead of representing communities.
Proportional representation is the preferred system for people that understand politics via spreadsheets while completely ignoring power dynamics.
We need an electoral system that doesn’t take power from a large party that most people voted for and give it to a tiny fringe party that almost none voted for. Look at what’s happening in Israel. The most extreme party to get any seats is calling the shots because they hold the balance of power. Wouldn’t Canada be fun if the christofascists or tankies were calling the shots?
Give me some STV! MMP seems to work well for NZ¹. Electoral reform won’t fix everything, but it will allow a path for more adaptability in politics at the very least.
¹ I’m also okay with AV (instant runoff). Is it perfect? No, but let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. AV at least overcomes the spoiler effect, and would allow more diversity of parties. AV does tend to encourage coalitions formed around a centrist party with broad support (probably the Liberals in Canadian federal politics) as they will tend to be the 2nd or 3rd pick, but the balance of other parties in any resulting coalition would tend to drive things. Plus, without the spoiler effect of FPTP there can always be a competitor for the centre. Basically. FPTP is the worst, and although I have my preferences, less bad is still improvement. Also, AV can always serve as a palate cleanser for full STV.
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.
I saw some right wing idiot say it and thought it was funny. A delicate snowflake blocked me so I won’t have to listen to his incessant whining about my comments anymore so I call that a win.
Pretty much. Most of the best Universities in the world. That most of it’s citizens could never afford to attend. Many of the best Hospitals and specialty clinics in the world. That again most of it’s people can’t use.
Most American’s are somewhere in the middle, and I’m sure the median household has more disposable income than most other first world countries, it’s just that the prosperity is so unevenly spread.
Granted, some would speculate that it is because of the unevenness that the US is so prosperous, but I would dispute that. I think the US could go a long long ways towards helping it’s less fortunate without compromising it’s prosperity.
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.
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.
Pretty much. They’re complaining about housing prices and inflation just as much or more in New Zealand, Germany and the UK.
Canada probably is a B- but has the advantage of being next door to the largest economy in the world. Canada is also vast with abundant resources. We were always going to be a prosperous country as long as we can avoid too much corruption (Russia is a more vast country with more abundant resources, but…)
I still think it’s useful to look at other countries that may even be beneath us (according to this list) and borrow liberally from where they exceed us. We are doing about as well as anyone else, but we can do better.
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.
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.
As a digital nomad, I’m guessing you would have been to relatively low CoL places like Bali, Thailand, maybe Eastern Europe or LatAm. You have to remember that your experience as someone from the global north, earning in a strong currency is very different from a local person there.
Not that i disagree with you that rankings are flawed but by the same token, Canada /is/ in the top 5 for many people from low standard-of-living countries
Typically you’d be right but as a DN I actually spent most of my time in North America and western Europe—mostly in countries people would compare Canada with (UK, France, Spain, Norway, Germany, USA, Australia, etc.). I never went to Asia or South America as a DN. Actually the only time I stepped foot in LatAm was in Panama for a month this past winter.
It really changed my perspective on Canada. I don’t think it’s a bad country at all but I don’t hold it in as high regard as I once did. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses. What those are is different for everyone. Canada is squandering immense potential in my opinion. If it wasn’t for family, there are several places in the USA I would consider living long term instead.
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.
I had to click through to see the ratings in each category, and they all seemed reasonable to me aside from Canada’s low rank for “Adventure”. Eco tourism is huge in Canada. People come from all over the world to Canada for outdoor adventure.
Maybe I’m just not a traveler, but that ranking seemed odd to me.
Then again, I don’t live in the continuous urban sprawl of Southern Ontario all along the 401 and up the 400. I guess if you live in Toronto, you’re like 2+ hours from eco tourism destinations, while, in Europe, 2 hours is enough to have the option to go to several other countries.
I wonder if the ecotourism being seasonal knocks off prospective points. You can only comfortably travel the cannuck wilds for ~5 months out of the year, if that.
Maybe east of the rockies. In BC I have friends that go camping all year long. Our mountains are open all year for activities (skiing, snowboarding, etc. in the winter mountain bike, hike, etc. in the summer). Heck, you can ski, bike, surf all in one day on Vancouver Island if you’re so inclined, though it’ll be a long ass day.
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.
I’ve had similar experiences in several cities in the UK, Austria, Paris, Amsterdam and even a trip out to the nurburgring To be frank, the friendliest Europe experience I’ve had was Kosovo but that was on business vs personal with the rest of them so I’m not sure that didn’t affect my experience in Kosovo.
I agree completely with what you’re saying. Living in a progressive state is a far different experience and we should avoid generalizations of countries without specific context and understanding.
Well she wasn’t in the nordic countries at least, public transport can be subpar but is almost always servicable and gets you anywhere (we have on-demand minibuses for rural areas), the only part that could apply is being seen as rude because we don’t greet every person within our field of view…
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.
I mean, just yesterday there was an article from a French media company about how the US economy and GDP is now 80% larger than Europe’s. Link
The US is really high on this list though specifically due to economic reasons. Not social ones. Although strangely enough there is a bit of an odd section about the US being more adaptable to change than Canada or any other country, which I find kind of strange. Also, the US always ranks high because of the advanced medicine, technology and education. Whether it’s accessible to all or not is really mostly irrelevant to these surveys.
Historically what made a country great was its gold reserves and its military might… so like… 90% there? That said I agree that corporations are not what we want and that economic growth should be made to grow at a maintained level rather than unrealistic growth.
Historically, what made countries great was their ability to provide rising standards of living to its citizens. That often results in large gold reserves and military might, but plenty of places with gold and bullets were bad places to live.
But the rich wasn’t us to believe those metrics, so we can ignore how living standards are dropping, indicating that Capitalism has failed to provide a better lifestyle.
Oh man, that was a good laugh! I’d consider Ukraine more with us on the military might considering the ass they’re kicking. Switzerland can match us on the gold/economic, but I’m not sure how confident I’d be it isn’t stolen, nazi, or Russian (but I can’t say the same about the US’ either). China will probably come close to matching our military might if only because of their population advantage. India is going to be a massive player here shortly (militarily speaking), if not already.
The problem, and I know it’s what people don’t like to hear, is that the US quite literally cannot be beaten economically or militarily. Seriously, read that article I linked, it’s incredible the economic output the US generates. France has the same economy size as Idaho, a state famous for its potatoes and nothing else.
The best military logistics in the world and logistics is what wins wars. The biggest and most powerful economy in the world, even China and Germany have a stuttering economy (and pre-covid I would have pegged them as being on par). The biggest influence regarding culture, the next closest would maybe be Britain, but when it’s English media the US will still dominate. China has some cultural sway, but only within their own borders and even they consume American media like crazy.
It’s hard to say who out there could play a role in being as powerful as the US, and an empire decline is bound to happen. It’s not immune.
I would however put the early Soviet Union for sure up there with the US. They had some amazing technological innovations. The only problem was that a communist government got into an economic war with a capitalist government and that was never going to work well. Slow and steady growth like the Cubans is more the way to do it.
“Quality of Life” was a category on the survey, although it was only one of ten. Additionally, they were mostly asking the people who were benefitting the most from their society:
a survey of over 17,000 people from 36 countries – including business leaders, middle-class or higher college-educated individuals and “nationally representative” citizens of each country
So I imagine there were a lot of folks who disagreed with the final rankings, but their opinions were mostly considered irrelevant.
I wonder of you took some of the people complaining about Canada and dropped them somewhere like Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, or DR Congo for a couple of years they wouldn’t come back with a new appreciation for Canada? Well, the survivors if there were any, anyway.
Is ready to pass and Joan when you love in one of the best countries in the world. I just think some people need some perspective.
You are ignoring the voices of those with legitimate concerns in this country because you live a comfortable life. Get a grip.
Yes Canada is wonderful. I love this country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else - that being said, you cannot ignore that there is are plenty of glaring issues with this country that are affected a shit ton of people.
Yes, there are problems. Yes, people have legitimate concerns. I just can’t tolerate the, “Canada is a dictatorship” nonsense, or, “Canada is turning into a third world country,” or our white bread, milquetoast right of center Prime Minister and his father are Marxists. People need some perspective.
I was on a flight three years ago where a guy was violently ill. I was in the last row beside the door to the tail head. He went past me with a very full air sickness bag. As we were descending the flight attendant was making more and more frantic announcements that everyone needed to return to their seats so we could land I finally leaned out of my seat, made hard eye contact, and made the sign language sign for vomiting.
Her shoulders fell, she hung up the microphone, inbuilt her seatbelt, stormed to the back of the plane and pounced on the door shouting, "Get back in your seat so we can land. Now! "
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !canada@lemmy.ca
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
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. :(
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.
No body said it was the best country - for a citizen - no no no. Its the best country for giant corporations!
Tired of wood, wetlands, and natives being of the way of your accident waiting to happen pipe line? Go Canada!
Don’t want to commit actual genocide on your native population? Rather isolate them in small communities then poison them with water unfit for even the most hearty of a animals? Go Canada!
Your wealthy friends want to make billions buying and selling green protected land? Go Ontario!
Are the homeless an eye sore to your wealthy friends visiting? Don’t worry, here in Canada we have 6 months of winter to clean up those unwanted eye sores.
So who are you voting for next election?
As someone from the USA it’s sad to see our friend to the north make the same mistakes that helped get us to the sad state we are in ourselves.
Annoyingly, the rightwingnut constituency in your country has been increasingly exporting their bad ideas.
You guys can refuse the shipments but you don’t.
We’re trying, but our efforts are being overwhelmed.
At least your country actually has real business competition and your per capita GDP is going up instead of down
An asteroid in the outer solar system. If we vote hard enough to have it win in our broken FPTP system. it’ll alter course and end this horrible timeline.
If we had a proportional representation system we’d have the majority of the House of Commons controlled through by an agreement agreement between the Liberals and the NDP. Exactly the situation we have now except the seats would be directly owned by the parties instead of representing communities.
Proportional representation is the preferred system for people that understand politics via spreadsheets while completely ignoring power dynamics.
We need an electoral system that doesn’t take power from a large party that most people voted for and give it to a tiny fringe party that almost none voted for. Look at what’s happening in Israel. The most extreme party to get any seats is calling the shots because they hold the balance of power. Wouldn’t Canada be fun if the christofascists or tankies were calling the shots?
Give me some STV! MMP seems to work well for NZ¹. Electoral reform won’t fix everything, but it will allow a path for more adaptability in politics at the very least.
¹ I’m also okay with AV (instant runoff). Is it perfect? No, but let not the perfect be the enemy of the good. AV at least overcomes the spoiler effect, and would allow more diversity of parties. AV does tend to encourage coalitions formed around a centrist party with broad support (probably the Liberals in Canadian federal politics) as they will tend to be the 2nd or 3rd pick, but the balance of other parties in any resulting coalition would tend to drive things. Plus, without the spoiler effect of FPTP there can always be a competitor for the centre. Basically. FPTP is the worst, and although I have my preferences, less bad is still improvement. Also, AV can always serve as a palate cleanser for full STV.
So, like, pieces of paper?
By what mechanism was the paper the giant corporation is written on able to confer the list?
United States is fifth.
Yeah, “best” is a rather vague metric, and in this case, simply bullshit
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?
This has Canada third
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.
It agrees with him, duh.
Fee fees? That’s Sarah Palin talk
I saw some right wing idiot say it and thought it was funny. A delicate snowflake blocked me so I won’t have to listen to his incessant whining about my comments anymore so I call that a win.
Unironic use of “fee fees”. Asshole spotted. Blocking protocol engaged.
Yay! You’ll never respond to anything else that I ever write!
Hey the USA is a great place to live if you make good money. Not a great place to be poor though.
Pretty much. Most of the best Universities in the world. That most of it’s citizens could never afford to attend. Many of the best Hospitals and specialty clinics in the world. That again most of it’s people can’t use.
Most American’s are somewhere in the middle, and I’m sure the median household has more disposable income than most other first world countries, it’s just that the prosperity is so unevenly spread.
Granted, some would speculate that it is because of the unevenness that the US is so prosperous, but I would dispute that. I think the US could go a long long ways towards helping it’s less fortunate without compromising it’s prosperity.
Not sure if the world agrees. You certainly have a lot of universities in the country. Also not sure about best hospitals…
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.
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.
Pretty much. They’re complaining about housing prices and inflation just as much or more in New Zealand, Germany and the UK.
Canada probably is a B- but has the advantage of being next door to the largest economy in the world. Canada is also vast with abundant resources. We were always going to be a prosperous country as long as we can avoid too much corruption (Russia is a more vast country with more abundant resources, but…)
I still think it’s useful to look at other countries that may even be beneath us (according to this list) and borrow liberally from where they exceed us. We are doing about as well as anyone else, but we can do better.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
As a digital nomad, I’m guessing you would have been to relatively low CoL places like Bali, Thailand, maybe Eastern Europe or LatAm. You have to remember that your experience as someone from the global north, earning in a strong currency is very different from a local person there.
Not that i disagree with you that rankings are flawed but by the same token, Canada /is/ in the top 5 for many people from low standard-of-living countries
Typically you’d be right but as a DN I actually spent most of my time in North America and western Europe—mostly in countries people would compare Canada with (UK, France, Spain, Norway, Germany, USA, Australia, etc.). I never went to Asia or South America as a DN. Actually the only time I stepped foot in LatAm was in Panama for a month this past winter.
It really changed my perspective on Canada. I don’t think it’s a bad country at all but I don’t hold it in as high regard as I once did. Every country has its strengths and weaknesses. What those are is different for everyone. Canada is squandering immense potential in my opinion. If it wasn’t for family, there are several places in the USA I would consider living long term instead.
Fair!
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.
That makes me really depressed about the world
I had to click through to see the ratings in each category, and they all seemed reasonable to me aside from Canada’s low rank for “Adventure”. Eco tourism is huge in Canada. People come from all over the world to Canada for outdoor adventure.
Maybe I’m just not a traveler, but that ranking seemed odd to me.
Then again, I don’t live in the continuous urban sprawl of Southern Ontario all along the 401 and up the 400. I guess if you live in Toronto, you’re like 2+ hours from eco tourism destinations, while, in Europe, 2 hours is enough to have the option to go to several other countries.
I wonder if the ecotourism being seasonal knocks off prospective points. You can only comfortably travel the cannuck wilds for ~5 months out of the year, if that.
Maybe east of the rockies. In BC I have friends that go camping all year long. Our mountains are open all year for activities (skiing, snowboarding, etc. in the winter mountain bike, hike, etc. in the summer). Heck, you can ski, bike, surf all in one day on Vancouver Island if you’re so inclined, though it’ll be a long ass day.
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.
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.
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.
I have lived all over the world and I agree. It’s one of the better places in the world but it’s not as great as a lot of Canadians believe
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.
I’ve been to Europe many times, and my experience has been the total opposite of what your girlfriend describes.
Europe is huge. Don’t judge a whole continent for what your girlfriend experience is maybe one or two places.
That’s like saying that North America sucks because your girlfriend got mugged in Juarez, México.
I’ve had similar experiences in several cities in the UK, Austria, Paris, Amsterdam and even a trip out to the nurburgring To be frank, the friendliest Europe experience I’ve had was Kosovo but that was on business vs personal with the rest of them so I’m not sure that didn’t affect my experience in Kosovo.
I agree completely with what you’re saying. Living in a progressive state is a far different experience and we should avoid generalizations of countries without specific context and understanding.
Sounds like Paris.
Paris is the reason I will never do a ‘Europe trip’ ever again. I was robbed, assaulted and the city reeks of piss. Fuck travel.
I spent this summer in France and I had a great time. I will concede that France has a piss problem though.
Well she wasn’t in the nordic countries at least, public transport can be subpar but is almost always servicable and gets you anywhere (we have on-demand minibuses for rural areas), the only part that could apply is being seen as rude because we don’t greet every person within our field of view…
What parts of Europe would that be?
Out of interest, which places in Europe?
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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.
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.
Thanks Trudeau. Can’t get us to #1.
USA #5 and UK #9 lol
us is #5 because of propoganda.
100%, otherwise it would be #1.
I mean, just yesterday there was an article from a French media company about how the US economy and GDP is now 80% larger than Europe’s. Link
The US is really high on this list though specifically due to economic reasons. Not social ones. Although strangely enough there is a bit of an odd section about the US being more adaptable to change than Canada or any other country, which I find kind of strange. Also, the US always ranks high because of the advanced medicine, technology and education. Whether it’s accessible to all or not is really mostly irrelevant to these surveys.
unadulterated economic growth and corporatism is not what makes a country great
Historically what made a country great was its gold reserves and its military might… so like… 90% there? That said I agree that corporations are not what we want and that economic growth should be made to grow at a maintained level rather than unrealistic growth.
Historically, what made countries great was their ability to provide rising standards of living to its citizens. That often results in large gold reserves and military might, but plenty of places with gold and bullets were bad places to live.
But the rich wasn’t us to believe those metrics, so we can ignore how living standards are dropping, indicating that Capitalism has failed to provide a better lifestyle.
So by that logic, Russia and China are right there with USA as the greatest countries? Interesting.
Oh man, that was a good laugh! I’d consider Ukraine more with us on the military might considering the ass they’re kicking. Switzerland can match us on the gold/economic, but I’m not sure how confident I’d be it isn’t stolen, nazi, or Russian (but I can’t say the same about the US’ either). China will probably come close to matching our military might if only because of their population advantage. India is going to be a massive player here shortly (militarily speaking), if not already.
The problem, and I know it’s what people don’t like to hear, is that the US quite literally cannot be beaten economically or militarily. Seriously, read that article I linked, it’s incredible the economic output the US generates. France has the same economy size as Idaho, a state famous for its potatoes and nothing else.
The best military logistics in the world and logistics is what wins wars. The biggest and most powerful economy in the world, even China and Germany have a stuttering economy (and pre-covid I would have pegged them as being on par). The biggest influence regarding culture, the next closest would maybe be Britain, but when it’s English media the US will still dominate. China has some cultural sway, but only within their own borders and even they consume American media like crazy.
It’s hard to say who out there could play a role in being as powerful as the US, and an empire decline is bound to happen. It’s not immune.
I would however put the early Soviet Union for sure up there with the US. They had some amazing technological innovations. The only problem was that a communist government got into an economic war with a capitalist government and that was never going to work well. Slow and steady growth like the Cubans is more the way to do it.
Truly remarkable lol I was not expecting the answer to be “yes, but…” and a compliment for Cuba
Being content or liking how you live didn’t seem to be asked. I think the rankings would look a little different if that was added to the mix.
“Quality of Life” was a category on the survey, although it was only one of ten. Additionally, they were mostly asking the people who were benefitting the most from their society:
So I imagine there were a lot of folks who disagreed with the final rankings, but their opinions were mostly considered irrelevant.
I wonder of you took some of the people complaining about Canada and dropped them somewhere like Sudan, Myanmar, Eritrea, or DR Congo for a couple of years they wouldn’t come back with a new appreciation for Canada? Well, the survivors if there were any, anyway.
Is ready to pass and Joan when you love in one of the best countries in the world. I just think some people need some perspective.
You are ignoring the voices of those with legitimate concerns in this country because you live a comfortable life. Get a grip.
Yes Canada is wonderful. I love this country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else - that being said, you cannot ignore that there is are plenty of glaring issues with this country that are affected a shit ton of people.
Your experience is not the norm.
Yes, there are problems. Yes, people have legitimate concerns. I just can’t tolerate the, “Canada is a dictatorship” nonsense, or, “Canada is turning into a third world country,” or our white bread, milquetoast right of center Prime Minister and his father are Marxists. People need some perspective.
They’d be first if it weren’t for the baby vomit covered airline seats!
Right?
I was on a flight three years ago where a guy was violently ill. I was in the last row beside the door to the tail head. He went past me with a very full air sickness bag. As we were descending the flight attendant was making more and more frantic announcements that everyone needed to return to their seats so we could land I finally leaned out of my seat, made hard eye contact, and made the sign language sign for vomiting.
Her shoulders fell, she hung up the microphone, inbuilt her seatbelt, stormed to the back of the plane and pounced on the door shouting, "Get back in your seat so we can land. Now! "