the CanadaVisa Team - 17 August, 2017
Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary are among the top five most livable cities in the world, according to The Economist magazine's Global Livability Report for 2017. The report ranks 140 cities based on their quality of life across five categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.
Melbourne and Vienna occupy the top two places, followed by Vancouver in third and Toronto in fourth, while Calgary shares fifth spot with Adelaide. This is the third year in a row in which Vancouver, Toronto, and Calgary, respectively, have held these exact places within the ranking. Perth, Auckland, Helsinki, and Hamburg complete the top 10.
In the study's unique points system, Vancouver is ranked just 0.2 percentage points behind Melbourne, with Toronto only 0.3 percentage points behind the Australian city.
The three Canadian cities all scored full marks (100 percent) for healthcare and education. In addition, Toronto and Calgary both scored full marks for stability, and Vancouver scored full marks for culture and environment.
The report states that the Brexit vote and policies of US President Donald Trump have led to many cities in the United Kingdom and the United States falling in the ranking. Security and stability concerns were also mentioned as mitigating factors in the report.
The three Canadian cities have each proven particularly attractive to immigrants over recent years. Around half of Toronto's population is foreign-born, with Vancouver not far behind. Immigrants to Canada arrive either as economic migrants, through family sponsorship programs, or through refugee and humanitarian programs.
Canada's Immigration Levels Plan for 2017 shows that around 57 percent of the 300,000 newcomers expected to settle as permanent residents this year will be through the economic category, with the federal Express Entry system being the main driver of that effort.
