Canada: World’s Second Best Country, World’s Best Quality of Life

Canada has been named as the second-best country in the world, with the world’s best quality of life, in the latest edition of the ‘Best Countries’ survey from the US News and World Report.

Also scoring highly in categories including ‘Citizenship’ and ‘Open for Business’, Canada sits behind Switzerland in first, with Japan, Germany and Australia rounding out the top five.

The U.K. and the U.S. sit in sixth and seventh respectively in the report.

US News and World Report’s Top 10 ‘Best Countries’

Switzerland
Canada
Japan
Germany
Australia
UK
US
Sweden
Netherlands
Norway

The detailed survey ranks countries in nine main categories, as well as multiple sub-categories, to make up the final score.

Canada finished with a 9.9 out of 10 in securing second place in 2019, after coming out third in the same report in 2018.

Alongside the three categories already mentioned, Canada also scored well for ‘Entrepreneurship’, ‘Cultural Influence’, ‘Power’ and ‘Adventure’.

Its two worst-scoring categories were ‘Movers’ and Heritage’, although both were still in the top 40 of the ranking of 80 countries.

Canada’s Scores In US News and World Report Survey

Category	Score/10	Position
Adventure	4.6	#16
Citizenship	9.9	#2
Cultural Influence	5	#11
Entrepreneurship	8.8	#6
Heritage	2.2	#40
Movers	2.9	#37
Open for Business	8.2	#3
Power	4.5	#12
Quality of Life	10	#1

Canada’s top score of 10 for ‘Quality of Life’ is one it has repeated for a number of years.

Within the category are nine related sub-categories, with Canada scoring 10 for being safe, politically stable, and having a well-developed public health system.

It also recorded significantly high scores for being economically stable (9.9), having a good job market and education system (both 9.8) and being family-friendly (9.2).

How Canada Scored In ‘Quality of Life’ Sub-Categories

Economically stable	9.9
A good job market	9.8
Affordable	0.8
Safe	10
Politically stable	10
Family-friendly	9.2
Well-developed public education system	9.8
Well-developed public health system	10
Income equality	7.7

Colin Singer

Colin Singer is an international acclaimed Canadian immigration lawyer and founder of immigration.ca featured on Wikipedia. Colin Singer is also founding director of the Canadian Citizenship & Immigration Resource Center (CCIRC) Inc. He served as an Associate Editor of ‘Immigration Law Reporter’, the pre-eminent immigration law publication in Canada. He previously served as an executive member of the Canadian Bar Association’s Quebec and National Immigration Law Sections and is currently a member of the Canadian Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Colin has twice appeared as an expert witness before Canada’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration. He is frequently recognized as a recommended authority at national conferences sponsored by government and non-government organizations on matters affecting Canada’s immigration and human resource industries. Since 2009, Colin has been a Governor of the Quebec Bar Foundation a non-profit organization committed to the advancement of the profession, and became a lifetime member in 2018.