CERTIFIED CANADIAN IMMIGRATION LAW SPECIALIST
Canada "Best Place to Live" Third Year in a Row
CERTIFIED CANADIAN IMMIGRATION LAW SPECIALIST
Canada "Best Place to Live" Third Year in a Row
Calgary Herald - July 16, 1996
Jim Bronskill
Southam Newspapers
OttawaCanada has landed atop the United Nations list of best places to live for the third straight year.
Its strong commitment to education, an enviable health system and the ability to generate wealth attributed to the ranking.
But the UN also points out Canada has room for improvement in closing the gap between the rich and poor, ensuring young people have jobs and protecting the environment.
The 1996 Human Development Report to be officially released today, places Canada first among 174 countries, ahead of the United States, Japan and the Netherlands. The rankings are based on life expectancy, health, education and standard of living.
The report says the global gap between haves and have-nots is widening every day, with 89 countries worse off economically than they were 10 years ago. In some cases, people are poorer than 30 years ago.
The UN has calculated the rankings for seven years, placing Canada first in 1992, '94 and '95.
However, Canada drops to second on this year's list, behind Sweden, when inequalities between men and women are taken into account. Canada has moved up from ninth last year, mainly because of new, more reliable data on incomes, rather than actual gains.
Overall, the average life expectancy in Canada in 1993 was 77.5 years, exceeding the average among industrial countries of 74.3 years.
Canada ranked seventh in terms of the average person's purchasing power, despite slow economic growth in recent years.
The stagnation has placed Canada among the more than seven dozen countries in poorer economic shape than a decade ago.
Other thorns on Canada's report card:
There has been great inequality in income distribution. From 1981 to 1993, the lowest 40 percent of households had only a 17.5 percent share of Canada's total income.
The jobless rate of 11.2 percent was well above the country average of 7.4 percent. And in the early 1990s youth unemployment hit 20 percent.
Canada ranked fourth-worst among top industrialized nations at recycling paper and cardboard between 1990 and 1993.
The human development index measures a country's achievement in terms of life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted real income.
HIGH HUMAN DEVELOPMENT LOW HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 1. Canada 1. Niger 2. U.S.A. 2. Sierra Leone 3. Japan 3. Somalia 4. Netherlands 4. Mali 5. Norway 5. Burkina Faso
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