Canada - 2nd best country in the world according to the 2017 Best Countries report by U.S. News

Moving to another country is not simple at all. Especially if the country is located on another continent. We believe, that it is very important to realize how difficult the whole process is. Even more important is to get enough motivation to achieve the goal, which for many of the people reading this article is to immigrate to Canada. Before reading on how you can move here, you should ask yourself if you really want to do this, if it's worth your effort. In this article we will present some of the topics covered in the 2017 Best Countries report and hopefully this will help you to get an idea of what you should expect after you settle here. We chose this report because it is very reliable (more than 21,000 people are being surveyed from around the world) and it is very easy to follow.




As you've noticed from the title, Canada has been ranked as a second best country in 2017. It hasn't changed since 2016. There are many reasons for that and in this article we will present the most important categories in our opinion as we believe that these few aspects of life are very important for majority of people.

The ranking itself is a very long document, and unfortunately we do not have enough time to comment on every single attribute from the report. A link to the actual report will be provided at the bottom of the article for those who wish to read the full report.

Now, lets focus on the most important category, which in our opinion is the quality of life. In the ranking, Canada has been ranked as a country with the highest quality of life in the world. This is why millions of people think and hundreds of thousands of people immigrate to this country every year. Some of the individual attributed in this category are presented below:

1) Economical stability (9.9/10)
    
If you follow the news, you probably know what a recession is. For those who don't, it's simply a negative economic growth for two consecutive quarters. If that happens, many people tend to loose jobs or they are forced to accept lower salary in order to keep their jobs. This is why it is so important to live in a country that has adequate procedures in place to prevent and cope with recession if it occurs. Certainly, Canada is one of these countries. The last recession we experienced was in 2008 and lasted just 7 months. Surprisingly, the United States needed one more year than Canada to recover from that recession.

2) A good job market (10/10)

Canada has definitely a good job market. Obviously, not all cities in Canada have as many jobs as Toronto, Vancouver or Calgary, but overall it is not too difficult to get a job here. Of course, the difficulty rises with the quality of work and earnings. Labour jobs  in most cities are easy to find. I personally, have not heard about a person in construction or the restaurant industry that could not find a job for more than two weeks. In many cases people can get another labour job within a week or so. It's a little bit different however when people have to high expectations or when talking about office jobs. There is definitely more applicants than jobs available. In order to get this type of work, you need to show the employer that you are the best candidate. How to do this? There will be another article on this blog about job hunting where you will find some tips. In addition, we do provide services that help immigrant to find employment.

3) Affordable (0.8/10)

Although it's the second best country in the world, it also has some disadvantages. One of them is the cost of living here. Many people do not find it affordable to live here. This is because the Canadian dollar is pretty strong and the costs of living are not that low. However, once you settle down and get a good job, it's not that scary anymore. Most of our friends have been able to pay all their bills and save some money in early stages of their careers. These people however spent their money wisely. Certainly, there are people who would say that income of $100,000 a year is not enough. It all depends on your needs. There will be another article about prices in Canada published soon

4) Safe (9.7/10) & Politically Stable (10/10)

Canada is definitely a safe country. This is partly because any type of violence or crime is not being tolerated at all. On the other hand, most people realize that they are lucky to live in a country with such a high standard of living and do not want to waste this opportunity by doing something irresponsible or illegal. Obviously, we do have prisons and criminals here too, but the crime rates are much lower than the ones in some of the states for instance.

When it comes to political stability, Canada scores 10/10 and it's hard to disagree with this result. It's a democratic country with several strong parties. Since 2015, Canada has a liberal government that is positively approached towards immigrants. In the last two years, there have been several changes made to the immigration law that make it easier to become permanent residents for certain types of immigrants.

5) Well-developed public education system (10/10)

The education system is probably one of the most important things for all of us. The system we have here is very effective. It's a little bit different from the old model of school where students need to study literally everything, even things that are not relevant to their specialization. In Canada, it's different. Students in high school have general subjects and can choose additional courses based on their interests. For instance, people interested in business don't have to take advanced chemistry or biology, but may choose advanced mathematics or accounting. Later in college and university, most of the programs are career oriented and students are learning things that they will actually use in the future at work. There is a lot of group work and practical assignment that prepare students very well for the real world.

In addition, many programs are offered in a cooperative education mode. What it means is that students are required to gain work experience in their field of study before they graduate. The school helps students to get the employment, however it's not guaranteed that each student will secure the job. From my own experience, I can tell that co-op experience gained during studies helps enormously with finding employment after graduation. Therefore I strongly recommend this option to everyone thinking about post-secondary education.

Besides getting employment after graduation, diploma or degree from a Canadian school helps foreigners to become a permanent resident of this country.

6) Well-developed public health system (9.6/10)

Another important factor for everybody is the health care system. Since Canadian education is considered as one of the best in the world, we do have top-quality doctors as well. What's even more important, all permanent residents and citizens have free access to most of the medical services.

These are the most important attributes in this category in our opinion. Now we will briefly talk about other significant categories included in the report.

Citizenship 

We believe that everybody would like to live in a country where property rights are respected, all people are considered equal regardless of their nationality, religion or sex preference, and where enough attention is being paid to human rights. Luckily, we got it all in Canada and so it has been marked very high in this category as well.

Entrepreneurship & Business Opportunities

Lastly, lets focus on the business side. Why is it so important in our opinion? It is because it's one of the factors that motivates immigrants the most. Often people treat immigration as kind of an investment of time and capital. Therefore they expect some kind of return on that investment in the future. Knowing that they are not likely to run a successful business because of improper practices or corrupted government, people would simply choose either another country or to stay where they have lived so far. Fortunately, no such thing exists in Canada and it's a relatively business-friendly. Easy access to capital, transparent business practices, skilled labour force and well-developed legal framework are just a few examples of things that make life easier for entrepreneurs. It is relatively easy to run a business here. Although the ranking does not mention this aspect, we believe that all people interested in coming here should know that opening a business in most cases takes no more than half an hour and can be done on the internet. Of course there are certain types of businesses which require certain permits and licenses, but in most cases opening a business is as simple as described above. The tax rules in Canada are also more favorable to businesses than to regular employees. Certain deductions and taxes have been introduced to encourage people to open new businesses.

The things we have commented on in this article are just a small part of the report. The full version can be found here: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries

The top 20 countries are presented below:

1. Switzerland

2. Canada

3. United Kingdom

4. Germany

5. Japan

6. Sweden

7. United States

8. Australia

9. France

10. Norway

11. Netherlands

12. Denmark

13. Finland

14. New Zealand

15. Singapore

16. Italy

17. Luxembourg

18. Austria

19. Spain

20. China

We hope that the information provided helps immigrants to make one of the most important decisions in their lives, and makes people already living here even more optimistic about the country.




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