this is the ultimate comparison of all Canadian provinces and territories we will rank them all from the worst to the best and share some mind-blowing findings along the way there are 10 provinces and three territories it's quite a lot so we will take a structured approach to this one that's objectively helpful for anyone curious about how every Province Compares so how can we possibly rank all the provinces and territories if we haven't been to the most of them well between the two of us we've visited five out of the 10 Canadian provinces and three territories so we can't rely solely on our personal experiences what we can rely on though is research and statistics just like you would if you were researching provinces on your own except well we'll do the work for you we will do more than just associating the province with its biggest city because Ontario in the end of the day is not just Toronto and BC is not just Vancouver there will always be outliers in each province and they will want to steal the show and drag the statistics of the whole Province up or down we will be mind full of that and we will rank the promises from the best to the worst you can see these categories on the screen there are eight of them we will use a scoring system from 1 to 5 if you take a moment now and click the like button below this video I will show you how to personalize this table for your own needs get ready for some eye openers along the way okay let's get started [Music] when moving to a new place the main thing that we will have to consider is job opportunities unless you have your own business of course or you can work remotely job opportunities greatly shape a region 566,000 this is the number of job vacancies in Canada in September 2024 and the job vacancy rate across Canada is at 3. 2% the higher the number the more jobs are out there up for grabs these numbers change on a daily basis this is going to be our starting point to evaluate each province more objectively these are the key Industries in Canada once an oil and gas and natural resources country Canada's economy has relied on real estate and rentals a lot recently since the country is struggling with the housing crisis construction is a major industry in many provinces here this is what the most prominent Industries in each province look like this list helps figure out where we can have the best career prospects if we're evaluating which province to move to for example if you work in mining or oil and gas then Alberta BC sasketchewan New Finland Nova Scotia Northwest Territories and Nuna wood are great if you're in Agriculture and Forestry then Saskatchewan New Finland New Brunswick and pii are more suitable for you and if you are in Tech then the most suitable provinces would be Ontario Quebec and BC now let's look at the job vacancy rate statistic again this is the number of job postings per Province we know that the bigger the province the more people there are that's why the third column is so important in this table the job vacancy rate a higher job vacancy rate indicates more opportunities and less competition giving you a better chance of Landing a job in that Province so for the job opportunities category we're ranking each province based on this rate this is shocking but both Yukon and Northwest Territories are getting the highest score this is explained by their small populations and high demand for skilled workers in specific Industries like mining transportation and oil and guas pei and Saskatchewan and Manitoba closed the top five with a high demand for workers in agriculture health care and Manufacturing Industries unfortunately it was impossible to find this test for nunut so it gets zero points here this ranking would be incomplete without pairing it with the unemployment rates in each province these are the numbers for April 2024 the unemployment top three provinces list looks slightly different from the job vacancy rate which is mostly driven by the difference between jobs demand and the size of the job Seeker pool so with these two averages here's the ranking of provinces based purely on job opportunities Yukon gets the first place because it has the smallest unemployment rate and the best job vacancy rate this this is explained by the remoteness of the region harsh climate and low population as a result BC is a much more livable Province than Yukon or Northwest Territories for many so it's actually pretty nice to see it in the top three this is a really important ranking to look at if you're moving to Canada sure Alberta or Ontario are popular destinations for immigration but that also drives the competition up with the currently challenging job market the best decision that you might make is choosing where to live based on your job prospects not which provin is the most part popular one you are probably wondering what about the salary well these are the average salaries across provinces but it doesn't matter that much what matters more is how much money you have left over so let's look at the cost of living this was the hardest to calculate because there are so many variables to consider for the purpose of this video we decided to keep things simple and looked at the most popular cities cost of living per one person without rent and rent for one bedroom apartment and average salary in that City we've cross-compared numbers from several sources where we could get both statistical data and personal opinions and experiences but before we begin there are three important things to consider as we evaluate this first the smaller the city the harder it is to collect reliable information people also tend to understate salaries that they report online and this Statistics can get outdated quickly and your actual cost of living can be different from what what you see here depending on your life choices of course like how often do you cook versus eating out or whether you drive or go to the gym so here are the three main things that we've learned about Canada's cost of living first if the town is small it doesn't necessarily have a cheaper rent for example if we look at Ontario cities you will see that Toronto is the absolute outlier and then rent prices gradually go down the further you go away from the city but then there's Asha and Barry and 12 same with Alberta there is Calgary but suddenly rent prices in Aidry and Spruce grow stand out the reason is proximity to the city's outliers Oshawa Barry and guf are relatively close to Toronto and easy for commute especially thanks to Goat trains gu is also conveniently close to kiter and watero region huge student Hub same for a Dry in Alberta it's just a 30-minute drive away from Calgary and Spruce growth is close to Edmonton this means that the housing crisis forces people to move out to smaller cities raising prices in smaller communities around especially if the city has good infrastructure amenities and accessibility another interesting observation is that it's damn expensive to live in the North I didn't believe it at first but then I saw confirmations of this from different sources you could be paying over $2,000 for rent in small towns like Yellow Knife a CWI and white horse now it makes sense why Northwest Territories Yukon and Nuna would have some of the highest average annual salaries in Canada otherwise forget it nobody on Earth would consider living or working there another interesting point is when looking at the rent prices across different cities and towns we also noticed that there aren't that many rentals in smaller towns most people own a home in smaller places and if you're lucky to find a rental a smaller town rental will look rather different than a high-rise condo with a gym from the big city now these prices are just samples you can go cheaper than that and leave in a basement or share rent with your roommates so we use the average salary and expenses and rent prices that's how we've built this cost of living to salary table if you're interested in seeing a more detailed breakdown for province per major city we will leave the link to download this table in the description box below so you can take a closer look and play with the numbers turns out Albert New Brunswick Yukon Saskatchewan and Quebec are the most affordable all this is largely thanks to a good balance between income and reasonable rent prices New Brunswick is a Hidden Gem which is starting to change we're starting to hear people complaining about growing rent prices but it's still more affordable than places like Northwest Territories BC Ontario and newfinland isn't it surprising that BC and Ontario are not in the bottom of the list what's Curious is that many top Nova Scotia nun and Prince Edward Island are the least affordable provinces as I see it Manitoba has a low average salary Nova Scotia has been promoted for immigration so much that it's become expensive while salaries haven't cut up yet many Canadians also moved to the province during pandemic thanks to their remote work so they brought higher salaries with them driving rent Up N of it is expensive because it is simply remote everything is at least 30% more expensive here gas groceries and other purchases but what about pii it's largely an agricultural province with low salaries and since it's an island many goods are expensive too though less expensive than UPN North when we do our city and Province comparisons on this channel one thing that we tend to overlook based on the feedback that you give us is safety and why do you think that is well for me anywhere in Canada is safe by default that's because we grew up in the '90s in Russia if you know what that feels like hit the like button below if you haven't already and share the pain with us so let's look at safety let's start by looking at the crime severity Index this index includes all criminal code items like traffic violations drug violations and federal statutes the way this index is measured is based on number of crimes and how bad they are more serious crimes are assigned higher weights and less serious offenses have lower weights as a result more serious offenses have a greater impact on changes in the index in our case the lower the index the safer the province is Ontario Quebec pii and Nova Scotia are objectively the safest provinces I've heard that Prince Edward Island locals used to joke that the most significant crimes on the island involve disputes over lobster fishing or speeding on a cynic Rural Road used to yeah unfortunately Pi has been struggling with cyber crime huh police are trying to keep up with online crimes during the rapid population growth in the province there is a surge in internet based crimes including fraud harassment and threats stay vigilant out there guys Northwest Territories and Nuna have the worst crime so they get one point in this category interestingly the crime index statistic may look inflated here for these provinces and territories but it doesn't mean that these places are dangerous first smaller communities are simply more likely to report even minor crimes people know each other so incidents that might typically go unreported in larger cities like a minor dispute or theft are much more likely to be formally reported in smaller communities here also curiously the colder it is the more likely people are to drink which also creates a unique social Dynamic what were you doing on my property last night alcohol rated crimes for example make up a significant portion of offenses up north this ties into broader social and systemic issues like limited access to resources Health Care and housing one of the top reasons for population growth in the cities is presence or Prestige of educational institutions according to the best Global universities publication 17 of Canada's best universities in the list are in Ontario in fact half of the top 10 universities belong to Ontario we recently covered University of water in our city deep dive into kiter so make sure you check it out the amount of so many prominent institutions make Ontario number one destination for international students and it's also one of the reasons why so much research and development is happening here Ontario definitely deserves Five Points here Quebec is next with eight universities making the list of the best Global universities and Alberta closes the top three provinces in education with three of Canada's best universities now did you know that the University of brunic established in 1785 is the oldest English-speaking University in Canada there are two primary campuses in frederickton and St John the unb is also a leader in cyber security research in Canada with a dedicated Canadian Institute for cyber security on its frederickton campus maybe they could help Pi with their cyber security [Music] crimes infrastructure is something that you don't always notice when it's good but definitely get frustrated if it's not good it forms the backbone of economic growth and our quality of life from Transportation networks and energy systems to health care facilities and digital connectivity strong infrastructure enables provinces to thrive by attracting investment and job creation when we compare the provinces in this category we noticed a significant disparity in development and investment that explains a lot the trends in each region for this category we will look at infrastructure statistic Hub it shows the value of infrastructure stock by province this pretty much sums up all the assets a province has from sports facilities airports hospitals libraries to water and sewage infrastructure and of course rows communication networks and electric power grids by looking at numbers and the statistics we can see that Ontario has the highest value of infrastructure stock while Northwest Territories Pi Yukon and nunit have the lowest obviously this connects directly to the population numbers the more populous The Province the higher the chance that there will be let's say a hospital to treat a rare condition or more than one or even two international airports so in this category Ontario gets five points for infrastructure and Quebec and Alberta closing off the top three there are more in-depth ways to measure infrastructure like accessibility or condition ratings but we won't get into that right now but we have a fun fact to share the Confederation Bridge built to link Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick is the longest bridge in the world over ice covered Waters it spans nearly 13 km which is 8 mil opened in 1997 is become a vital infrastructure project that helped boost tourism and imports exports in the [Music] province Healthcare in Canada is the delivered by each province individually and that means that the quality of healthcare can differ drastically among provinces the main Health Care aspects we will look at here is waiting times which means how long it takes to get the medical attention you need just waiting times alone can tell us so much about the province's ability to manage the healthcare access so let's look at how long it takes for seeing a doctor to get in an actual treatment according to the Fraser Institute report in Ontario it takes 12. 7 weeks to see a specialist after talking to your family doctor and then 10.
9 more weeks to get a treatment after seeing a specialist these are the median numbers which means that it's the middle value where half of the waiting times are shorter and half are longer in this case it's providing a much more accurate measure of central tendency than just an average number here which could be skewed by very long weights for example when trying to find the statistic in territories we couldn't find data on weight times but we did did come across this abstract unfortunately there is nothing on the territorial websites so basically Northern Territories don't track the wait time data we did find this article it says that the find a family doctor program in Yukon was launched by the territorial government just 2 years ago and a wait list to see a family doctor is 2 years people living in territories share on Reddit that majority are used to going to Walkin clinics instead of seeing a family doctor hospitals are understaff and sometimes to see a specialist and get a treatment people are advised to travel to Southern Ontario if you're from nun or Edmonton if you're from Northwest Territories so since it's impossible to see way time statistics in the same way provinces report them we will give these territories zero points in this category Ontario Quebec and BC have the most optimal weight times compared to the rest of Canada culture and entertainment is what makes a pro 's fun or a dread to leave in festivals concerts museums and galleries not only enre our lives but also make each province unique and worth coming to in this category we will look at the availability of festivals and events concerts and music scenes and museums and galleries across Canada's provinces and territories how do you measure culture and entertainment well this one was a hard one I've spent countless hours counting and listing different festivals in each province and and territory this category is rather straightforward if you don't over complicate it because the level of culture and entertainment is directly tied to the size of the main cities larger cities are more interesting to touring artists sports leagues and major festivals that gives provinces like Ontario and Quebec a clear wi that also leaves Pei Yukon and Northwest Territories and nevot with just one point each because nothing ever happens there aside from the Northern Lights you might also say that this is very subjective and I totally agree some people don't really care about some Rib Festival or half a moon rising celebration but they do want to have the ability to see Taylor Swift without being forced to travel across the country it could go another way too you might not care about big stars or concerts overcrowded exhibitions and museums and F festivals but what you do really care about is peace and quiet nature hiking and camping so let's talk about that [Music] next Canada's wild nature is one of its most defining features offering breathtaking Landscapes and endless opportunities for outdoor exploration each province and territory plays an impressive role in preserving this natural beauty through protected areas such as National and provincial parks Wildlife reserves and IND ous protected areas in this category we will examine the amount of protected territory in each region highlighting their commitment to save gardien biodiversity and maintaining spaces where nature thrives the effort to protect nature for future Generations are a lot more important than some Taylor Swift concert on average Canada strives to have about 133% of its land protected some provinces and territories do better and some not so much but are working on reaching at least a 133% goal that's actually set by the Canadian government this is the percent of protected land area in each province and territory and wow youon is an absolute winner here with more than 21% of its land and fresh water as a protected territory well done Yukon having a small population and a remote location keeps humans with their stinky cars and axes away I'd love to visit Yukon one day it is home to the largest non-polar ice field in the world the St ellias ice fields located in the cluan national park and Reserve this sing Wilderness is also a UNESCO world heritage site and it hosts remarkable variety of wildlife which includes grizzly bears doll sheep wolves and over 180 species of birds the Park's pristine Landscapes are a Haven for adventure Seekers and nature enthusiasts it offers a glimpse into one of the most untouched ecosystems on Earth moving down south and east Pi New Finland and lab and Saskatchewan have the least nature to offer Pi is a tiny island with only 4. 9% of their territory protected but New Finland and Saskatchewan these provinces have a more vast land and it's not like Saskatchewan lacks natural beauty it boasts sprawling prairies vibrant wetlands and unique grasslands yet only 6.