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Other international finalists include the Great Barrier Reef, the Galapagos, and the Amazon Rainforest. The contest is being organized by The New7Wonders Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Switzerland.
Attracting migrants
According to the Conference Board of Canada’s report City Magnets II: Benchmarking the Attractiveness of 50 Canadian Cities, only six Canadian cities have the attributes migrants are looking for when they’re choosing where to locate – and the oldest city of North America is one of them. “St. John’s has achieved a strong productivity level that even surpasses that of Calgary and Edmonton. It is also a stellar performer in health and environment categories,” said the report.
The 50 cities included in the study were ranked on their performance on 41 indicators grouped across seven categories: society, health, economy, environment, education, innovation, and housing. The challenge in determining overall attractiveness is that when individuals are choosing a new city, they value attributes of city living differently. Weights were computed for each of the seven categories. For migrants with a university degree, the Education category matters the most (21 per cent) in the decision to locate, followed by Society (20 per cent), Innovation (19 per cent) and Economy (13 per cent). Migrants without a university education consider, in an overwhelming fashion, that the Economy category matters the most (33 per cent) and followed by Society (20 per cent).
“In deciding where to live, university-educated migrants prefer cities with higher Education and Society outcomes. Migrants without a university education place more value on a city’s economic strength,” said Mario Lefebvre, Director, Centre for Municipal Studies. “However, the study shows that a city that is attractive to a certain type of migrant ends up being attractive to all, so policy makers must be cautious in crafting policies aimed at attracting university graduates only.”
| City Attractiveness to Migrants | |||
| City | All Migrants Grade | University Educated Migrants Grade | Non-university Educated Migrants Grade |
| Calgary | A | A | A |
| Waterloo | A | A | A |
| Ottawa | A | A | A |
| Richmond Hill | A | A | A |
| Waterloo | A | A | A |
| Vancouver | A | A | A |
| St. John’s | A | A | A |
| Edmonton | B | B | A |
| Victoria | B | B | B |
| Markham | B | B | B |
| Vaughan | B | B | B |
| Kingston | B | B | B |
| Oakville | B | B | B |
| Guelph | B | B | B |
| Toronto | B | B | B |
| London | B | B | B |
| Halifax | B | B | B |
| Lévis | B | B | B |
| Regina | B | C | B |
| Québec City | B | B | B |
| Burlington | B | B | B |
| Sherbrooke | C | C | C |
| Winnipeg | C | C | C |
| Gatineau | C | C | C |
| Missauga | C | B | C |
| Richmond | C | C | C |
| Kitchener | C | C | C |
| Burnaby | C | C | C |
| Coquitlam | C | C | C |
| Barrie | C | D | C |
| Saskatoon | C | C | C |
| Moncton | C | C | C |
| Abbotsford | C | C | C |
| Brampton | C | D | C |
| Kelowna | C | D | C |
| Montréal | C | C | C |
| Thunder Bay | C | C | C |
| Peterborough | C | C | C |
| Surrey | C | D | C |
| St. Catharine’s | C | C | C |
| Sudbury | C | C | C |
| Hamilton | C | C | C |
| Cambridge | D | D | C |
| Laval | D | D | D |
| Trois-Rivières | D | D | D |
| Windsor | D | D | D |
| Brantford | D | D | D |
| Saguenay | D | D | D |
| Longueuil | D | D | D |
| Saint John | D | D | D |
| Oshawa | D | D | D |
Source: The Conference Board of Canada.
