Canada's smartest cities

How dumb do you think Canadians are? The answer may come as an unpleasant surprise. A new report by the Canadian Council on Learning shows that, for the first time since the organization started measuring what it calls “lifelong learning” in communities across the country—which reflects everything from university completion and museum attendance to participation in sports and volunteerism—the national average score has actually dropped. Visit the art gallery? Forget it. Pick up an actual newspaper? No, thanks. Canadian cities, it appears, are getting dumb and dumber. And given that a city’s performance on this lifelong learning index seems to go hand in hand with economic success, some are wondering what this tumble may foreshadow. “Learning plays such an important role in the social and economic resilience of the country that I think we really need to pay attention to this,” says Paul Cappon, president and chief executive of the Ottawa-based non-profit corporation.

Until now, Canada’s score had been on the upswing, from 76 in 2007 to 77 last year. Today that number has dropped to 75, precariously close to the lowest level recorded, which was 73, in 2006. The figures are based on the annual Composite Learning Index, which gives every Canadian community (some 4,719 in all) a score according to how it supports lifelong learning. It’s broadly defined by four categories or “pillars” that were originally developed by UNESCO: learning to know (which encompasses access to schools and literacy levels), learning to live together (religious activity and the level of interaction between people from diverse cultures), learning to do (workplace and vocational training), and learning to be (engagement with the arts, sports, media). And taken together, the categories correspond with economic indicators like unemployment rates and incomes.

Also at Maclean’s.ca Quebec vs. Windsor: A tale of two cities and their lessons of economic resilience — And see how your hometown ranks on the learning index

This year, the place that came out on top is the ebullient city of Calgary, up from third last year. It is closely followed by Victoria and Saskatoon. But even Calgary, with a score of 89, has gotten dumber since a year ago, when it achieved an impressive 92. In fact, most of the smartest major cities have seen their scores dip since 2008: Ottawa, Victoria, Regina, Edmonton, Halifax, Guelph and Kitchener, Ont. Meanwhile, many of last year’s lowest scores have only gotten worse, especially in places such as Moncton and Trois-Rivières. Across the country, more than half of all communities (large, small and rural) have seen their numbers fall. And not a single place scored 90 or higher, compared with 55 in 2008.

All of this is troubling, say observers, because at the end of the day, learning opportunities are what a city needs to thrive. Lifelong learning isn’t about creating a warm and fuzzy civic feeling, they argue, or establishing an air of sophistication. The fact that individuals, say, volunteer and use libraries actually improves a community’s safety and quality of life. The CCL has evidence that cities with low scores experience an ugly mix of problems, including higher crimes rates, poorer population health, lower voter participation, and more unemployment. This is why the index is so exciting, and Canada is being hailed as a pioneer for developing it. The European Union and German group Bertelsmann Stiftung are using the CLI as a model to measure lifelong learning in their own communities. The first results will be released this summer, and Cappon hopes that next year Canada will be able to compare its performance with that of those nations.

Cappon and others believe that lifelong learning—especially the kind gained through the arts and culture—is more important now than ever. These experiences, they say, anchor individuals to a place so that when economic disaster strikes or a local industry goes kaput or a community tragedy occurs, the whole place doesn’t simply collapse. The big question now is, can a city that has a healthy learning score bounce back better from crisis? Could going to local theatre and playing community soccer actually improve your financial well-being and your city’s too? And how much less of a chance do cities with low scores have at thriving?

If you’re surprised to hear that Calgary is Canada’s smartest city, its mayor, Dave Bronconnier, understands. Stereotypes are pervasive. “Calgary gets brushed with that ‘Oh, it’s just a bunch of oil guys running around with a lot of money.’ ” And then there are the Stampede jokes. Last year, when Calgary turned out to be the most cultured city in the country—measured by the proportion of households that spent money on experiencing the arts and print material—radio talk shows were alight with calls from acrimonious non-Albertans who couldn’t believe their city had been outranked by the nation’s beef capital. One huffy caller, in contesting the idea that Calgarians were an enlightened lot, actually referred to them as “cowbells.” That places such as Montreal, which has long relished its international status as a bastion of fine arts, scored much lower than Calgary only added to the confusion, which sometimes bordered on indignation.

In some ways there’s a temptation to shrug off Calgary’s success as being just about money. It can afford to invest in museums and performances, and boasts well-off residents who can enjoy them. But a prominent feature shared by many of the smartest cities this year isn’t just that they are the biggest and richest places, but rather, they are growing. Guelph and Barrie, Ont., for instance, or Kelowna, B.C., far outranked large, urban centres such as Toronto and Vancouver. Barrie is actually Canada’s fastest-growing city, as revealed by the 2006 census, followed immediately by Calgary. Meanwhile, many of the places with the lowest scores, which tend to be in Quebec, have dwindling populations. For the second year in a row, Saguenay, Que., has ranked last among major cities. Like the rest of the province, the city has a low birth rate, and many young people leave Saguenay for work or leisure elsewhere. Last year, La Presse newspaper dubbed it “the unemployment capital of Quebec.”

It’s true that the connection between a city’s wealth and its lifelong learning is circular—cities with more opportunities produce more educated residents who earn more money, which they spend locally, thereby helping the city and its businesses prosper, and funnelling money back into the community. Bronconnier doesn’t discount the importance of a strong economy in creating a successful community. To him, learning opportunities are the first and most important step. “The higher the level of education, the more positive for the economy, the stronger the community,” he explains.