Brandon makes impressive rebound in MoneySense ranking of Canada’s best places to live

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This article was published 06/07/2017 (3400 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Access to medical care, healthy population growth, and city walkability were three factors that helped Brandon bounce back in this year’s nationwide MoneySense ranking.

The online investment and lifestyle magazine released Canada’s Best Places to Live this week, which ranked the Wheat City No. 50 out of 417 cities and towns across the country.

“The fact that (Brandon) moved up to 50 is actually even more impressive this year because we did add 200 cities into the mix,” said Mark Brown, MoneySense senior editor.

Last year’s list had Brandon in the No. 82 spot, out of 219 cities.

MoneySense ranked each community across 36 separate categories, and were able to expand the list significantly this year.

“We thought it was a great opportunity to finally expand it to almost the entire country,” Brown said. “Basically every community, down to a population of 9,000 is now included in our list.”

Another key factor in Brandon’s rise is an improvement to our unemployment rate. MoneySense estimates it is now 7.7 per cent, down from last year’s 10.2 per cent.

“That’s one thing that certainly helped the city,” Brown said. “It’s still a little on the high side, relative to all the communities we’re looking at (it’s 315th), but last year it was close to the bottom of our list.”

Brandon’s population increased by 6.2 per cent since 2012, exceeding both the national and provincial growth rates. Brown explained that an ideal number is 1.7 per cent per year, and Brandon is at roughly 1.5 per cent annually.

“We look to population growth because it gives us an indication that the city is attracting people, there’s a reason people are moving to this city … there’s something that people are gravitating to,” Brown said. “If a city’s shrinking, that’s usually a negative sign, that people just can’t find jobs, or there’s nothing keeping people in the city.”

When it comes to accessing health care, Brandon is in the top 25th percentile. There are two doctors per 1,000 people in Brandon. In addition, 7.8 per cent of the population is employed in the health-care field.

“That’s good enough for ninth in the country,” Brown said. “That’s a really high mark, so that tells us that there is good health care in that particular part of the country.”

Brandon did well in the walkability category as well, which includes biking and transit. The number of people taking public transit to work is just under three per cent, while the number of people who bike to work is just under one per cent. More than five per cent of Brandonites walk to work.

“That tells us that the city is fairly easy to get around,” Brown said. “It’s a walkable city, it’s a city that you don’t feel like you have to jump in the car to do anything.”

In addition to the full ranking of 417 communities, MoneySense also analyzed cities for various “Top 100” lists.

Brandon came in at No. 5 in the Top 100 Places for New Canadians. Brown said part of the analysis looks at how many residents speak a different language, other than French or English. In Brandon, that is 20 per cent of the community.

“That’s good enough for 62nd rank overall in the country,” he said. “The more diverse a community is, the more likely they’ll find a social network.”

Other factors for this list were health care, crime rates, rental rates, etc.

“We want communities that offer strong economies so that if someone’s locating there, they have a better chance of finding a job,” Brown said.

Mayor Rick Chrest said he was pleased to see the city’s high ranking in the top places for new Canadians.

“Brandon has become quite a lot more multicultural over the last decade or so, and we feel we’re very open and welcoming,” he said.

Brandon ranked No. 25 on the Top 100 Places to Retire — one spot ahead of Kelowna, B.C. Once again, access to health care is considered, as well as tax rates and walkability. They also look at access to an airport and weather.

Sandy Trudel, the city’s director of economic development, said the annual report reinforces what Brandon residents already know.

“Westman has always used Brandon as a retirement area,” she said, which brings with it necessary services such as health care and a variety of housing options.

The positive attributes mentioned by MoneySense are what Brandonites experience every day, Trudel said, adding they are the exact features that the city sells when they are marketing the community to new residents.

Both Trudel and Chrest say they take any sort of ranking with a grain of salt.

“I don’t get overly excited when the rankings are high, and conversely I don’t get overly excited when they’re low,” Trudel said. “It’s difficult to do an annual comparison when the criteria and the cities and everything keep changing.”

Trudel said she was not surprised at Brandon’s No. 5 ranking for new Canadians, and noted the city has welcomed close to 7,000 newcomers over the past decade.

“That speaks to a lot of the openness and the willingness of Brandon to embrace newcomers,” she said. “But it also speaks partly to the fact that we’ve developed a very strong service orientation that allows newcomers to successfully, not only settle, but stay.”

Chrest said there is always room for improvement, and they will continue to work for the betterment of the community.

“We’re always trying to just have the most livable city that we can, trying to keep taxes in line, trying to keep services as high as we can, trying to maintain the city, provide lots of things for people to do of all ages,” he said. “It would be my belief that if you do that, then you’re likely going to score reasonably well on lots of things that come along.”

Ottawa was ranked No. 1 overall, followed by Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures, Que., Oak Bay, B.C., North Saanich, B.C., and Weyburn, Sask. Elsewhere in Manitoba, Winnipeg came in at No. 45, while Portage la Prairie ranked No. 273 and Thompson at

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