Canada: World’s second friendliest country for top-level income groups with expense accounts

Posted on January 29, 2010 in Equality Debates

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NationalPost.com – Opinion/Full Comment
Posted: January 29, 2010.   Kelly McParlandForbes has a story about one of those lists that is guaranteed to get plenty of media attention, without much explanation or context.

This one indicates that Canada is the second friendliest country on Earth.

Bahrain is friendlier. Yes, Bahrain. Which is a bit strange, since the United Arab Emirates, which is located right near by, got one of the lower scores on the survey. Maybe all the friendly people in the UAE get fed up and move to Bahrain, where they can be cheerful without getting groused at.

Canada used to be No. 1, before Bahrain intruded (which, if you ask me, wasn’t very friendly of them.) The survey, by HSBC bank, doesn’t really test locals for their general level of sunniness, but is one of those corproate things analyzing how easy it is to move your family to a given locale, and integrate quickly. It’s just been given a snappy headline in expectation that will get it free media play.

If there’s one thing we’re good at in this country, it’s helping people move here. Especially the kind of people the HSBC would be interested, i.e. folks with companies that are big enough to have offices around the world and regularly ship executives off to work there. We have nice neighbourhoods where people on healthy salaries can quickly find suitable homes, near appropriate schools with children whose parents enjoy similar income levels. The study is called the “Expat Explorer Survey”. Expats are people living temporarily away from home (like Michael Ignatieff). We’re not talking here about some struggling family that just spent eight years on the waiting list to immigrate, and is now putting its engineering degrees to good use on the night shift down at the car wash.

Canada: A Place to Make Friends. Especially to the more desireable income groups.

Kelly McParland,  National Post

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