Where are all the places Canadians would feel most comfortable living? New poll answers Kenney's question

A new national poll answers the question Alberta Premier Jason Kenney asked last month while criticizing a survey of 1,512 Canadians that suggested half of Canadians say they'd feel comfortable living in Alberta. 

Calling it "a drive-by smear on Alberta," the premier took aim at the Maru Public Opinion and Janet Brown Opinion Research poll done in collaboration with CBC News during a Calgary Chamber of Commerce event on Dec. 8, 2021, wondering why the research didn't ask "Albertans on how many of them would move to Ontario and Quebec."

Kenney blasted CBC News, suggesting the public broadcaster's reporting about the poll diminished national unity, using "Alberta as a convenient sort of punching bag." 

"Based on the reaction that we had from Alberta and from the premier … we wanted to ask some other questions … and we wanted to explore what that looked like across the country," said John Wright, executive vice-president of Maru Public Opinion, in an interview with CBC News. 

The new representative survey of 1,510 Canadians in mid-December suggests British Columbia (65 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (63 per cent) top the list of places Canadians would feel comfortable living.

Where people "feel comfortable" is, "purely subjective," stresses Maru Public Opinion's news release about the polling data. A host of factors can influence people's comfort levels, including "being able to speak the local language, what you might know of the terrain, or even be based solely on what you've seen, read, or heard about the people, the economy, or how welcoming they can be to newcomers," emphasizes the news release.  

The new polling data puts the earlier survey about Alberta in context — and echoes what the initial poll suggested about Canadians' comfort with living in Alberta. 

Living comfortably in other parts of Canada

Like the earlier poll, the new poll, asking the same question, found that nearly half of Canadians (49 per cent) say they would feel comfortable living in Alberta. The same number of Canadians indicate they'd feel comfortable living in Ontario. 

Nearly four in ten (38 per cent) of Canadians would feel comfortable living in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Less than a quarter (24 per cent) of Canadians would feel comfortable in Quebec.

The similarity between the two national poll results on the question of comfort with living in Alberta stood out for Calgary-based pollster Janet Brown, who collaborated with Maru Public Opinion on the earlier survey. 

"The fact that it ended up being identical, just speaks to the validity of the methodology in my mind," said Brown in an interview with CBC News.

Wright was also pleased to see the similar results between the two polls, adding that the new poll ranks Alberta in the top third of places Canadians say they'd feel content living.  

"Some people will look at it and say that it's 50 per cent full and [others] will look at it and say it's 50 per cent empty," said Wright.  "But at the end of the day, you're still left with a half a glass of really fine Alberta whisky."

While Canadians who say they would feel comfortable living in Alberta come from all across Canada, the largest proportion comes from Western Canada. 

People from the neighbouring prairie province of Saskatchewan (72 per cent) were mostly likely to say they'd feel comfortable living in Alberta, followed by those living in Manitoba (52 per cent), Ontario (52 per cent), B.C. (46 per cent), Quebec (44 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (37 per cent).

Living comfortably in Alberta?

The pollsters can only guess as to why Canadians feel most comfortable living in British Columbia or Atlantic Canada.

Brown says she suspects high numbers in the coastal regions might be driven by weather and scenery in those areas.

"We talk about [Alberta] being landlocked all the time," said Brown.

"We usually talk about it in the sense of oil and getting our products to market, but the only other parts of the country that did better than we did in terms of being perceived as comfortable places to live were places … that were close to oceans," she added. 

Brown also highlighted that while B.C. and Atlantic drew similar numbers of comfort among Canadians, the two places attracted that satisfaction from different parts of Canada.

Almost three-quarters (73 per cent) of Albertans say they'd feel comfortable living next door in B.C., followed by those living in Ontario (67 per cent), Quebec (64 per cent), Manitoba (63 per cent), Saskatchewan (59 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (53 per cent). 

Atlantic Canada, on the other hand, is most popular with people from Ontario (69 per cent). Six in ten people from neighbouring Quebec would feel comfortable living in Atlantic Canada, followed by people from Manitoba (59 per cent), British Columbia (58 per cent), Saskatchewan (57 per cent) and Alberta (54 per cent). 

"People are attracted to different places," said Wright. "Sometimes it's of their own making, and sometimes it's of the place they want to move to."

Quebec viewed as least comfortable place to live

Less than a quarter (24 per cent) of Canadians say they'd feel comfortable living in Quebec.

Neighbouring Ontarians (29 per cent) are the most likely to say they'd enjoy living in the predominantly French-speaking province, followed by those living in British Columbia (22 per cent), Saskatchewan (21 per cent), Manitoba (20 percent), Alberta (17 per cent) and Atlantic Canada (16 per cent).

Wright wonders if language might be a barrier. 

"How many people would feel comfortable in a province that speaks another language or has different customs than yours?" asked Wright. "I think that's a barrier of entry right from the beginning."

He stressed again that survey respondents had a "very subjective response" to "a very objective question."

Methodology

This survey was undertaken on December 13, 2021, by Maru Public Opinion. The survey sampled 1,510 Canadians, using Maru Voice Canada online panelists who were randomly selected. For comparison purposes, a probability sample of this size has an estimated margin of error (which measures sampling variability) of +/- 2.5%, 19 times out of 20. Subsets of the sample (provincial proportions) will have a larger margin of error. The results have been weighted by education, age, gender and region (and in Quebec, language) to match the population according to census data, which ensures the sample is representative of the entire adult population of Canada. Discrepancies in or between totals when compared with the data tables are due to rounding.