Canada 8th Most Peaceful Country On Earth,
But Recession Taking Its Toll EverywhereTuesday June 2, 2009
CityNews.ca Staff
You don't have to be in this country long to know that Canada has enjoyed decades of peace. It's the kind of country people around the world have tried to come to for years, famed for everything from its health care system and its multicultural bent to the opportunity to achieve a good standard of living.
And those are just some of the reasons we ranked in eighth place overall out of 144 countries as one of the most peaceful nations on the planet. The annual list is complied by The Economist magazine group, and measures the status of individual countries on 23 factors like crime, political instability, respect for human rights, standards of living and education and the risk of terrorism.
But those behind the survey say this year's list contains a disturbing trend, noting that the economic downturn has made the world a more unstable and dangerous place overall. Soaring prices of food and fuel have also played a factor, increasing protests and the general feeling of well being some countries had has now been replaced with a sense of unease.
"Rapidly rising unemployment, pay freezes and falls in the value of house prices, savings and pensions is causing popular resentment in many countries, with political repercussions," the report notes.
Despite the effect of the economy, Canada gets high marks for the small number of homicides per 100,000 people, the low rate of other violent crime, getting along with neighbouring countries, its civil liberties (where we scored a perfect 10 on a sliding scale) and its "hostility to foreigners/private property" (which ranked at 0 on a scale where 1 is considered low and 5 is considered high.)
See all the Canadian results here. So who beat us to the pacifist punch? New Zealand is seen as the most peaceful place on earth this year, because of its new stable majority government, low crime rate and its miniscule defence spending.
The Scandanavian countries are next, with Denmark and Norway tying for second, and Iceland - last year's winner - now in fourth place.
Austria is fifth, followed by Sweden and Japan and then Canada. Finland and Slovenia round out the Top 10.
The U.S. comes in way down on the list at number 83.
cheer up guys, ...you're up from 97 the year beforeAnd the least peaceful places to live won't surprise you. They've all been plagued by troubles or violence on an ongoing basis for years.
Sudan is 140th, followed by Israel, Somalia and Afghanistan. The survey says the most tumultuous nation continues to be Iraq, still recovering from a war and factional violence that has no real end in sight.
See the rankings by country here.
