Medicine Hat, Brooks ranked as some of Canada’s top 25 communities to live and work remotely

Ranked on internet quality, housing affordability, taxes, crime rate, access to healthcare, population growth, weather, amenities and community involvement, Medicine Hat ranked 21st in the country, beating out larger centers like Calgary ranked 31st, Ottawa ranked 36th, and Vancouver ranked 174th. The city, according to the Maclean’s ranked high on internet quality, low taxes, and amenities.

Reacting to the ranking Friday, Mayor Ted Clugston said he was disappointed that Medicine Hat didn’t take the top spot, but overall he is pleased with the recognition the city received. But Clugston noted that he doesn’t take the rankings too seriously.

” They come out every year on various things and they make a lot of mistakes, and I’ve been critical of them in the past,” he said.

” At least this one was a fairly narrow spectrum, crime index, doctors, internet connection, and days over 20 degrees Celcius so that one made it simpler, and you know we are happy and we always talk about Medicine Hat being a low-cost place to live, and it’s a great place to work and live,” he added.

The city of Brooks took the ninth spot, with internet speed, low taxes, and population growth as top features.

Brooks Mayor Barry Morishita said he was excited to see the city ranked so high.

” A lot of the things that we have been talking about that are going to be the driving forces
for people to choose places to live, I think this council has taken those priorities on. We want to improve the internet, even though we were ranked reasonable on the internet, but we want to improve the internet. Taxes I think we really made a good effort to make taxes as reasonable as possible,” Morishita said.

He also noted the city has worked hard at ensuring good access to healthcare.

“Doctors, we have done really well on doctor recruitment and retention and we aren’t going to let go of that, because again those are important things when people decide to move to a community besides a big city,” Morishita said.

The city of Brooks was the smallest populated community to make the top ten, at just 16,390 people. Other smaller communities such as St Thomas Ontario, population 42,208, and Cornwall Ontario, population 47,693, also made the top ten. The Mayor of Brooks said he is pleased to see smaller cities recognized as great places to live.

” I think the pandemic has opened up options for people to consider a different lifestyle, and I think smaller communities away from the density are going to become more attractive. We have so much to offer,” Morishita said

A look at the rankings can be found here.

by Tiffany Goodwein

Medicine Hat, Brooks ranked as some of Canada’s top 25 communities to live and work remotely

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