Canada's best cities for families and babies |
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 by Mary Vallis
Where is the ideal place to raise kids in Canada? Find out how your town did in our exclusive rankings of 180 communities across Canada.
THE WINNER: St.Albert, AB
In 2000, after living in Calgary and Edmonton, Tracy and Kelly Aisenstat settled in St. Albert, a suburb of 60,000 just northwest of Edmonton. It wasn't long before they realized they'd made the right decision — while sitting in the bleachers during the annual International Children's Festival, watching a dance performance. Their bellies were full of free pancakes. Their two young children laughed and clapped.
"I remember being so happy we had chosen this place to be our home," says Tracy.
The Aisenstats — now a family of five with kids Max, 14, Laura, 11 and seven-year-old Jillian—were clearly on to something. St. Albert came out on top in rankings that looked at everything from housing prices to crime levels, as well as issues of particular importance to families, such as child care. The results aren't a best guess — they were carefully calculated by our friends at MoneySense magazine based on hard numbers issued by Statistics Canada, Environment Canada and other reputable sources (check out moneyscnsc.ca/bcstplaccs2011).
Other cities that ranked well also boast important family-friendly qualities. Burlington, ON, took second place overall, in part because of its safe neighborhoods. Repentigny, QC, near Montreal, came in third, thanks to the city's affordable housing and Quebec's publicly funded daycare system. (For an explanation of how we arrived at these rankings, go to Todaysparent.com/citiesmethodology.)
But back to St. Albert. In this growing city, many residents are professionals who commute to Edmonton (including Kelly, who works as a lawyer) and earn some of the highest household incomes in the country: The average family brings in more than $125,000, while paying relatively low taxes. Plus, the air is cleaner and crime levels are lower than in many other communities St. Albert ranked 58th and 89th (out of 180) respectively on those measures. The city also has its own hospital and plenty of doctors — more, in fact, per 1,000 residents than both
Calgary and Toronto. And it's got loads of kids. About one in five of St. Albert's residents are 14 years old or younger. Near the Aisenstats, there are five other families with at least three children apiece, and some have as many as six.
St. Albert offers all these kids plenty of things to do. An ideal summer clay for Tracy is visiting the recently renovated water park, which is free and attracts up to 2,000 people daily. She can watch her girls play in the splash pad, while keeping an eye on Max as he docs tricks at the next-door skateboard park. There's also a BMX bike track in town and strong hockey programs for both boys and girls. In the summer, children use coloured marshmallows to bait little crayfish in Lacombe Lake Park. In the winter, the frozen water becomes a popular skating rink.
St. Albert Place even has its own children's theatre company. Max joined when he was eight and, this year, he's landed the starring role in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
He'll be performing at the International Children's Festival, a five-day affair at the beginning of June, which draws up to 40,000 people to St. Albert each year. Tracy recently took her first job outside the home since becoming a mom, and now works as the festival's volunteer coordinator.
St. Albert is encouraging residents to organize block parties, and Lorraine Gerling, a lifelong resident and new mom, certainly sees the benefits. One early summer day last year, Gerling and her neighbours — some of them also new parents — gathered for face painting, games and a potluck. "I met a bunch of people I didn't know," says Gerling, who moved to the neighbourhood a year and a half earlier.
Now pregnant with her second child, Gerling and her husband,Justin, plan to stay in St. Albert. So do the Aisenstats. They want to raise their children in the bungalow the family bought more than a decade ago. Tracy hopes the kids might even stay home after they graduate from high school. After all, St. Albert Transit — which helped land the city in the top quarter of our public transit ranking — provides buses to colleges and universities in Edmonton. Is there really any reason to leave?
Child care
Comparing how cities measure up in terms of child care is a challenge — there are no city-by-city stats. The best figures track the number of regulated spaces in each province. We scored each community based on the spaces in its province or territory, so, for example, every community in ВС received the same amount of "credit" in our rankings for child care.
Quebec's subsidized child care system, which offers spots for $7 a day, pushed the province to the top of the list. In 2008, Quebec had more than 368,000 regulated spaces. The public funding allows child care providers to hire and retain trained staff, which is key to quality programs, says Martha Friendly, director of the Childcare Resource and Research Unit in Toronto.
"Quebec's program isn't the be-all and end-all," says Friendly, "but it's much further advanced than anything else in Canada." Friendly points out that city-by-city data on child care would improve planning and public accountability. "The fact is we're not doing [child care] well. And part of not doing it well is not having data."
Overall Ranking - Daycare spaces per 1,000 pop.
1. Quebec - 47.91
2. Yukon Territory - 43.79
3. Northwest Territories - 36.78
4. Prince Edward Island - 34.46
5. Manitoba - 22.63
6. Alberta - 20.15
7. British Columbia - 19.25
8. Ontario - 18.90
9. New Brunswick - 18.03
10. Nova Scotia - 14.21
11. Newfoundland and Labrador - 11.16
12. Saskatchewan - 9.00
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