Canada

Canada’s most cultured cities

When it comes to culture, west is best, it seems.

Canada's most cultured cities

Calgary, the city that caused an uproar in the rest of Canada when it topped our list of Most Cultured Cities last year, comes out on top again. But of the top five cities on the Canadian Council on Learning’s “learning to be” pillar, four—Calgary, Victoria, Saskatoon and Regina—are in Western Canada. A closer look at this list of some of the largest cities and urban areas shows that Victoria had the most readers, Calgary had the highest percentage of museum-goers, and more households in Saskatoon than anywhere attended paid performing arts events. And what of cities like Montreal and Toronto? Check near the bottom of the lists.

CITY ‘LEARNING TO BE’ SCORE PER CENT WHO SPEND ON READING PER CENT WHO SPEND ON THE PERFORMING ARTS PER CENT WHO SPEND ON MUSEUMS
Calgary 7.3 80.8% 41.5% 48.1%
Victoria 7.1 88.8 42.3 38.6
Saskatoon 7.1 84.0 52.4 40.7
Regina 6.7 84.8 47.8 39.5
Halifax 6.2 79.3 42.0 41.1
Winnipeg 5.8 78.8 44.6 36.4
Edmonton 5.6 79.2 39.9 29.7
Fredericton* 5.6 81.8 43.1 30.3
Toronto 5.4 70.4 38.7 35.1
Vancouver 5.1 70.9 36.4 28.9
Québec 5.1 78.3 46.3 30.7
St.
John’s
5.0 74.9 44.3 24.4
London* 4.9 71.5 n/a n/a
Charlottetown 4.9 78.0 41.6 21.8
Moncton* 4.3 75.9 31.8 27.0
Montréal 4.3 72.4 37.5 24.7
Saint John 3.0 68.3 31.0 n/a

 
Source: Statistics Canada, special tabulation, unpublished data, Survey of Household Spending, 2007. Unless indicated, data reflects Census Metropolitan Areas.

* Data for these cities only available at the economic region level.

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