HALIFAX-
A new environmental dashboard shows that Canada’s largest cities have lower scores than most small and medium-sized municipalities, but a closer look at the data reveals a few surprises.
The study, published Tuesday in the journal Environment International, rates 30 of the country’s largest cities on nine health-related indicators, including air quality, heat and cold waves, ultraviolet radiation and access to green spaces. The results are compiled in the new Canadian Environmental Quality Index, produced by Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Daniel Rainham, lead author of the study and a professor at the Dalhousie School of Health, says Canada’s largest cities — Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton — posted relatively low scores, but he says some of their neighborhoods obtained high scores. , especially in Toronto.
“It’s not an easy story to tell,” Rainham said in an interview. “Even though the average values can tell you one thing, there is a lot of variability in these cities.”
As an example, he noted that Toronto has some of the most unhealthy neighborhoods in Canada, although he said the city ranks first among the largest cities as a whole. This variability merits further study, Rainham said.
Mid-sized cities scored the highest, including Victoria, Sherbrooke, Quebec, and the Ontario cities of London, Guelph, Barrie, Kitchener and Kingston. Additionally, Halifax, Regina and Moncton, N.B., made the top 10.
Again, all of the results for these small towns come with a caveat: “Even if they’re at the top of the list, they may have neighborhoods that aren’t doing as well,” Rainham said. “At the city level, all have extremes.”
At the other end of the scale, one small city — Kelowna, BC — scored lower than all major cities except Edmonton and Calgary. But some neighborhoods in Kelowna rank at the very top of the scale.
“You wouldn’t really think Kelowna, being nestled in the beautiful fruit and berry valleys and vineyards, would score low, but we’re really talking about urban Kelowna,” Rainham said. “But it also has one of the highest neighborhood values.”
The study focused on cities with a population close to or above 100,000.
In the middle of the pack in descending order are Winnipeg, St. John’s, Hamilton, Ottawa and the Ontario cities of Windsor, St. Catharines and Oshawa.
Besides Canada’s five largest cities, the bottom of the list in descending order includes the Quebec communities of Gatineau, Quebec, Trois-Rivières and Chicoutimi, along with Milton, Ont., Abbotsford, BC, Saskatoon and Kelowna at 28th. Calgary and Edmonton are in the basement.
The study also took into account the amount of green vegetation in each neighborhood. This is important because studies show a link between good health and being close to nature. The same correlation is true for those who live near water, another factor measured in the study.
The researchers also measured residents’ proximity to fuel-burning power plants and the length of roads in each neighborhood. But there is nothing on noise or water quality because Canada does a poor job of collecting such data.
Rainham said the long-term goal is to make all data publicly available by allowing residents to view an electronic map and zoom in on their neighborhoods.
The study was funded by the Public Health Agency of Canada. It was co-authored by Zoe Davis, from the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences at the University of Melbourne, South Australia, and Margaret de Groh, who works with the Public Health Agency of Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on November 30, 2022
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