Discussions

Some may have seen this when it was released last week. McLeans did a study on "Canada's smartest cities" and based on their criteria Brandon came up below average in each of the four categories Learning to Know, Learning to Do, Learning to Be and Learning to Live Together.  
 
Some of the sub-categories that we came up *above* average in include:  
 
- Volunteering  
- Job-related training  
- Time to museums and galleries  
- Participation in clubs  
- Time to post-secondary education  
 
and then did about average in  
- Youth math & problem solving skills  
- exposure to reading  
- exposure to sports  
- access to broadband internet  
 
we were noticably below average in:  
- post secondary participation  
- university attainment  
- time to libraries?  
- exposure to internet  
- time to vocational schools  
 
It would seem like some of their criteria are slanted towards larger centres. One of their indicators that some might dispute is "Time to vocational schools" in which we rated at 2 hours and 16 minutes (basically the trip to Winnipeg) compared to the national average of 35 minutes. One could make a pretty good case that ACC offers more than enough job-specific training that we shouldn't take that big of a hit in that category.  
 
Another indicator, "Time to libraries" has us at 56 minutes?? I'd be curious what their definition of library is.  
 
Here's the full link to the feature on the McLeans site:  
 
http://www.macleans.ca/canada/national/article.jsp?content=20080827_119793_119793