There goes the neighbourhood and the reputation as well. Being #1 doesn’t cut it anymore – being happy is the new unit of measure.

By Pepper Parr

BURLINGTON, ON.

January 19, 2014

That #1 BEST mid-sized city in Canada thing the political set can’t stop talking about is in jeopardy.  The new flavour of the month is the happiest cities in Canada – and we are in the bottom half of the thing. They determine best by measuring the smiles on people’s faces and according to their approach – we don’t rank all that well.  I suppose we should be grateful we are even on the list.

Kingston, the city with more correctional institutions than anywhere else in the country ranked first.  How did Saskatoon rank higher than Burlington?  They don’t have a pier they will be paying for forever.

I don’t understand why London came ahead of us – we have their former city manager and he’s doing a bang up job for us. 

Hamilton beat us!

Here’s the list – you figure it out.

    Kingston

    Regina

    Quebec City

    Gatineau

    Saskatoon

    London

    Waterloo-Kitchener

    Kelowna

    Edmonton

    Banff

    Hamilton

    Surrey

    Calgary

    Winnipeg

    Burlington

    Victoria

    Halifax

    Ottawa

    Mont-Tremblant

    Niagara Falls

    Whistler

    Montreal

    Toronto

    Vancouver

    Niagara-on-the-Lake

This outfit uses the smiles on people faces to determine how happy a city is. So why isn’t Burlington # 1 on that list. Are we that glum?

Jetpack, a group in the travel business works from pictures that are put up on Instagram.  They measure the size of a smile, the look on people’s faces and even the brightness of the lipstick people wear or the size of a mustache.  It’s all good clean fun and, maybe, someone will take their metric as seriously as Burlington took to the #1 mid-sized city.

Want to know more – try their website.