Mountain View County gets national airing

Mountain View County’s reeve isn’t putting much stock in the county’s inclusion on a Canadian magazine’s list of best communities in Canada to live.

Maclean’s Best Communities in Canada 2019 ranks 415 Statistics Canada census subdivisions across the country based on 10 categories.

While Burlington, Ont. took the magzine’s top placing, Mountain View County was in 415th spot.

“What would you use the list for? If you want to live in Mountain View County that is quite a bit different than if you wanted to live in Toronto. If I were looking for a place to move to, what I would base that decision on would not have much to do with a listing from Maclean's,” said Bruce Beattie.

The magazine did not disclose how the 415 census subdivisions were chosen for inclusion in the ranking and a Gazette request for information went unanswered as of press time. It was noted that 46 Alberta communities were included.

“I think it’s extremely difficult to compare a rural municipality like Mountain View County to a centre like Toronto. And I think (the listing) is very urban based. And I think if you look at the list you’ll see that the vast majority are urban centres and that’s to be expected if you look at the criteria that they used to rate the communities,” said Beattie.

The publication’s staff ranked how each community did compared to the other chosen communities in the following categories: wealth and economy (20 points), affordability (20 points), population growth (six points), taxes (seven points), commute (10 points), crime (seven points), weather (10 points), access to health care (11 points), amenities (0.5 points) and culture (five points).

“We make categories we think are most important to average people worth the most points,” magazine staff wrote in describing some of the methodology behind the ranking.

Beattie says the county’s ranking highlights the differences between rural and urban living.

“When I looked at some of the criteria I noted we’re downgraded because we don’t have any public transit -- which you wouldn’t expect to find in a rural municipality. And I think they listed the number of doctors as zero. But you know we have lots of doctors in the towns within Mountain View County,” he said.

The county partners with the urban municipalities that are geographically located within its boundaries to provide many services to its own residents including fire protection and recreation opportunities that are based in those urban centres. Beattie noted that the county also provides funding to groups within those urban centres for medical-related initiatives through a dedicated fund.

Other information listed for Mountain View County included residents’ median household income, the economic region unemployment rate, the average value of primary real estate and the average annual property tax bill.

Based on information provided by Environics Analytics, the publication’s staff also ranked communities on the percentage of residents who walk, bike and take transit to work.

According to the analysis, one per cent of the county’s 13,465 residents walk to work, not one person bikes to work, and 0.4 per cent take transit to work.

Beattie said the national recognition of being on the list "is probably a good thing" and laughingly said “I think someone said any time you’re in the news it’s a good thing.”

He called the data compilation an interesting exercise “but I’m not sure how valuable an exercise it is and how worthwhile it is to make any kind of decisions around.”

He says he doesn’t regret moving to the Bergen area of Mountain View County from southern Ontario.

“I grew up just outside of Hamilton so I’m pretty familiar with Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph. Yes, Guelph is a very beautiful city, great place, but in comparison to Bergen? I’ll take Bergen. I’ve been here for 50 years now and I’m not leaving.”