The happiest city in Canada is . . . Sudbury

Although she left the town in her early 20s, she moved back in 2012 to study midwifery at Laurentian University.

“I keep moving away,” she said. “But I had to come back to Sudbury.”

With its giant smokestack and remote location at the top of Georgian Bay, few would consider Sudbury a must-see destination.

But the city of about 160,000 has the most happy people in the country, according to Statistics Canada. About 45 per cent of Sudbury’s residents rated their life satisfaction as a nine or a 10. Toronto ranked second last, behind Vancouver, with only 34 per cent ranking their happiness as a nine or a 10.

McTaggart, who grew up in the city but moved to Ottawa a few years ago, said that when she came home she was welcomed back into a vibrant community filled with young people excited to build their lives.

“It’s definitely the sense of community,” she said.

McTaggart can go on at length about the places she likes to visit in Sudbury — cookies at Cafe Petit Gateau, picnics at Ramsey Lake with friends or cocktails at her brother’s speakeasy-style bar.

The way she describes it, Sudbury might not have the same quantity of things to do as bigger cities, but what it has, people actually use.

“We have a lot of organized runs, a lot of people congregate around the boardwalk,” she said. “In the summer Sudbury is so beautiful, everybody’s out.”

McTaggart isn’t the only one drinking the Kool-Aid. A group of young professionals have created a kind of DIY tourism campaign aimed at celebrating everything that is just so awesome about Sudbury.

“It’s become the community’s project — everybody wants to love where they’re from,” said Christian Pelletier, one of the founders of We Live Up Here.

The project uses Instagram, urban art and music to both promote arts and culture and help create it in a city that was perhaps most famous for providing the training grounds for astronauts.

“The Sudbury from the ’50s or ’60s was a lunar landscape, literally, and it’s completely transformed,” Pelletier said.

John Helliwell, the author of the Statistics Canada study, said the project asked how cities differed in happiness, not why. But as one of the leading experts on happiness, he offers some insights.

In his 2010 paper published in the Canadian Journal of Economics, Helliwell argued that it’s social relationships — perhaps even more than economic factors — that lead to happiness.

“Most of the supports for a happy life are pretty local,” Helliwell said.

While Sudbury enjoys a relatively low cost of living and lower income inequality, especially compared to Toronto and Vancouver, Helliwell’s take on happiness suggests that Sudbury’s secret lies more with its team spirit than its economy.

Andrew Knapp, a co-founder of We Live Up Here, said Sudbury’s harsh winters make people “create their own happiness.

“We were sick about bitching about Sudbury and we thought it was a really awesome place,” he said. “And we really tapped into a larger cultural identity.”

Knapp, who has gained some online fame for his travel adventures with his dog,, said that in small cities you can experiment with new ideas without the burden of jaded cool that is omnipresent in some bigger urban centres, such as Toronto.Find Momo, said that in small cities you can experiment with new ideas without the burden of jaded cool that is omnipresent in some bigger urban centres, such as Toronto.

“You can create something and it will stick,” Knapp said.

For others, it comes as no surprise that Toronto ranked so poorly for happiness amongst Canadian cities. With the cost of owning a home almost triple what it is in Sudbury and lower median incomes, it can be a struggle for many residents to enjoy what Toronto has to offer.

Irfan Zia moved to the city three years ago from Dubai with his family. He said the rising cost of living means it’s hard to make time for life’s pleasures.

“When it’s time to enjoy or celebrate, things are not in our favour,” he explained

Caring for a family of four on about $50,000 a year means that they often live month to month, Zia said. Still, he said, there is no place he’d rather be, and hopes instead that the balance between the income and the cost of living in the GTA will tilt in his favour.

“This is where I want my kids to be raised,” he said.

Five things that make people happy about Sudbury:

1. The outdoors: Sudbury boasts more than 300 lakes, making it a paradise for picnickers, swimmers and fishing enthusiasts. It’s also located on the Canadian Shield, making it an important outpost for Canada’s eco-wilderness.

2. Arts and music: Residents say you can hear live music every night of the week, and people love to support local bands.

3. Bilingualism: The city has one of the largest Franco-Ontarian communities in the province.

4. The people: Residents say a true Sudburian is down to earth and that there are “less whiners.”

5. The size: People say they love that Sudbury is big enough to have a thriving art scene, but small enough that people recognize each other on the street.