Canada drops in Human Freedom Index ranking
Canada is no longer one of the top ten freest jurisdictions in the world.
The latest Human Freedom Index released by the Fraser Institute shows the country dropped from fourth to 11th.
But is this cause for concern?
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The Dr. Michael A. Walker Research Chair in Economic Freedom at the Fraser Institute and report editor Fred McMahon said, in a word, “no.”
“Frankly in data like this our fluctuation is minus 0.16 and that really doesn’t tell you much,” he explained. “If it was a trend, it would be a problem but right now we’re doing pretty good.”
The list is topped by Switzerland and Hong Kong.
They both have high levels of economic freedom, something which has slipped in Canada.
“Hong Kong for instance is I think 26th in other freedoms, while it’s first in economic freedom so it ends up in second place,” said McMahon.
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The least-free countries are Libya, Venezuela and Syria.
“A very significant proportion of the population is malnourished because of this incredible, these stupid dictatorial-socialist governments,” he said of Venezuela.
Our neighbours to south in the United States are up to 17th spot from 24th.
“This is data from 2015 so it’s going to be very interesting what happens with the new administration down there and what I would see as attacks on the law, the legal system and the media,” said McMahon.
In fact, he warned that’s happening more across the world and are all a threat to personal freedom.
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“Populists around the world wanting to close borders down, politicize the rule of law and attacks on the media,” he said.
He worried that trend could continue in the data from 2016, 2017 and into 2018.