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Is Edmonton or Quebec City a better place to live if you are a woman?

Is Edmonton or Quebec City a better place to live if you are a woman?

A new reported released by a Canadian think tank on Wednesday has identified the best and worst cities for Canadian women. Spoilers, the study does not look paint a progressive picture of Alberta.

According to a study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, Edmonton is the worst city to be a woman. Quebec City, meantime, was found to be the best place for women, with Saskatoon ranked second.

Canada's three largest cities were mired in the middle of the pack. Montreal was ranked fourth, while Toronto placed sixth and Vancouver placed 13th. Calgary was also ranked near the bottom of the list, at 17 out of 20.

The study, titled The Best and Worst Place to be a Woman in Canada, ranks the 20 largest cities in Canada on five areas and compares the difference on how men and women rank in each. The areas are economic security, leadership, health, personal security and education.

According to the report, Edmonton features a lack of access to full-time employment for women and the largest pay gap in the country. Women in Edmonton earn nearly $21,000 less per year than their male peers.

Edmonton features the second-worst rate of female political representation. The city also has a higher than average rate of reported violence between intimate partners, and the highest rate of police-reported sexual assaults in the country.

Quebec City, meantime, features some of the smallest employment and income gaps in the country. The city also has the lowest rate of police-reported sexual and domestic violence.

But the report cautioned that even Quebec City had its issues.

"Moving to Québec City is not the way to close Canada’s gender gap. Even in Québec City women face significant risks of experiencing a sexual assault or intimate partner violence," reads the report. "They also experience the same low rates of promotion into leadership roles. It is in these two areas that Canada has the furthest to go.

The study was conducted by Kate McInturff, a CCPA senior researcher with a focus on gender equality. She says that despite the progress women have made in Canada, there is still a long way to go.

"Canada has made great progress in ensuring that men and women have equal access to health care and education, but that hasn't translated into personal safety at home or promotion at work," McInturff said in a statement.

Here are a few key points about gender equality in select cities:

Quebec City (Overall Rank 1): Quebec City has small gaps between men's and women's earnings, employment levels and access to full-time work. Québec City council features near-gender parity, with 10 female councillors and 12 male councillors. The city also has the lowest rates of police-reported sexual and domestic violence.

St. John's (Overall Rank 3): This is the only city on the list with no female city councillors.

Victoria (Overall Rank 5): Victoria has the highest rate of women in senior management positions, at 33 per cent. They are also one of only two cities with more women on council than men.

Toronto (Overall Rank 6): Toronto's factors are generally average, though the wage gap between men and women is smaller than the country's average (women earning 77 per cent). Women are also slightly more likely to identify high levels of stress.

Ottawa-Gatineau (Overall Rank 7): The region has the smallest pay gap in the country, with women making an average of 81 per cent that of men. Ottawa-Gatineau also ranks near the top for representation of women among senior managers - at 33 per cent of the ranks.

Halifax (Overall Rank 9): Halifax has the smallest gap between men's and women's employment rates. Women have better-than-average access to health clinics, but face higher than average rates of sexual violence.

Regina (Overall Rank 11): Regina has the highest rates of police reported incidents of violence involving intimate partners among the top twenty cities.

Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo (Overall Rank 16): With 35 per cent of women identifying high stress levels in their lives, it is the most stressed female population in Canada.

Calgary (Overall Rank: 17): Employment levels for men and women are higher than the national average, but the gap is bigger: 77 per cent employment for men and 65 per cent employment for women. Women earn an average $17,000 less per year.

Edmonton (Overall Rank: 20): The gender gap in access to full-time work is the largest on the list, with only 48 per cent of women holding full-time jobs compared to 68 per cent of men. Edmonton has higher than average rates of intimate partner violence reported to the police.

With women facing equality struggles in every major Canadian city, it may seem unfair to pick on Edmonton. But we’ve got to start somewhere. If Edmonton is considered the worst, civic leaders should pull up their bootstraps and commit to improvement.

Then again, McInturff says the best way to address gender equality is by “coordinating our efforts so that we’re raising a level of women’s well-being across the country, not just in one city at a time.”

So it will take more than just Edmonton to improve gender equality in Canada.

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