Canada ranked the second most socially progressive country in the world

Canada is number two in the world when it comes to social well being and quality of life compared to 133 other countries, a new study finds.

The recently released 2016 Social Progress Index by the Social Progress Imperative, uses data from numerous sources to measure a country’s ability to meet the social and environmental needs of its citizens.

Canada narrowly lost the top spot to Finland and beat out other countries including Denmark, Australia, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

Covering approximately 94 per cent of the world’s population, the report breaks down a total of 53 different indicators into three main categories including “Basic Human Needs,” “Foundation of Wellbeing” and “Opportunity.”

While Canada is number two overall, the Great White North holds first place in the “Opportunity” category, which measures factors personal rights and freedoms, a society’s level of tolerance and inclusion as well as overall access to advanced education.

But in other areas Canada does have some room for improvement.

Canada ranks lower on the list for certain environmental factors such as greenhouse gas emissions and waste water treatment. And, when it comes to mobile telephone subscriptions, our overall ranking takes a steep drop all the way down to 102nd place.

With about 81 out of 100 people having a cell phone subscription, that’s a ranking the Executive Director of Social Progress Imperative, Michael Green, told the Toronto Star was unusually low given Canada’s global standing.

But luckily that problem is reportedly much easier to solve than others.

“Perhaps a slightly weird thing about Canada is that Canada is showing weakness in an area the world knows how to solve, on the other hand Canada is also doing pretty well on tolerance and inclusion, which is a much harder problem,” he said.

Click through the pictures to see which countries Canada beat out to place at number two.