Top 10 Places to Retire in Canada (2013)

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Submitted by on April 15, 2013 – 10:20 am

Inner Harbour in Victoria, British Columbia, CanadaWhen you’re think­ing about where to retire, are you think­ing about Canada?

Canada may not come to mind as read­ily as, say, Mexico, Costa Rica, or the south of France, but plenty of peo­ple do retire to Canada from other coun­tries.

And many oth­ers, par­tic­u­larly Americans, choose to live in Canada part-​​time dur­ing their retire­ment years.

A rea­son­able cost of liv­ing, good weather (yes, really!), and of course, readily-​​available health care are all advan­tages of choos­ing Canada as a retire­ment destination.

MoneySense mag­a­zine con­sid­ers these fac­tors and more — includ­ing low taxes, low crime rates, ease of get­ting around on foot, and afford­able homes — in their annual rank­ing of Canada’s Best Places to Retire.

According to the MoneySense 2013 rank­ings, the two top Canadian retire­ment des­ti­na­tions are on BC’s Vancouver Island — per­haps not unex­pected, since BC over­all, and Vancouver Island in par­tic­u­lar, has the country’s mildest climate.

Many of the other top retire­ment spots for 2013 are in Ontario, which scores par­tic­u­larly high for cul­tural activ­i­ties and (at least out­side of Toronto) for mod­er­ate liv­ing costs.

Here’s the 2013 MoneySense Best Places to Retire list:

  1. Victoria, BC
  2. Saanich, BC
  3. Kingston, ON
  4. Burlington, ON
  5. Ottawa, ON
  6. Toronto, ON
  7. Joliette, QC
  8. Saskatoon, SK
  9. Stratford, ON
  10. Winnipeg, MB

MSN Money recently weighed in with their own list of the Top 10 Canadian Cities to Retire. They’ve made some of the same picks as MoneySense, but their list includes more larger cities:

  1. Owen Sound, ON
  2. Calgary, AB
  3. Victoria, BC
  4. Ottawa, ON
  5. Quebec City, QC
  6. Halifax, NS
  7. Vancouver, BC
  8. Fredericton, NB
  9. Toronto, ON
  10. Stratford, ON

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