A new ranking lists Canada’s top places to live and work remotely and the top two are in the eastern provinces.

Macleans has ranked Canada’s best communities to live and work remotely in 2021 and is not one of the biggest cities that made it in the top five.

According to Macleans, the rankings are based on the idea that “while there are many intangible things that determine quality of life that can’t be quantified and measured, a lot of tangible things can be.” So, they gathered data on 415 communities across the country and compared them based on categories they figured would matter most to the average person.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and people’s priorities changed, so they redid the whole thing.

The revamped ranking assumes remote work is here to stay and looks at where people should live if they are able to work remotely. They eliminated categories related to local economies because remote workers won’t have to look for nearby jobs and added a category assessing internet quality, giving more weight to categories they assumed were most important to average people.

The “communities” are “census subdivisions” as classified by Statistics Canada.

The categories include housing affordability, taxes, crime, weather, the number of health specialists and hospitals, nearby amenities like restaurants and airports, populations growth, community involvement, and internet quality.

The eastern provinces came out on top, with Halifax, NS, and Fredericton, NB, coming in first and second place, respectively. St. Thomas, ON, Belleville, ON, and Edmonton, AB round out the top five.

This shift to remote work and lifting the emphasis from the need for local jobs to other things is a fascinating indicator of a shifting employment landscape.

The top 25 communities to live and work remotely in 2021 according to Macleans:

Winnipeg, MB Moncton, NB Cornwall, ON Brooks, AB Charlottetown, PEI Toronto, ON Saint John, NB Brampton, ON Saskatoon, SK Welland, ON Windsor, ON Regina, SK Langford, BC Woodstock, ON Strathroy-Caradoc, ON Medicine Hat, AB Central Saanich, BC Sidney, BC Niagara Falls, ON Tillsonburg, ON

To see the full list of community rankings with their categories click here.