The 10 Best Places to Live in Canada for Families

Looking for the perfect family-friendly community in Canada? This guide highlights ten locations known for their excellent schools, safety, and amenities.

By Josh Sherman | 10 minute read

The best places to live in Canada for families are spread across five provinces.

For homebuyers interested in finding the best places to live in Canada for families, the task can seem daunting. 

There are more than 5,000 municipalities in Canada, according to Statistics Canada, and each of these towns and cities have their own distinct qualities and traits.  Fortunately, information has never been more accessible, allowing homebuyers to make data-driven decisions — but you have to know where to look. Wahi has a trove of real estate data, from home value estimates to past sales data, but another valuable resource is Local Logic, which lays claim to being the real estate industry’s largest location dataset. Pulling from a wide array of public and private sources, Local Logic rates locations (right down to the address) across a variety of categories, from the quality of public transit to the proximity to amenities including grocery stores, cafes, and retail.

So how does that help identify the best places to live in Canada for families? According to Local Logic, family-friendly places score well in five categories: car-friendliness, crime, parks, quietness, and schools. At Wahi’s request, Local Logic pulled the top 10 cities based in these categories, taking into account additional factors such as daycares and the share of households with children. Cities also had to have populations of at least 10,000 for consideration. 

The results may surprise you. They certainly surprised Local Logic’s Françoise Provencher, a data science manager, and Zackary Flansberry, a senior data scientist, both of whom helped put together the ranking. In particular, the pair was pleasantly surprised at how various provinces were represented, which isn’t always the case. “I’ve done this kind of list before and sometimes they’re all clustered together in one place,” says Provencher. This time, “they were very well distributed,” Provencher continues. “There’s nice places everywhere in Canada where you can have a family in a quiet place with lots of parks,” she adds.

While the list of the best places to live in Canada for families can help homebuyers narrow their search, Provencher points out that there isn’t a universal definition for family friendly. “Some families really thrive in more pedestrian-friendly or transit-friendly places,” notes Provencher, whose family doesn’t own a car and manages just fine in Montreal on foot, bike, or public transit.

Here’s a breakdown of each category followed by the best places to live in Canada for families. 

Car-Friendly 

To determine car-friendliness, Local Logic analyzes the layout of the local road network. “We make complicated computations based on what the road network looks like,” says Provencher. “There’s a lot of stuff that you can learn just by looking at the road network,” she explains. For example, the presence of wide roads with medians suggests a car-centric environment, while smaller blocks in a tightly-knit grid indicate an area that’s likely more walkable.  

Crime 

Due to data limitations, Local Logic controlled for crime after running the numbers across the other categories. “We’ve ensured that certain communities that turned up [and] had very high crime rates haven’t been included,” Flansberry explains. (If low crime is your top priority, you may want to check out our roundup of the 15 safest cities in Canada.)

Parks 

The number of parks, the total combined acreage of the parks, as well as their proximity to where people live all contribute to the park rating. Green amenities such as golf courses are excluded from calculations, says Provencher. “That green space needs to be a park [for consideration],” she notes. “If it’s a private property it doesn’t count.”

Quiet  

“It takes into account the distance to some big noise sources, such as interchange noise, [or] airport noise,” says Provencher of the quiet rating. Quietness could vary greatly from specific address to address, she notes. To try and control for these fluctuations, Local Logic looks at where people actually live. “Because we have the score for every house in the city, the way that we weight it is by population,” she tells Wahi. “So if there’s a big commercial area where nobody lives but everybody lives around it, it will rate that quiet [higher].”

Schools 

The school rating is calculated based on a given location’s proximity to schools — or “how far you have to walk,” explains Provencher, who notes that Local Logic manually updates the inventory of schools. “The school scores at the moment do not take the ratings into account,” she adds.

Parents interested in finding out where the top schools are in their city do further research by checking resources such as the Fraser Institute’s comprehensive ranking of every public and private school in Ontario.

While living near a top school is a priority for many families, Anne Alkok, Wahi’s broker of record, notes that you’ll typically pay a premium for real estate in such locations. “Neighbourhoods with top schools tend to be in higher demand and prices in those areas do tend to be higher,” says Alkok.

The Best Places to Live in Canada for Families  

The best places to live in Canada for families are spread across the country, giving homebuyers lots of choice when it comes to family-friendly locales. “We do have an embarrassment of riches when it comes to family-friendly cities,” says Flansberry.

1. Saanich, B.C. (Greater Victoria)

Car-Friendly Score: 4.1

Park Score: 4.2

Quiet Score: 4.0

Primary School Score: 4

High School Score: 3.5

Positioned on the southern tip of Vancouver Island, Saanich borders Vancouver’s capital, Victoria, and boasts the largest population on the island. Outdoorsy types will likely appreciate its beaches, gardens, trails, and gardens. Being on an island, the city has a slower pace of life compared to the bigger cities on this list, though meeting day-to-day needs shouldn’t be an issue.

2. Port Coquitlam, B.C (Greater Vancouver) 

Car-Friendly Score: 4.2

Park Score: 4.7

Quiet Score: 3.8

Primary School Score: 4.3

High School Score: 3.7

It comes as no surprise that Port Coquitlam — nestled in the very heart of the Greater Vancouver Area — has the highest parks score of any entry on Local Logic’s list of the best places to live in Canada for families. The city boasts more than 270 hectares of parkland. If you’re set on the west coast but living on an island sounds isolating, Port Coquitlam’s central location may make it worth checking out.

3. Regina, Sask.  

Car-Friendly Score: 4.0

Park Score: 4.2

Quiet Score: 4.1

Primary School Score:4.2

High School Score: 2.7

Saskatchewan’s capital prides itself on combining big-city amenities with a friendly small-town vibe, giving families the best of both worlds.

4. Barrie, Ont.  

Car-Friendly Score: 4.2

Park Score: 4.0

Quiet Score: 4.2

Primary School Score: 4.1

High School Score: 2.9

Just north of the Greater Toronto Area, Barrie is a popular bedroom community for Canada’s largest urban centre but also one of Canada’s fastest-growing cities with a population that’s projected to increase by nearly 100,000 by 2041. Despite this sizable growth, it has the title of the safest city in Canada. Barrie attained a Crime Severity Index score of 48.1 in 2023, well below the national average 80.5 and the lowest of the 42 census metro areas surveyed by Statistics Canada.

5. Oakville, Ont.  

Car-Friendly Score: 4.1 

Park Score: 4.6

Quiet Score: 4.0

Primary School Score: 4.1

High School Score: 2.7

Midway between Toronto and Niagara, Oakville is a harbourfront city with a thriving waterfront that caters to a suburban lifestyle, too. It also has some of the top-rated schools in the province, according to the Fraser Institute’s Report Card on Ontario’s Elementary Schools 2024 (Forrest Trail Public School earned a perfect 10/10 in the latest ranking). 

6. Vaughan, Ont.  

Car-Friendly Score: 4.1 

Park Score: 3.8

Quiet Score: 4.0

Primary School Score: 4.3

High School Score: 2.9

With the recent expansion of Toronto’s subway system to Vaughan’s new downtown, the so-called City Above Toronto has become increasingly urban over the past decade. The transformation has brought more amenities (and a lot more condos) to the municipality. Among the 10 best places to live in Canada for families, Vaughan is tied for first for its high concentration of households with children (71%).

7. Whitby, Ont.  

Car-Friendly Score: 4.0

Park Score: 3.8

Quiet Score: 4.0

Primary School Score: 4.3

High School Score: 2.6

About an hour east of Toronto, Whitby, like Oakville, is a waterfront community. While the downtown has nearly 500 shops, restaurants, and other businesses, there are many suburban subdivisions to choose from as you head farther inland. The broader Durham region — of which Whitby is a part is known for its relative affordability for single-family homes compared to many other parts of the GTA. It also matches Vaughan for the prevalence of households with children.

8. Saint-Lambert, Que. (Greater Montreal)
 

Car-Friendly Score: 4.3

Park Score: 4.4

Quiet Score: 3.2

Primary School Score: 4.2

High School Score: 3.6

Set on the banks of the St. Lawrence River and across from Montreal, Saint-Lambert is a mostly suburban city with a charming downtown (known as the Village). It’s established itself as an arts-and-culture centre and hosts many events throughout the year. 

9. L’Assomption, Que. (Greater Montreal)

Car-Friendly Score: 4.2

Park Score: 3.0

Quiet Score: 4.5

Primary School Score: 3.6

High School Score: 3.3

If a more rural lifestyle appeals to your family, L’Assomption might be just the place. Its picturesque setting and two well-known spas make it a popular weekend retreat for Montrealites. For those living there, L’Assomption’s proximity to Montreal means it’s possible to embrace country living without sacrificing convenience. 

10. Saint John, N.B.   

Car-Friendly Score: 4.2

Park Score: 3.6

Quiet Score: 4.1

Primary School Score: 3.9

High School Score: 3.1

Saint John could be your happy place. In fact, more than one study has found Saint John one of the happiest cities in Canada. If we had to guess, we’d say the home prices are probably bringing people joy today: a typical single-family home will run you about $300,000, suggests data from the Canadian Real Estate Association. While houses come (relatively) cheap, the Maritime’s location on the Bay of Fundy provides million-dollar views.