Toronto barely scrapes into the top 50 of places to live in Canada but Jann Arden’s “middle of nowhere” makes it to Number 22.

Ottawa and Burlington outstrip all other Ontario places to rank Number 1 and Number 2 on the MoneySense list of 190 cities.

It’s Ottawa’s third year in a row as the top spot in the country.

“What does it have that other cities don’t?” MoneySense asked last year.

“In a word, consistency. It does not rank particularly high in any individual category but it comes in above average across the board.”

Toronto ranked 47th, between Thunder Bay and Aurora, which is a vast improvement over last year’s rank of 88, thanks to better marks for health care and job prospects.

Lack of affordable housing, doctors per 1,000 people and the jobless rate still all hammered Toronto’s score.

Oshawa, famously slagged by Arden when she was kicked off a VIA Rail train with her dog there, scored well for its low crime rate, weather, discretionary income and population growth.

Dead last on the list of Canada’s Best Places to Live 2012 is New Glasgow, N.S., two spots below Kawartha Lakes, Ont.

The worst-ranking place is the GTA is Brampton, once described by urban guru Jane Jacobs as one of Canada’s most successful communities.

MoneySense calculated its list by giving a city points in each category and then ranking those points with all other cities.

Housing, for example, was worth 15 points: half for average house prices and half for the time it took to buy a house.

Lower incomes and sales taxes ranked a city better, but overall they were only worth three points.

Oakville grabbed the top spot for the best weather in Canada, worth 18 points and based on amount of precipitation, wet days and days below 0 C. Nine of the top-10 weather spots in Canada were along Lake Ontario.

Northern Quebec had seven of the 10 worst places for weather.

MoneySense admits the list just crunches numbers and doesn’t factor in the “nearness of family, the friendliness of neighbours or even great sunsets.”

So Yellowknife scores second-best in the country for walking or biking to work, regardless of the risk of hypothermia, and Cape Breton, N.S., ranks best in Canada for affordable housing, although it’s near the worst for employment.

Wood Buffalo, Alta., beats out Oakville for the best household income in the country but its crime rate and culture ranking are significantly worse.

Markham places Number 2 for new cars, right behind Whitehorse. Ontario could claim nine of the top-10 spots for lowest crime rate, with Caledon at the very top and Milton, Burlington, Halton Hills, Oakville and Centre Wellington tied for third.

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Need a doctor? Grand Falls-Windsor has Canada’s best ratio of doctors per 1,000 people and Brooks, Alta., has the worst.

Estevan, Sask.’s 1.6 per cent unemployment makes it the best place in Canada to find a job; Bay Roberts, Nfld., is the worst.

Toronto only cracks a top-10 list in any category when it comes to culture, ranking Number 6 between Montreal and Ottawa. Vancouver, North Vancouver and Victoria could claim the top three rankings

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