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“What we have in front of us is a marked opportunity,” he said. “We can significantly exceed the U.S. in economic freedom over the course of, I would say, the next five to 10 years. The question for Canadians is are we going to seize the opportunity or are we going to let the opportunity go by?’’

The study’s authors point to research that shows nations with high levels of economic freedom — plenty of personal choice, voluntary exchange, freedom to compete and security of private property — do better in terms of well-being.

They tend to have higher GDPs, less poverty, longer life-expectancy and more political and civil liberties.

The report, which judges 144 countries on 42 separate measures of policies that promote economic freedom, ranks a country higher for having a smaller government and also considers its legal system and record on property rights, “sound money” or financial growth, freedom to trade internationally and levels of regulation. It relies on data from 2010 in this ranking, because that’s the most comprehensive data available, study authors said.

The Fraser Institute uses numerous surveys and data from the World Bank, which does wide comparative analysis of countries all over the world, to aid in their rankings.

[np_storybar title=”America: Still almost as free as Qatar” link=”http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/09/18/matt-gurney-america-still-almost-as-free-as-qatar/”]The bad news for North America is that the United States — once the country that symbolized capitalism, entrepreneurialism and free markets supporting a free society — is increasingly unable to claim any of those things. It used to rank in third, consistently, just behind Singapore and Hong Kong. That was then. The U.S. tumbled in 2012 down to the 18th spot for most economically free country in the world. It can console itself, however, in only being a teeny-tiny bit behind Qatar. Way to go, America!