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Q: How did Canada do?

A: We tied. For fourth. With two other countries, Ireland and Australia. So not terrible, but not great. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, a place that for all its modernization and economic freedom is still officially a Chinese state, ranked third.

Q: How did Hong Kong beat us?

A: In short, the Index of Human Freedom places a high value on economic freedom. Mr. Mahon said that economic freedom data from the Index of Economic Freedom of the World, also produced by the Fraser Institute, is awarded half of the ranking’s weight, while other categories, such as sexual violence, theft, freedom of speech and freedom of movement, are given the other half of the weight. “Economic freedom is a precondition for other freedoms,” Mr. Mahon said, giving the example of the street vendor in Indonesia who set himself on fire after he was denied the right to sell his goods. “The key area where Hong Kong is first in the world is economic freedom,” he said. Hong Kong also received high scores in the categories of security and safety of people and women’s freedom of movement. However, lower scores were assigned to political expression and ability to form homosexual relationships. Data was also not available for fields such as sexual violence, freedom of speech and political imprisonment. Canada received high scores in freedom of movement and freedom of expression but mid-to-low range scores in theft, burglary and adoption by homosexuals. Although Canada was “pretty close” to Hong Kong in terms of economic freedom, this wasn’t close enough to break us out of our fourth place, three-way tie.