Feeling glum? It’s where you live
Happiness survey says most miserable people in the province are in Montreal
Rimouski residents are the happiest people in Quebec, while Montrealers are the most miserable, says a Quebec City website.
People in Rimouski, a town of 47,000 in the Lower St. Lawrence region, rated themselves at 82.1 out of 100 on the happiness scale, states indicedebonheur.com.
In Montreal, respondents gave themselves a score of 75.5 out of 100 for happiness.
The index is compiled from 15,412 answers to an online questionnaire over the past year.
While Montrealers are more glum than folks in other regions, they’re surprisingly happy considering all the problems they’re dealing with, said Pierre Côté, a Quebec City communications consultant who is founder of the Indice relatif du bonheur.
“Montreal has high unemployment, a lot of people on low incomes, a large number of single-parent families and low rates of property ownership,” Côté said.
Municipal corruption and political tension don’t help matters, he added, so it’s surprising Montrealers aren’t significantly more depressed than other Quebecers.
“Montreal is happy despite itself,” Côté said. “It’s a city that has a soul. I think that plays an important role,” he said.
Côté, who founded the happiness survey in 2006, said Quebecers, with an average score of 77.2, stack up quite well compared to people in France, where he also does a survey. The French scored 67.5 on average, he said.
Other happy towns in Quebec are Ste-Julie (81.7), Chambly (81.5) and Boucherville (80.1).
The least happy places, after Montreal, were Saguenay (75.6), Rivière-du-Loup (76) and St-Hyacinthe (76.1)
Côté said happiness is based on a range of factors including people’s sense of accomplishment, health, work satisfaction, family, financial security, love, freedom, recognition, friendship, serenity, optimism, spirituality and the ability to live in the moment.
He said it is difficult to evaluate the accuracy of the survey, since it depends how many people from a particular town responded.