OpenStats desk
Long-form stories from the OpenStats data desk. Every chart and table traces to a named study edition or atlas export in this repository. Hometown weekly notes are archived separately and are not indexed for search.
Drinking water · October 7, 2026
The town reminded residents on September 28 that a boil water advisory in effect since September 14 remains active. City Score rank #318; hardness 226 mg/L remains an ECCC seed row; construction pillar is unplaced on 34-10-0292-01.
Read analysisBuilding permits
Cranbrook issued 140 permits worth $309.8 million through early September 2026, the Daily Townsman reported. OpenStats has no 0292 mapping for Cranbrook; City Score rank #277 with CSI 139.36 at rank #16.
Internet
Canada and Manitoba announced September 8 that Valley Fiber will connect more than 10,000 northern and rural homes. Thompson posts broadband rank #317 at 90.1 Mbps; construction pillar is unplaced without a 0292 CMA/CA map.
Crime severity
Statistics Canada’s July 22, 2026 crime release lists Moncton CMA CSI 105.6 (+11%). OpenStats maps Codiac police-service CSI 105.63 at rank #29 and City Score rank #71 at 56.4% standing; construction pillar unplaced.
Indoor radon
Algoma Public Health invited Elliot Lake households to free radon sessions October 8. No 2025 radon survey row; mill rate rank #1 at 20.97 mills; composite rank #323; construction pillar unplaced.
Infrastructure
Ontario and Canada will send up to $129 million to Barrie through the Development Charge Reduction Program for wastewater plant upgrades, tied to a 50% residential development charge cut through March 2029. OpenStats already ranks Barrie #8 on City Score with growth rank #30 and permit value rank #109.
City Score
Colwood ranks #1 among 343 Canadian cities on the 2025 OpenStats composite at 71.4% standing after the ISED broadband refresh. Hamilton is #2 at 70.4%, followed by Langford and Squamish. Ottawa holds #8 at 67.5%.
City Score
Rolling up 2025 composite standings by province, Northwest Territories averages 57.8% on one city, Ontario averages 51.1% across 123 cities, and Nova Scotia averages 45.0% across nine cities.
City Score
The 2025 composite places Ottawa at 67.5% with seven pillars observed. Toronto sits at 53.0% at rank #127 after verified broadband tiers land. Calgary ranks #181 at 49.3% with six pillars, including a refreshed connectivity placement.
City Score
Among cities with national population ranks 21–100, the 2025 composite averages 51.6% standing across 20 hometowns. Smaller ranked cities (101–343) average 53.2% across 53 places. No composite city in the top 20 population ranks appears in the 2025 board.
City Score
Comparing composite editions, Slave Lake improved from rank #237 to #65. Grand Falls, NB fell from #53 to #226. Movers reflect all eight pillars, including the 2025 police-service crime mapping.
Crime severity
Duncan, BC ranks #1 on the 2025 crime-severity study at CSI 336.06 using its RCMP municipal police-service row. Merritt follows at 291.65. Vancouver posts CSI 89.28 at rank #36.
Crime severity
Comox, BC posts the lowest police-reported CSI in the 2025 study at 36.75. Port Moody, Kimberley, and Barrie follow under 47. OpenStats maps 102 cities to a police service; 241 take median standing on the safety pillar.
Crime severity
After the police-service mapping refresh, each placed city uses its own Statistics Canada CSI row. Cities without a match keep median safety standing. The change shifts composite ranks when a hometown gains or loses a service-level value.
Population
Chestermere, AB ranks #1 on the population-growth pillar at about +9.2% annual change. Thorold and Beaumont follow. Olds, AB ranks last at about −3.5% among 343 cities.
Indoor radon
The 2025 highest-radon study lists 238 communities. Regina, Moose Jaw, and Weyburn tie at 301.7 Bq/m³. Winnipeg-area communities cluster at 256.7 Bq/m³.
Indoor radon
Only direct-tier verified radon atlas rows count toward indexable pages. Saskatchewan’s two direct cities average 226.7 Bq/m³. Ontario lists fifteen direct cities averaging 104.4 Bq/m³.
Property tax
Verified direct property-tax rows cover 57 cities in Ontario, five in Nova Scotia, and Vancouver in BC. Elliot Lake leads the Ontario direct set at 23.21 mills. Markham posts 7.00 mills at the low end.
Drinking water
The 2025 hardness study ranks Calgary, Belleville-Quinte West, and Yorkton at 279 on the pillar scale. Municipal water atlas pages still carry seed data_source labels, so those pages stay noindex until verified readings land.
Internet
OpenStats ranks connectivity using dwelling-weighted maximum advertised speeds from ISED hex ISP rows. Toronto averages 950 Mbps weighted max with 86.9% household-weighted 50/10 coverage after the gravity hex fix.
Building permits
Burnaby leads the 2025 per-resident permit study at about $12,400 per person. Twenty-five cities use verified municipal totals divided by Census 2021 population on OpenStats city records.
Methodology
Pulse totals require direct live Table 34-10-0292-01 rows. Seed suffixes and regional proxies stay off national Pulse math. The annual permit-value study uses direct sums where available and documented estimates elsewhere.
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