Iceland: Is this the nation we want to be?
Benns' Belief
Roderick Benns is the publisher of The Advocate. An award-winning author and journalist who grew up in Lindsay, he has written several books including Basic Income: How a Canadian Movement Could Change the World.
A few weeks ago, the World Happiness Report was released for 2025. Canada continues to slip down the rankings, now positioned 18th in the world. Just 10 years ago, we were in fifth place.
The reasons are many for the drop in this report, which assesses GDP per capita, healthy life expectancy, freedom, social support, generosity and perceptions of corruption. Sharing a border with the United States doesn’t help, which is also in freefall at number 24, but ultimately, we are a sovereign nation and have the choice to do things differently.
Felix Cheung, a Canada Research Chair in population well-being and assistant professor in the department of psychology at the University of Toronto, was recently interviewed by the CBC. Cheung noted that, “When one person is unhappy, that’s an individual issue. But when a country is unhappy, this is a structural issue.”
Last month Rebekah and I visited Iceland which, once again, rounds out the top three happiest places on the globe, along with Finland and Denmark. I’ve made no secret of the admiration I have for Nordic societies, which manage to balance the intrinsic benefits of capitalism with thoughtful social policy better than anywhere on earth. We talked with some of the local people we encountered in Reykjavik, the most northerly capital city in the world, to get a sense of what makes life so great there.
One 34-year-old man, who had immigrated to Iceland when he was 11, spoke glowingly about his adopted homeland. He pointed out that Icelandic society values a strong work ethic, and the Youth Act emphasizes organized activities with social, preventive, and educational values for young people. These activities are often managed by municipalities and aim to promote well-being, initiative, and active participation. As well, Iceland’s Ministry of Education and Children has policies supporting leisure and youth work, ensuring access to professional opportunities for personal growth at an early age.
Many of us here in Kawartha Lakes are feeling helpless as we look at the fentanyl problem wreaking havoc on our streets. I can’t help but wonder if Iceland’s systematic, organized approach for young people would eventually pay dividends here. (Incidentally, we didn’t see a single person on the streets of Reykjavik – a city of about 145,000 people – who looked like they were in distress from drug addiction.)
In fact, Iceland is one of the safest nations on the planet, with extremely low crime rates and high levels of trust among residents and towards institutions.
While people we talked with acknowledged Iceland is an expensive place to live, that must be placed in context. The average wage for a full-time working citizen in this Nordic nation is nearly $8,000 a month, in Canadian dollars. And there is no minimum wage in Iceland. Instead, fair wages are determined through collective bargaining agreements between employers and unions, something that is in decline here.
Fair wages. Youth who are supported to find purpose. Is Iceland the Canada that once was? And is it the Canada we can still be?
