This dataset lists Canada's global rank at or near number one, according to the core national interests all countries must protect and the distinctive national values that Canadians have, as defined by John Kirton in Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World (Toronto: Thomson Nelson, 2007). As this list is a work in progress, others are invited to update, contribute to or criticize and contest its content.

National Interests

Survival

• Starting with the first permanent settlement at Quebec City in 1608, Canada is one of the oldest consequential powers in the world, largely unscarred by secession (since 1776 as British North America), civil war or revolution (beyond the minor Riel Rebellion in the 19th century).

Security

• Security from invasion. Canada is the most secure G7 country, never have been invaded or attacked at home since the War of 1812.
• Security from terrorism. Canada has suffered almost no deaths on or over its soil from terrorism, only one in 1970 during the FLQ crisis and two from radicalized home-grown terrorists in 2014. It has, however, had several citizens killed from terrorism abroad, including those aboard the Air India flight and the 24 people at the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001.

Sovereignty

• Single sovereignty. Canada has had a single sovereign since its start as British North America in 1753.
• Shared sovereignty. Since Canada began its political life as British North America, it has pioneered and practised the principle of shared sovereignty, sharing its sovereign jurisdiction with the United Kingdom until 1982, sharing its sovereign, currently Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, with 17 other countries of the Commonwealth today and sharing her sovereignty within Canada between the federal government and ten provincial and three territorial governments.
• Sovereignty enforcement. Canadian governments' universal security forces and judicial systems are able to enforce Canadian sovereignty and its sets of laws and regulations throughout all the extensive territory Canada claims.

Legitimacy

• Happiness. Canada ranked first among G20 countries in 2013–15 in the World Happiness Report published by the United Nations, using an index based on gross domestic product per capita, healthy years of life expectancy, social support (as measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble), trust (as measured by a perceived absence of corruption in government and business), perceived freedom to make life decisions and generosity (as measured by recent donations). Other G20 members ranked in the top 25 as follows: Australia (ninth), United States (13th), Germany (16th), Brazil (17th), Mexico (21st) and United Kingdom (23rd). Globally, Canada ranked sixth, behind only the western, democratic, largely northern middle powers of (in order) Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway and Finland. See World Happiness Report 2016 Update.
• Corruption. Canada is regularly ranked among the least corrupt country among G7 countries and G20 ones, by Transparency International and others.

Territory

• Coastlines. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, of more than 240,000 kilometres in length.
• Superpower location. With coasts on the Atlantic, Pacific and Arctic Oceans, Canada is one of only three countries (along with the United States and Russia) adjacent to the three key oceanic theatres in the post-1945 air-atomic age, and thus ranked when joined with Britain as one of the world's three superpower by William T.R. Fox, who invented the concept in his 1944 book entitled The Superpowers.
• Territorial expansion. Canada is arguably the most successfully territorially expansionist states in the post-1648 Westphalian system of exclusive, territorial, sovereign states, especially after the great downsizing of the USSR into Russia in the post-Cold War years since 1992, but still number two at present after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014.
• Territorial extent. Canada currently ranks second in its territorial extent, behind neighbouring Russia in first place, but ahead of the neighbouring United States in third and China in fourth.

Relative Capability

• Social progress. Canada ranked first in the G20 and second globally in 2016 for social progress, as measured by the Social Progress Imperative's Social Progress Index based on basic human needs, foundations of well-being and opportunity and covering 99% of the world's population. Globally, Canada scored 89.40 ranked just behind Finland at 90.09, and ahead of Denmark at 89.39, G20 member Australia at 89.13, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands in turn, and then G7 member United Kingdom at 88.58. Source: Joe Myers, How Is Your Country Doing? (And Not Just Economically), Formative Content, published by the World Economic Forum, November 21, 2016.
• Resources. Canada often ranks number one in uranium production and hydroelectricity production and as an international energy and oil supplier to the United States.
• Fresh water. Canada shares the Great Lakes — the largest body of fresh water by volume in the world — with the United States.
• Higher education achievement. "The proportion of adult Canadians holding university and college degrees rose from 40 to 51 per cent [from 2000 to 2010], making Canada the most educated country in the world, the only place where the majority of adults have a degree." Doug Saunders, Why University Should Be Universal, Globe and Mail May 16, 2015.
• Carbon capture and sequestration technology. Canada had the world's first and in 2015 the only "operating commercial coal-fired power plant with carbon capture and storage," at SaskPower's Boundary Dam Plant. Ben Potter, "SaskPower's Monea Sees a Future for Coal," Australian Financial Review May 20, 2015, p. 9.
• Corporate headquarters. In 2016 Canada ranked first as the best country in which to headquarter a corporation and the second best country overall, according to the index from USNews. G20 member Australia ranked second for corporate headquarters and G7 member Germany first overall.

Distinctive National Values

Anti-Militarism

• Nuclear weapons. In the late 1940s Canada became the world's first nuclear-weapons-capable country to choose not to develop nuclear weapons of its own, a choice and position it has maintained to this day (even given its controversial choice from 1963 to 1982 to allow U.S.-controlled nuclear weapons to be stationed for use on Canadian soil).

Openness

• Immigrants per capita. "Canada accepts more legal immigrants per capita than any other country. Canada is one of the very few countries where pollsters find a positive attitude toward immigration." Jeffrey Simpson, Everyone's a Critic, But Canadians Have So Much to Celebrate, Globe and Mail, July 1, 2015.
• Population growth. Canada ranked first in the G8 in its overall population growth from 2001 to 2006, with a majority of the growth coming from net immigration rather than resident births over deaths.

Multiculturalism

• Diversity. Canada has the world's most demographically diverse city, in its largest one, Toronto, with 51% of its residents born outside Canada and 230 nationalities living there. Ranking second on this combined index is Brussels, followed in an approximate tie by London, Auckland and Los Angeles. Source: BBC Radio.

Environmentalism

• Coal use. Canada was the first G20 member to outlaw the use of ecologically harmful coal to generate electricity, doing so in 2009 and adding a stronger deadline in 2015.

Globalism

• Intergovernmental community. Canada formally considers the 51 countries that join it in the Commonwealth not as "foreign countries" but as members of a common community based on shared values and language. It increasingly considers the 56 other members of La Francophonie in a similar way.

International Institutionalism

• Global plurilateral summits. Canada has led the world in co-creating plurilateral summit institutions of global relevance and reach, starting with the Commonwealth, which was first proposed in 1917.