Two Ontario cities bordering each other ranked rudest, politest cities in Canada: survey

Two cities in southern Ontario that share a partial border have taken the number one spots for the rudest and politest cities in Canada.

Preply, which surveyed more than 1,500 Canadians across 44 cities, found which cities across the country people thought were the rudest and “whether the stereotype of apologizing too much is true.”

It found Vaughan, Ont. to be the rudest city in Canada, but ironically the city to the east of it, Markham, Ont. was found to be the politest. Both cities are in York Region.

The two share a small border along Yonge Street, just south of Highway 7 to Steeles Avenue. Although, Richmond Hill — another city in between that borders both — took the spot at number 5 for being the rudest in the GTA.

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To round out the list of rudest cities in Canada, Coquitlam in B.C. ranked second place, Brampton. Ont., came in third place followed by Surrey B.C., Windsor Ont., Thunder Bay Ont., Regina, Edmonton, Sudbury, Ont., and Winnipeg.

In the Greater Toronto Area alone, the survey saw these as the rudest cities: Vaughan, Brampton, Toronto, Mississauga, Richmond Hill, Burlington, Oshawa, Oakville, then Markham.

Meanwhile, for those that ranked the politest alongside Markham: Saguenay, Que., came in second with Cape Breton in Nova Scotia in third, followed by Chatham-Kent, Ont., Levis and Quebec City in Quebec, St. Catharines, Oakville, Kingston and London, all in Ontario.

The survey found that some of the most common rude behaviours were closed-off body language, being absorbed by phone in public, not waving thank you when a car lets you merge, not saying thank you to the driver when exiting public transportation and not respecting personal space.

Vaughan was number one for two of the five categories.

The survey also looked at who apologized the most in cities across the country.

It found residents in Burlington, Ont. said sorry the most at 18 apologies per day.

Then, Oakville, Ont., just beside it, came in second with saying sorry 15 times per day. In third was both Longueuil, QC and Guelph, Ont., with 14 sorrys per day.

“While our study may have outlined some cities that are ruder than others, it’s important to note that overall, Canadians are relatively polite in public,” Preply noted. “With an average rudeness score of 5.41 on our scale of one to ten (ten being the rudest) and a strong tendency to apologize, Canada’s reputation still rings true.”

Preply is a U.S.-based company that has a language learning app and e-learning platform.