In public policy, ranking is a big deal. Winnipeg has been ranked, at various times, as the murder capital of Canada, the car theft capital of Canada, the child poverty capital of Canada. Of course, no Winnipeger wants that kind of attention. That’s not what you want to rank number one in, that’s for sure.

So in this spirit, MacLean’s has published “The Most Dangerous Cities in Canada.” In it, we are told that Regina, Saskatoon and Winnipeg have captured the honours this year. Winnipeg can boast that it has held on to its number one ranking for car thefts, at 334% above the national average, and crushing second place Joliette Quebec which was only able to manage 241%.

Winnipeg Mayor, Sam Katz, in response to Winnipeg’s number 3 crime ranking is quoted as saying, “I hope the next time you and I talk, we’re not even in the top ten.”

But what if Winnipeg isn’t in the top 10? What if Winnipeg falls to 20th, not because its crime rate changed, but because crime everywhere else went up? On a comparison to the national average this will have been a victory, at least for Sam. But who will really have won? At the end of the day, does it really matter where you rank when your competitors aren’t any good either?

While it is valuable to have some “objective” measures, we make this mistake with ranking all the time. Reports on hospital wait times focus on which provinces rank well. When discussing rates of medical errors or hospital-acquired infection we praise the province or facility with the lowest rate. But is the lowest rate an acceptable rate? Or should we really be striving to eliminate errors and infections in all facilities. Rather than seeing the high ranking of one facility as a failure, perhaps we should look at the inconsistency in the results as a failure. Why should I be more likely to experience a medical error or infection in one facility than another?

The University of Manitoba will have sympathy for my arguments, I am, sure. They have consistently trailed the pack in the MacLean’s rankings of Canadian universities. And yet, having attended the university, and knowing many others who have, I can confidently say that I have no doubt that it provides as high a quality of education as any other university. No, it isn’t as prestigious. But is that really what matters? And what do we accomplish by creating arbitrary distinctions? Let’s look at the student that comes out the other end of an education. How well are they educated? Can we rank that? If we can’t, it seems to me there isn’t much point in ranking anything else.
So next time you see a ranking in a discussion of public policy ask yourself, what would I consider an acceptable or desirable result? And, if that result is achieved, does it really matter where it ranks? Or better yet, is it even fair to compare?

MacLean’s always makes it seem simple. But really, is comparing Victoria, Winnipeg, Caledon and Beloeil simple? I would suggest it isn’t. And maybe it’s better not to pretend that we can compare things that can’t be compared.