Methodology

A ranking is only as good as the disclosure behind it. This page covers how the data is built and what the Vitrine Score rests on in each province; the funding disclosure is on our Funding page.

How the Index is built

Completeness first

The register begins from the public licensing records of each provincial regulator, so that every licensed retirement residence in a province is represented. A residence does not opt in, and it cannot opt out. This is what separates a register from a directory: coverage reflects who is licensed to operate, not who has paid to be listed.

What the score measures

The Vitrine Score measures quality and evidence, not fit. In most provinces it rests on the public regulator's record for a residence: how often it has been inspected, what non-compliance findings and enforcement actions it has received, how serious those were, whether they were resolved, and how recent they are. How much a residence publicly discloses (a website, a link to its regulator record, its address and its postal code) is a small additional factor. Operators can claim their listing to correct and enrich their record, which improves the data without buying position in it.

Price, care type and size are deliberately not part of the score. They are matching details, not measures of a home's quality, so they shape your shortlist through the intake questions rather than the ranking. In Ontario and Alberta, a home's size is used only to put the findings of complaint and incident inspections and investigations on a per-resident or per-unit footing, never as a measure in itself.

Quebec is the exception. It publishes no inspection results for its private seniors' residences, so a Quebec score rests on what each residence declares in the province's registry rather than on a regulator's findings, and it counts some features that tend to follow price, as described below.

Prices are shown as provided by the residence or as published on its website, with the date.

How the score works

The score is deliberately conservative:

• The score is a position within a province, not a single national number, because inspection regimes and the data behind them differ too much between provinces to compare raw.
• A residence is scored only where there is enough of a record to be fair. Where there is not, its page reads "not yet scored" rather than showing a guess.
• Findings are measured against how often a home was inspected, so a large or frequently visited home is not marked down for volume alone; Ontario's incident and complaint inspections and Alberta's investigations are measured against the size of the home instead. Unresolved or recent findings count for more than old, resolved ones.
• In Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia, food safety is part of the score, and a home with too few food-safety inspections on record is rated cautiously in that part until more are found. British Columbia's score rests on food safety itself, as described below.
• In every province, a home's band follows its overall score: 80 or more is Strong, 60 or more is Good, 40 or more is Fair, and below 40 is Serious concerns.

What each province's score rests on

• Ontario. The routine inspections the Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority makes of every licensed retirement home, measured as the issues cited per inspection. The score also counts what the regulator found when it inspected a home after a complaint, or after someone reported suspected harm, abuse, neglect or misuse of a resident's money, as Ontario's Retirement Homes Act requires; these findings are measured against the home's resident capacity, as the regulator's register lists it, so a large home is not marked down for its size alone, and a home where such inspections found no problems counts as having a clean record. Food safety is part of the score, compared with the other retirement homes the same public health unit inspects.
• Alberta. The visits Alberta's inspectors make to each supportive living home, under two groups of standards: Alberta's accommodation standards with its other standards, and its continuing care health service standards, against which only some homes are inspected. Each group is judged on its own scale, so a home inspected under both is not marked down for being inspected more, and unresolved problems count more. Since April 2024, Alberta's records list many of these homes' visits under the label "Continuing Care Home Type B" at the same address, and those visits count as the home's own. The score also counts what inspectors found in complaint investigations and investigations under the health service standards, measured against the home's number of units, and a home where investigations found no problems counts as having a clean record. Food safety is part of the score, compared with the other retirement homes Alberta Health Services inspects. A home with no recent inspection visit on record is not scored.
• New Brunswick. The annual inspection the Department of Social Development makes of every special care home, in which inspectors check each home against the province's standards and publish the result. A home is measured by the standards found not met per inspection. Food safety is part of the score, compared with the other retirement homes New Brunswick's Health Protection Services inspects.
• Newfoundland and Labrador. The annual environmental health and fire and life safety inspections the Department of Government Services makes of every personal care home before its licence is renewed. Government Services publishes one of three results for each inspection: recommended for licensing; recommended with minor deficiencies, which it says pose no immediate health, fire protection or life safety risk; or not recommended, when deficiencies need immediate attention. An inspection with no deficiencies earns full credit, one with minor deficiencies partial credit, and a "not recommended" result none. Food safety is part of the score, compared with the other personal care homes Government Services inspects. A home's licence status from NL Health Services is shown on its page.
• Nova Scotia. The licensing inspection reports the province publishes for every residential care facility, each listing the requirements the home must correct. A home is measured by the requirements found per annual, semi-annual or general inspection; a requirement still outstanding at a later inspection counts once, at the inspection that found it, and a pre-occupancy inspection of a new building does not count. Food safety is part of the score, compared with the other residential care facilities Nova Scotia Environment inspects; because Nova Scotia does not mark which food-safety inspections are routine, every inspection counts.
• Saskatchewan. The inspections the Ministry of Health makes of every licensed personal care home. A home is measured by the problems found per full inspection (an operational review or a relicensing inspection). Problems found when the Ministry returns for a follow-up visit, or investigates a complaint, are added to that count, but those visits do not count as extra inspections, so a clean follow-up visit cannot water down the inspection that led to it. Saskatchewan's score has no food-safety part, because food-safety inspection records are available for only a few of its homes, and no separate complaint part, because the Ministry publishes very few of its complaint investigations.
• British Columbia. Different evidence, because the province's Assisted Living Registry inspects assisted-living residences mainly when there is a complaint or a safety concern and publishes no routine inspection reports. The score rests mainly on the routine food-safety inspections of the home's health authority, measured against a fixed standard rather than against other homes, and each complaint the Registry has substantiated and published lowers it, older findings counting less. Today this covers the homes whose food-safety inspection records we hold from Interior Health, Vancouver Coastal Health and Fraser Health; other British Columbia homes read "not yet scored" until their inspection records are available to us.
• Quebec. Different evidence again, because the province publishes no inspection results for its private seniors' residences. The score rests on what each residence declares in Quebec's registry of private seniors' residences: sprinklers, night staffing (in the residences that offer the most assistance, measured against the number of residents), a call-for-help system, an exit alarm where the residence accepts residents at risk of wandering, a backup generator, anti-scald valves on baths and showers, and air conditioning in rooms. Each food-safety conviction that MAPAQ or the Ville de Montréal has published against the residence in the last three years lowers the score, and a conviction both list counts once. These are the operator's own declarations, not a regulator's findings, and two of the features, air conditioning and a backup generator, tend to follow price; we score Quebec this way because the registry is what the province publishes for every residence. Private long-term care centres (CHSLDs), which the registry does not cover, read "not yet scored". A summary for Quebec, in French: Comment la cote Vitrine est établie au Québec.

Today the Vitrine Score is live in Alberta, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario and Saskatchewan, where regulator inspection coverage is broad enough to rank homes fairly, and in British Columbia and Quebec on the different bases described above. Provinces without that coverage yet show their regulator records where those exist and read "not yet scored" until their inspection data supports a fair score. Where a source dataset restricts republication, we link to the regulator's record and publish the derived score rather than reproduce the underlying documents. The method carries a version and a date and will be revised openly as coverage grows.

Where food-safety inspection results are available for homes in Saskatchewan, residence pages show them, compared with the other retirement homes inspected by the same public health authority. There they are shown for information only and are not part of the score.

The Census methodology

The Vitrine Seniors Housing Census adopts the published methodology of the discontinued CMHC Seniors' Housing Survey rather than inventing a new one. That means a census rather than a sample, the same inclusion criteria and standard-space definitions CMHC used, and coverage of private and non-profit residences across all ten provinces. Adopting the established schema keeps the new series compatible with the historical one running from 2010, so the national picture is continuous rather than reset.

Data and privacy

We do not sell personal data and we do not sell leads. Aggregated, anonymized data informs industry research, and that use is disclosed to families at the point of intake. Demand-side data is released at aggregate granularity only, with small-cell suppression and coarsened geography and time, so that no individual household or facility can be re-identified from what we publish.