The headline of this article is very strange. It implies that 3 in the top 100 falls below expectations. What number would have met our baseline expectations?
Japan, a country with 125 million people that puts a big emphasis on education and research, has 4 universities in the top 100. France, a country of 68 million, has 4 universities. Germany, 84 million people and 4 universities. The entirety of Latin America has 3 universities in the top 100, ranked at #85, #93, #94.
If anything, this is a huge win for Canada. This article almost feels like propaganda.
Saying only 3 are in the top 100, after a significant methodological update but not saying whether or not overall Canadian universities are faring better or worse, seems disingenuous.
From what I can tell from this story, the top 3 Canadian universities moved up within the top 100 (U of Toronto, McGill & UBC moved up, UBC significantly). There is also a cluster just above 100s.
So unless there were a group of Canadian universities that fell out of the rankings, Canadian universities seem to be placing higher.
Not to mention that Canada is only about 0.5% of the total world population, so having 3% of the top 100 schools is pretty good. We're actually 6% of the top 50 too given these rankings.