Toronto and Montreal
or Tronno and The City of Saints
The two largest cities in Canada. Just about 547 kilometers, or 340 miles, apart from each other.
While the two cities are dynamic, cosmopolitan, global cities with amazing attractions, both are quite different.
Let’s start with the language.
French is the primary language of Montreal, while English is the primary language of Toronto.
But wait Mr. Beat. Aren’t both English and French official languages in Canada?
Well, yeah, but Montreal is in Quebec
Bon Cop, Bad Cop clip
I know, I know also pronounced KUH- bek or KEH-bek
which is the only province where the majority of residents speak French.
But have no fear English-speaking peoples. More than 59% of Montreal residents can speak both English and French.
Less than 1% of folks who live in Toronto mostly speak French, although most Toronto residents know at least some French, or at least they were supposed to learn it in school.
Pay attention in school, kids.
Why the language difference? Well let’s get into some history.
Montreal is 151 years older than Toronto. Woah dude.
Montreal began as a fort called Ville-Marie.
French settlers founded Ville-Marie on May 17, 1642 to help expand its colonial empire, New France.
In those early years, Ville-Marie became a major center for the fur trade and made lots of money for France until France lost it in 1760 to the British army in the Seven Years’ War.
After the British moved in, THEY made lots of money in the fur trade.
Meanwhile, the British established the Province of Upper Canada.
Its first Lieutenant-Governor, a dude named John Graves Simcoe, established what would become Toronto on August 27, 1793.
He named it York, to kiss King George’s butt, since the Duke of York was King George’s son.
It was meant to be the temporary capital of Upper Canada, but folks liked it so much it ended up becoming the permanent capital.
During the War of 1812, American troops attacked the fort which protected York, called Fort York of course.
In fact, the Americans attacked it twice, taking it over in April 1813 and pillaging and burning parts of the city to the ground.
Hey, speaking of which, my Canadian friend Tristan from Step Back History, who JUST SO HAPPENS TO LIVE IN TORONTO, made a video about the War of 1812 from the Canadian perspective.
Be sure to go check it out when you’re done watching this one.
Anyway, the Americans capturing what would become Toronto in the War of 1812 really wasn’t that big of deal, because the real prize would have been Montreal.
By this time, Montreal was quickly becoming one of the most important cities in all of North America.
It really started to grow, however, after the opening of the Lachine Canal in 1825 and after it was briefly the capital of the United Province of Canada.
York residents decided to become all official in 1834, renaming their city to Toronto.
Toronto’s first mayor, William Lyon Mackenzie, led a rebellion in 1837, but Upper Canada forces put that down pretty quickly, and Mackenzie and others fled to, you guessed it...the United States.
For the rest of the 1800s, both Montreal and Toronto grew steadily.
It helped that they both annexed surrounding communities.
In fact, one reason why Montreal became a predominantly French speaking city is because of these annexations.
Still, throughout that time Montreal dominated over Toronto in every category.
In 1901, Montreal had around 326,000 people, and Toronto just around 238,000.
However, after World War II, Toronto caught up and surpassed Montreal in population, becoming the new economic capital of Canada.
Since then, both cities have steadily grown, both competing to dominate the culture of eastern Canada, although the two co-exist quite well with Toronto’s anglophone focus and Montreal’s francophone focus.
Don’t get me wrong, many in both cities talk trash about the other.
Today, the Toronto metropolitan area has around 5.9 million people. Montreal’s metro area has around 4.1 million.
Montreal has a lower population density than Toronto. Toronto has three international airports.
Montreal has two. While both cities rank among the top for best big cities in the world to drive in, that doesn’t mean they don’t have traffic.
Montreal’s traffic is a little worse, though, mostly due to the fact that it’s on an island and roads often get congested on bridges.
So how about transit? Both have pretty solid public transit, although Toronto has a better system according to at least one ranking, but if you asked Torontonians about it I’m sure they’d have lots to complain about.
Montreal has several public transit providers. Two of the biggest are the Montreal Transit Corporation and Montreal Metro.
Toronto has the Toronto Transit Commission, which has a huuuge network.
But Montreal wins on public transit. Why? Well, public transit is much cheaper there compared to Toronto.
Actually, pretty much EVERYTHING is cheaper in Montreal compared with Toronto.
The cost of living is about 27% higher in Toronto.
Good thing the minimum wage is higher there compared to Montreal. ($14 vs. $12)
Also, Montreal has higher taxes overall compared with Toronto.
Which makes sense, as Toronto has a lot more wealth. Its economy makes up 20% of Canada’s GDP.
It’s the banking and stock exchange center of Canada, and produces over half of Canada’s manufactured goods.
Top industries in Toronto include finance, media, and technology.
Montreal is also one of the most important economic hubs of the world. It remains the trade leader in the country.
The Port of Montreal is the largest inland port in the world.
Other top industries in the city include media, artificial intelligence, and, believe it or not, video games.
Notice how I said both were media hubs.
Perhaps obviously, Toronto is Canada’s English-language media hub and Montreal Canada’s French-language media hub.
Montreal currently has a lower unemployment rate. (6% vs. 6.4%)
Both have similar poverty rates. (21.3% vs. 20%-25%)
Both cities have pretty low crime compared with other cities of comparable size, but Montreal has a lower murder rate.
While both cities have bike sharing programs, Montreal’s is more than twice as big.
Oh now. How about the people? The people in both cities are great.
Oh you want more than that?
Well the average age is about the same in both cities (36.9 Toronto 36.7 Montreal)
Montreal’s huge student population surprisingly doesn’t bring it down more.
Both cities are multicultural hubs, filled with immigrants from all over.
However, Toronto has a lot more. 46.1% of Toronto residents were born in another country, compared with 23.4% of Montreal residents.
Roman Catholics make up the largest religious group in both cities.
Toronto gets a little warmer in the summer and Montreal gets a little colder in the winter.
Don’t get me wrong, both cities have long, brutal winters with lots of snow, but Montreal definitely gets a bit more of that.
Montreal gets quite a bit more precipitation than Toronto. (41.83 in/1,062.5mm vs. 32.72in/831.1mm), and yeah...less sunny days.
As I said earlier, Montreal is on a freaking island, the Island of Montreal as matter of fact.
There are more people living on that island than any other island surrounded by freshwater in the world.
The island is surrounded by the majestic St. Lawrence River to the south and the Rivière des Prairies to the north, a delta channel of the Ottawa River.
Fun fact. Montreal used to have a river it dumped sewage in called the Saint Pierre River.
It was so bad that for safety’s sake Montreal residents buried it.
Toronto has the Humber and Don Rivers, but who cares about rivers when it has a giant lake, baby.
That’s right. It sits right on Lake Ontario. But while Toronto has one of the Great Lakes, it doesn’t have mountains nearby to escape to like Montreal does.
But why escape? Both cities are fairly clean and have less pollution than most cities of their size.
How about professional sports teams?
Well Montreal has the Canadiens for hockey, the Alouettes for Canadian football, and Impact for soccer.
Toronto has ya straight up BEAT for number of professional sports teams, with the Maple Leafs for hockey, Argonauts for Canadian football, and Toronto FC for soccer.
Plus the Raptors, who play in the NBA and Blue Jays, who play in the MLB.
I know, I know. Montreal used to have the Expos. The Leafs and Habs are pretty big rivals in the NHL by the way.
Excuse my pronunciations here but...major attractions in Montreal include Mont-Royal, Parc Jean Drapeau, Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal, and, uh...Old Montreal.
Major attractions in Toronto include the CN Tower, the Distillery District, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the Toronto Islands.
Other random differences? While Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics, Toronto has surprisingly never hosted the Olympics.
Montreal has hosted a world’s fair and Toronto hasn’t.
While the French food in Montreal is obviously unbeatable, Toronto tends to have more food diversity overall.
And sorry Montreal, Toronto’s roads tend to be in better shape.
Toronto has stricter laws on drinking alcohol. In fact, the drinking age is 19 in Toronto and just 18 in Montreal.
And finally, the architecture in Montreal is far superior.
UH-OH, I’m getting into my opinion. I better stop while I’m ahead. The bottom line is
for Canadians looking to move to the big city, they have two fantastic choices.
Not only are Toronto and Montreal two of the most attractive cities in Canada, they are two of the most attractive cities in the world.
A shout out to the four Canadians
who helped me with this script.
With this video, I had four different Canadians look it over
Check out all their channels. I posted links to all of their channels in the description below.
And of course check out Tristan's video about the War of 1812
where he also looks at Canadian nationalism.
So what do YOU think?
Which city is better? Montreal or Toronto?
Let me know in the comments below. Feel free to keep it civil. Thanks for watching!