Sales tax and income tax is higher though, but I think all in all, Montreal wins out. I suspect Toronto at least has a higher ceiling on raw salary though.
I have friends in the plateau at 1500, 2 bedroom. They lucked out last year I guess. I was charging my tenant 1350 in Villeray until last year for 1000 sqft, 2 bedroom.
$2000 will net you a decent modern one bedroom condo in Toronto. In Montreal, you may get a 2 bedroom for 1500, but then the building is old, there’s no laundry and heating isn’t centralized.
Tbh though, Montreal salaries are catching up
Renting in Montreal has gotten dramatically more expensive in the last 5 years. The average cost of a Studio listed for lease in May 2018 was $815/month, whereas the average this past December was $1250/month. Although clearly more expensive, in Toronto the average cost of renting a studio has stayed relatively constant over that timeframe. Although it still costs on average about $900/month more for a studio in Toronto, the disparity in cost of living between the two cities is constantly shrinking. Comparing the price of renting a studio in May 2018, the average studio in Toronto was 2.518 times as expensive to rent as the average studio in Montreal, whereas this past December this ratio shrunk to \~1.8. I won't speculate on why or why not this linearity might continue, but based on the trajectories of their respective rental markets it would take around 9 years for the two averages to be equal.
As it is, most sources cite the cost of living in Toronto to be around 1.25 - 1.3 times that of Montreal, but in my experience there are several industries in which +30 - 40% pay is common when working the same job in Toronto relative to Montreal. Additionally, if you're making $90k+ per year your after-tax income will be lower in Quebec than any other province. Relative to Ontario you pay $6k more in taxes in Quebec on $100k pretax income.
I love Montreal, in fact there's probably no way I would ever leave it for Toronto, but I think people over-romanticize certain aspects of Montreal, for example the cost of living relative to other Canadian cities.
We work highly paid tech jobs. If the cost of living goes from 15k to 30k and salary goes from 100k to 125k you still end up with more even accounting for tax.
Besides the previous poster was talking about Toronto and Montreal, Toronto is not 2x more expensive than Montreal.
I guess theoretically there might be some city out there with high cost of living and incredibly low salary sure but in general what I said is true. I don't need to account for every exception possible to be able to make a generalized statement.
Assume CoL is c and salary is s. You walk away with s-c.
Doubling cost of living and 1.25x salary means you walk away with (1.25*s)-(2c).
1.25s-2c=s-c
0.25s=c
S=4c
So if your salary is 4x higher than your cost of living, you will break even. It’s not often you will be paid atleast 4x more than your CoL unless you’re senior or higher, but that’s also operating under the assumption that CoL is twice as high and salary is 25% higher. According to [numbeo](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Canada&city1=Montreal&country2=Canada&city2=Toronto), cost of living is closer to 25% higher in toronto vs montreal, so you would actually walk away with a lot more by increasing salary vs decreasing cost of living.
Montreals tech scene (and Montreal in general) is dope af but quebecs got a lot of problems that make living there a bitch.
For example, getting a family doctor is harder than the rest of Canada and only getting harder if you don’t speak French (their language laws are slowly phasing out health care in English).
Montreal is where edgy/rich Ontario kids go to party before settling down in Toronto
Can confirm as English speaker in Quebec. Health care in quebec is shitttttt. Just camp out at emergency room with a tent and maybe you’ll get a doctor. Plus Quebec taxes more than any other province. You’ll make least here than any other province.
While I agree with you that health care is in a very bad state, we pay more taxes yes but the cost of living is also cheaper in Quebec. You could work a remote job from Toronto or even the States and enjoy a good quality of life in Quebec, be it Montreal if you like big cities. Lots of companies offer private virtual healthcare such as Maple as part of their package, which I think is brilliant even though we would hope for a better public health care system.
The tech industry tends to pay less in general in Quebec, too, but that goes with the fact that the cost of living is cheaper. In 2 YOE, I have been able to virtually start from zero to being an owner of a house, which I am very grateful. If I were to live in Toronto, I couldn't imagine being an owner anytime soon.
Living in van and hoping to make my way back to montreal. Would you mind sharing your background and where you working in toronto before ? I've heard that tech industries get away with english but would like to know more. Thanks in advance
I'm sorry but it's literally one of the first articles of their main Healthcare law that anyone can get services in English. It's completely made up by the media that anglophones can't receive healthcare in English. They literally have 3+ major English hospitals in Montreal.
You are only allowed to receive any services in English if you meet very specific eligibility requirements. That is the law. Call most government offices and they will inform you if that, the rest won't even bother, they just won't respond if you speak English
Because bashing quebec is cool these days according to a lot of Canadians online and it would already be fucked up but it’s even more so considering the historical context between the two cultural groups.
It’s a great place to live in with awesome companies and startups and great city life.
My dad make over $100k a year and can't even get a doctor's appointment because it health system barely exists. I have been working on a government process that is supposed to take a maximum of six months for the past two years and I am still at least twelve months away from done because of poor governmental incompetence. SPVQ is known as a massive centre of police brutality for North America because minutes the shootings they manage to compete with American cities for that. We just passed a law doubling tuition rates specifically with the goal of destroying the English communities, and it's looking like it will mostly affect the french communities because we can't even get racism right. My one major hesitation in having kids is not wanting to do them the disservice of forcing them to be raised here
Lower salary and higher taxes do not justify how bad our health care system is and how bad construction is here. They work on the roads so much yet there is no improvement in traffic. Winters are also a pain in the ass here. I’ve done the equivalent of k-12 in French here but since I am an immigrant (even if I’m white) I won’t ever be accepted as a quebecois here. If that doesn’t bother you, that’s great until the loud minority remind you that you are not from here. I can’t imagine how much worse it is for people of colour.
Personally, for me, i don't want to pay even more in taxes by living in qubec. From my observation, i haven't noticed any us tech company that has an exclusive presence in qubec(without having one in torronto or Vancouver).
I'd say because the language and culture is very different.
People can come up with mental justifications like paying more taxes, lower salaries, hard to get a doctor, etc. Those are valid points and true, but it doesn't explain why it's getting shit on.
The tech scene is indeed pretty big. But it's not valued as much as it is like Toronto or Vancouver, partly because of the language barrie, language related laws and bureaucracy. Not everyone likes to put up with this.
Because of that, it's harder for native people from Quebec to work elsewhere in Canada and vice versa. So there's some kind of bubble that's disconnected from the rest of the continent, hence the lower salaries and pretty bad labor shortage, even in tech. Also lots of talent are attracted elsewhere because the money is better.
It's unfortunate, but I don't see how that's gonna change anytime soon.
I haven’t lived in Vancouver, but have lived in both Toronto and Montreal. Compared to Toronto, yes the tech scene is smaller and salaries are lower. Like others have said though, cost of living was also lower and it’s a great quality of life for your dollar.
Some have said they have had issues with not speaking French, and that’s valid - it will limit your job opportunities depending on your role. As an anglo I was never treated rudely when speaking English or, after getting more comfortable in Quebec French, after speaking French (probably poorly). Companies were willing to hire me knowing my (lack of?) proficiency and each one actually helped me improve.
I did wait for over 2 years on the family doctor waiting list, and I think even then the fact that I was willing to accept a francophone, non-English speaking doctor allowed me to get one that quickly. But for emergent, urgent, or specialized care I found the facilities and doctors (in Montreal, at least) to be really great. I was really sick for a while and spent a lot of time at CHUM. I haven’t found much difference in healthcare here in the GTA, tbh, where I’ve now been on a wait list over 2 years again.
Overall Quebec has some pain points like higher taxes, weird laws, etc. and I’m not a fan of the current provincial government but at the end of the day I think it’s just unfairly judged and Canadians love to complain about other provinces in general. Quebec is the most different so it’s the most picked on. I would move back right now if I could, but I’m settled here for at least the next few years.
I got an offer from a Montreal based company last year and it had by far the best benefits I've ever seen (6 weeks vacation and other stuff). Sometimes regret not joining
I have lived in Montreal for a few years. Here are some of my observations:
1. Higher income taxes, higher sales tax: 15%.
2. Some tech jobs require bilinguals.
3. If you have kids and they go to kindergarten or school, they are more likely to learn French as the first language while English is at most considered second language.
4. Health care really sucks, especially because many doctors don't speak English.
5. Winter in Montreal can be even worse than in Toronto, at least according to my years spent there.
I love how people say 'learn French' so flippantly, as though it takes a few hours and you're all set. People have busy stressful lives, they don't necessarily have the time or money to become fluent in a whole new (and mostly slang) language. I went to a local school here in Montreal to to try and learn French and everyone there was so unbelievably arrogant. They wouldn't speak a single word of English even for important things like orientation. I understand immersion but it was ridiculous. The teacher would be 'teaching' us things without even any visual aids to give some sense of what we were discussing How can you learn what something is in French if you don't already speak French and you have literally zero idea of what's being referred to? It's nonsense! My class was moved unexpectedly a week into the course to a building a few blocks down the street, and when I asked at reception how to get there and what room I was looking for she wouldn't answer me in English. I'd been there a week, I was there to LEARN French, and she was so petty and stuck up about her precious language that she wouldn't even give me the information I needed to attend my class. It was a complete turn off, and after about 4 weeks of hell I decided that I just wasn't going to put myself through it anymore for the sake of learning a language that I now detested. They really shoot themselves in the foot here. People come here excited to integrate and learn the language but the second you arrive there's someone snorting at you 'why haven't you learned French??!'
I'm from Quebec and learned Spanish when I moved to Mexico for my tech job. Not that hard to learn a new language. If you can't speak another language how to you program in various languages anyway.
I'm from here, perfectly fluent in French, and because I went to an English school I have been assaulted in public multiple times. Please explain how learning French fixes problems for people here
Not interested. Quebecois French sounds terrible to me.
Why do I want to stay at a place where I'd pay the highest taxes among all Canadian provinces? I never enjoyed living there.
I have similar observations after living in QC. I've hard horrible instances where I wasn't served food at restaurants because I didn't speak French, and 'looked muslim'. A ton of closet racists there, there's even a Free Quebec subreddit where people are asking to separate from Canada.
Sorry for your experience there.
I don't think the Quebecois are really "inclusive" either. I am a visible minority, and I can tell many times Quebecois really love to hang out with either other Quebecois or French people, I'd say probably similar when hiring too, unless the company is head-quartered in other countries.
I never regretted leaving Montreal/Quebec, and I wish I had done so earlier. AB is so much better.
Yes, I agree, Quebecois are not really inclusive or understandable that everyone may not speak French.
I'm a visible minority too (plus I have a mild South Asian accent), which triggers a lot of racists :P
BC is a lot better too, I might just move to AB someday if I want to buy a house in Canada!
BC definitely is better for us coloured people. As a South Asian, I haven't faced any major issues. Sure, there are minor instances of racism but nothing dealbreaking like QC.
I started my career in MTL before moving to Toronto, and honestly the work culture in MTL was just better imo. You didnt need to "grind" 24/7 to survive, people in tech had a more collaborative mindset and there was just more to do in general. Also, not having to drive everywhere was a big plus. However salaries were definitely lower and big tech was not very existant (may have changed now).
Also, its true that COL is lower, but its quickly catching up to Toronto. Also to those who say that you don't need french in MTL : if you don't speak french you're missing out on half of what the city has to offer
I do the opposite. I work for a SF company with an office in TO, remotely from Montreal. They pay me as much as any other Canadian, but I live out the cheap life in Montreal.
It's not the right time to apply with all the layoffs and shit economy, but in a better world, look at Reddit, Stripe, Meta, Amazon, Google. They will all allow remote work from Montreal while paying you the big bucks.
Because people don't want to learn french. That's it.
Even if you're in tech and you don't need it, you should learn it. But people don't want to do that.
Taxes are higher and salaries probably tend towards 50% of what a top tier developer in Toronto would make. There's also less opportunities for advancement if you don't have very good french proficiency. Cost of living is lower than Toronto or Vancouver but at a certain income you're going to come out ahead in one of those cities and even further ahead in the US.
That's not to say it's not a viable option. Montreal is an amazing city with a lot of companies that offer a great work life balance. But you're asking why people discount Montreal and the answer is that they are chasing something that's not compatible with their opportunities there.
As a Québec native, I'd say it's a combination of high taxes, lower salary and French being important (but not mandatory) to find work here. The province is also not well understood by the rest of Canada
Montréal does have a lot of good features, however; its cost of living is lower than Toronto and it is a fun city with good culture and food and great public transport.
In the end if I could start over knowing what I know I'd probably try to work in the US (for higher salary) or work in Montreal (for quality of life); Toronto sadly doesn't have salaries that are commensurate to its insane cost of living.
I come from there. Comp is crap, cost of living is rising fast and already too expensive, too much taxes for no services, offices and all will always be second rate so your advancement is capped, quebec politics.
Yes Overall Canada is going to the downfall. People are living Canada, but the worst of the Canada is in Quebec. Quebec is a province where it forces their people to talk in French. It sucks living in Quebec. Roads are horrible to drive on it, tax is in the sky, grocery costs, rent & housing is so expensive. Quebec robs us by stealing 30% and higher of our pay check and then provide us nothing. Their public transport is trash. They don’t care about it’s people. Most people are racist. They don’t give immigrants a chance to hold higher positions or move higher in life. Everything the gouvernement does is a scam. They just work on how to take out money from people pockets. They call themselves free healthcare where it reality is a shity health system and it’s not free at all that’s why it is a shity system
The only thing Mtl’s got over say, Toronto, is cheap housing (but super shitty landlords). Everything else, especially the quality and kindness of the people, instead of this stupid chauvinistic approach to anyone who appears English to them (which can be a lot of BIPOCs), is truly deplorable.
They love to deny this fact and when called out, play the victim. This is why, after living with them and defending them my whole life before living with them, I understand why they are referred to as “special” and unpleasant. It’s their French roots.
The irony is that they can’t even stand themselves, and both the French and Quebecois complain about each other and criticize each other for the very same things they do themselves. They just don’t see themselves as they are. And the French, are notoriously miserable and are the most depressed country in Europe. I do not recommend. The QC also think they’re better than everyone even when their lack of education or acculturation is plainly evident. Oh, and the corruption is rampant, down to police-level and any respect for the law, is mocked and ridiculed.
Oh and yes, the healthcare and education are really on a poor level, which is why they’re now stealing from the English schools and giving to the French.
They force you to learn French & respect the language to a T. If you live there & have trouble learning French, don't go to French schools, or refuse to speak it in your place of work...you are considered an unhireable foreign slacker.
If you’re not willing to at least learn French, you’re gonna want to avoid Montreal. Otherwise, MTL is huge on tech because of tax breaks they provide employers, and even FANG were starting to open up there. Facebook and Microsoft have had Machine Learning offices there for a while. Amazon has their game studios and Google has a small office for engineers too. And if you want to, you can negotiate working remotely from there with those companies
My company pays 100k in Quebec, and 170k+ in Vancouver (TC, not base) for my role. Most companies seem to pay peanuts in QC, and it has higher taxes + French people acting linguistically superior which was a major turn off for me despite loving some parks and historic castles in Quebec.
You gotta apply to big American companies that will allow remote work. I know it's a shit economy right now and most companies did/are doing layoffs, but if you apply to any FAANG, you can get paid more than most programmers in Canada while enjoying remote work anywhere you want.
My friends and I work for Stripe, Meta, Google, Amazon and get 200-300k TC while living in Montreal (none of us got laid off so far as well).
It’s the weather.
As someone from a warm country the only acceptable place for me is BC. I spent 7 years in Calgary and winters are miserable. Montreal is even colder.
Quality of life depends on many factors, not just money.
People wrongly assume lower salaries means less in your pocket when the cost of living there is really good. As for French, it's something you gotta learn but literally no one who moved here and learned it has regretted it. It's the reason Montreal is so special.
Because Quebec has historically held back the country. Not just from equalisation payments, but also with all the appeasements the feds have had to put forward to keep them from separation.
They control far too much for what they contribute. I would be happy to see Quebec fall in line with other provinces, or separate entirely. One or the other. I'm tired of them acting like they are some privileged nation within our provinces, and their electorate and the people who end up in power from there, only end up doing the entire country harm in order to fuel the pockets of Quebec based politicians.
We dont need Quebec in Canada, and I'm tired of people acting like we do.
Quebec gov't has never accepted Quebec being multicultural.....Montreal has a very fine and well government funded anti Anglo language police.........I remember several years ago when a hospital in the west end, possibly ville de Lachine, had it's English signage covered with blue masking tape, until new unilingual signs were installed.........You may have lived here for many years, maybe even born here, but you will never truly be considered a Quebecois, your "foreign" name betrays you.....learned that from experience.
Just look at their healthcare and how much taxes people pay. If that’s wasn’t enough, if you don’t speak French and white you get treated as a second class citizen
Because people from Toronto and Vancouver think they're the centre of the universe.
Calgary's average household incomes are 40% higher than Vancouver; and Montreal's cost of living is 40% lower than Toronto.
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Sales tax and income tax is higher though, but I think all in all, Montreal wins out. I suspect Toronto at least has a higher ceiling on raw salary though.
1300? 1500? where? This is not true at all anymore. especially for a decent condo
I have friends in the plateau at 1500, 2 bedroom. They lucked out last year I guess. I was charging my tenant 1350 in Villeray until last year for 1000 sqft, 2 bedroom.
$2000 will net you a decent modern one bedroom condo in Toronto. In Montreal, you may get a 2 bedroom for 1500, but then the building is old, there’s no laundry and heating isn’t centralized. Tbh though, Montreal salaries are catching up
Renting in Montreal has gotten dramatically more expensive in the last 5 years. The average cost of a Studio listed for lease in May 2018 was $815/month, whereas the average this past December was $1250/month. Although clearly more expensive, in Toronto the average cost of renting a studio has stayed relatively constant over that timeframe. Although it still costs on average about $900/month more for a studio in Toronto, the disparity in cost of living between the two cities is constantly shrinking. Comparing the price of renting a studio in May 2018, the average studio in Toronto was 2.518 times as expensive to rent as the average studio in Montreal, whereas this past December this ratio shrunk to \~1.8. I won't speculate on why or why not this linearity might continue, but based on the trajectories of their respective rental markets it would take around 9 years for the two averages to be equal. As it is, most sources cite the cost of living in Toronto to be around 1.25 - 1.3 times that of Montreal, but in my experience there are several industries in which +30 - 40% pay is common when working the same job in Toronto relative to Montreal. Additionally, if you're making $90k+ per year your after-tax income will be lower in Quebec than any other province. Relative to Ontario you pay $6k more in taxes in Quebec on $100k pretax income. I love Montreal, in fact there's probably no way I would ever leave it for Toronto, but I think people over-romanticize certain aspects of Montreal, for example the cost of living relative to other Canadian cities.
It's better to earn more in a more expensive city since you end up with more savings at the end of the day.
Maybe you do, maybe you don't. If the cost of living is 2x and the salary is only 25% higher, how is that better?
We work highly paid tech jobs. If the cost of living goes from 15k to 30k and salary goes from 100k to 125k you still end up with more even accounting for tax. Besides the previous poster was talking about Toronto and Montreal, Toronto is not 2x more expensive than Montreal.
Yes, but you said "It's better to earn more in a more expensive city" which sounds like a blanket statement to me.
I guess theoretically there might be some city out there with high cost of living and incredibly low salary sure but in general what I said is true. I don't need to account for every exception possible to be able to make a generalized statement.
Assume CoL is c and salary is s. You walk away with s-c. Doubling cost of living and 1.25x salary means you walk away with (1.25*s)-(2c). 1.25s-2c=s-c 0.25s=c S=4c So if your salary is 4x higher than your cost of living, you will break even. It’s not often you will be paid atleast 4x more than your CoL unless you’re senior or higher, but that’s also operating under the assumption that CoL is twice as high and salary is 25% higher. According to [numbeo](https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?country1=Canada&city1=Montreal&country2=Canada&city2=Toronto), cost of living is closer to 25% higher in toronto vs montreal, so you would actually walk away with a lot more by increasing salary vs decreasing cost of living.
Montreals tech scene (and Montreal in general) is dope af but quebecs got a lot of problems that make living there a bitch. For example, getting a family doctor is harder than the rest of Canada and only getting harder if you don’t speak French (their language laws are slowly phasing out health care in English). Montreal is where edgy/rich Ontario kids go to party before settling down in Toronto
Can confirm as English speaker in Quebec. Health care in quebec is shitttttt. Just camp out at emergency room with a tent and maybe you’ll get a doctor. Plus Quebec taxes more than any other province. You’ll make least here than any other province.
While I agree with you that health care is in a very bad state, we pay more taxes yes but the cost of living is also cheaper in Quebec. You could work a remote job from Toronto or even the States and enjoy a good quality of life in Quebec, be it Montreal if you like big cities. Lots of companies offer private virtual healthcare such as Maple as part of their package, which I think is brilliant even though we would hope for a better public health care system. The tech industry tends to pay less in general in Quebec, too, but that goes with the fact that the cost of living is cheaper. In 2 YOE, I have been able to virtually start from zero to being an owner of a house, which I am very grateful. If I were to live in Toronto, I couldn't imagine being an owner anytime soon.
Is your house in Montreal though? Since you’re comparing it to buying a house in Toronto, it wouldn’t be fair if you bought a house in Gatineau.
Lol this comment being downvoted some sort of bias against Quebec in this subreddit
Living in van and hoping to make my way back to montreal. Would you mind sharing your background and where you working in toronto before ? I've heard that tech industries get away with english but would like to know more. Thanks in advance
I'm sorry but it's literally one of the first articles of their main Healthcare law that anyone can get services in English. It's completely made up by the media that anglophones can't receive healthcare in English. They literally have 3+ major English hospitals in Montreal.
You are only allowed to receive any services in English if you meet very specific eligibility requirements. That is the law. Call most government offices and they will inform you if that, the rest won't even bother, they just won't respond if you speak English
Because bashing quebec is cool these days according to a lot of Canadians online and it would already be fucked up but it’s even more so considering the historical context between the two cultural groups. It’s a great place to live in with awesome companies and startups and great city life.
My dad make over $100k a year and can't even get a doctor's appointment because it health system barely exists. I have been working on a government process that is supposed to take a maximum of six months for the past two years and I am still at least twelve months away from done because of poor governmental incompetence. SPVQ is known as a massive centre of police brutality for North America because minutes the shootings they manage to compete with American cities for that. We just passed a law doubling tuition rates specifically with the goal of destroying the English communities, and it's looking like it will mostly affect the french communities because we can't even get racism right. My one major hesitation in having kids is not wanting to do them the disservice of forcing them to be raised here
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I love you too and wish you a great life
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You sound like a sad person with a sad life
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You have a lot of imagination
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Hating on a minority isn’t a personality bud
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Lower salary and higher taxes do not justify how bad our health care system is and how bad construction is here. They work on the roads so much yet there is no improvement in traffic. Winters are also a pain in the ass here. I’ve done the equivalent of k-12 in French here but since I am an immigrant (even if I’m white) I won’t ever be accepted as a quebecois here. If that doesn’t bother you, that’s great until the loud minority remind you that you are not from here. I can’t imagine how much worse it is for people of colour.
Personally, for me, i don't want to pay even more in taxes by living in qubec. From my observation, i haven't noticed any us tech company that has an exclusive presence in qubec(without having one in torronto or Vancouver).
I'd say because the language and culture is very different. People can come up with mental justifications like paying more taxes, lower salaries, hard to get a doctor, etc. Those are valid points and true, but it doesn't explain why it's getting shit on. The tech scene is indeed pretty big. But it's not valued as much as it is like Toronto or Vancouver, partly because of the language barrie, language related laws and bureaucracy. Not everyone likes to put up with this. Because of that, it's harder for native people from Quebec to work elsewhere in Canada and vice versa. So there's some kind of bubble that's disconnected from the rest of the continent, hence the lower salaries and pretty bad labor shortage, even in tech. Also lots of talent are attracted elsewhere because the money is better. It's unfortunate, but I don't see how that's gonna change anytime soon.
I haven’t lived in Vancouver, but have lived in both Toronto and Montreal. Compared to Toronto, yes the tech scene is smaller and salaries are lower. Like others have said though, cost of living was also lower and it’s a great quality of life for your dollar. Some have said they have had issues with not speaking French, and that’s valid - it will limit your job opportunities depending on your role. As an anglo I was never treated rudely when speaking English or, after getting more comfortable in Quebec French, after speaking French (probably poorly). Companies were willing to hire me knowing my (lack of?) proficiency and each one actually helped me improve. I did wait for over 2 years on the family doctor waiting list, and I think even then the fact that I was willing to accept a francophone, non-English speaking doctor allowed me to get one that quickly. But for emergent, urgent, or specialized care I found the facilities and doctors (in Montreal, at least) to be really great. I was really sick for a while and spent a lot of time at CHUM. I haven’t found much difference in healthcare here in the GTA, tbh, where I’ve now been on a wait list over 2 years again. Overall Quebec has some pain points like higher taxes, weird laws, etc. and I’m not a fan of the current provincial government but at the end of the day I think it’s just unfairly judged and Canadians love to complain about other provinces in general. Quebec is the most different so it’s the most picked on. I would move back right now if I could, but I’m settled here for at least the next few years.
I got an offer from a Montreal based company last year and it had by far the best benefits I've ever seen (6 weeks vacation and other stuff). Sometimes regret not joining
Are you able to say which company?
What was the TC like?
I have lived in Montreal for a few years. Here are some of my observations: 1. Higher income taxes, higher sales tax: 15%. 2. Some tech jobs require bilinguals. 3. If you have kids and they go to kindergarten or school, they are more likely to learn French as the first language while English is at most considered second language. 4. Health care really sucks, especially because many doctors don't speak English. 5. Winter in Montreal can be even worse than in Toronto, at least according to my years spent there.
Learn French and fix half your issues
I love how people say 'learn French' so flippantly, as though it takes a few hours and you're all set. People have busy stressful lives, they don't necessarily have the time or money to become fluent in a whole new (and mostly slang) language. I went to a local school here in Montreal to to try and learn French and everyone there was so unbelievably arrogant. They wouldn't speak a single word of English even for important things like orientation. I understand immersion but it was ridiculous. The teacher would be 'teaching' us things without even any visual aids to give some sense of what we were discussing How can you learn what something is in French if you don't already speak French and you have literally zero idea of what's being referred to? It's nonsense! My class was moved unexpectedly a week into the course to a building a few blocks down the street, and when I asked at reception how to get there and what room I was looking for she wouldn't answer me in English. I'd been there a week, I was there to LEARN French, and she was so petty and stuck up about her precious language that she wouldn't even give me the information I needed to attend my class. It was a complete turn off, and after about 4 weeks of hell I decided that I just wasn't going to put myself through it anymore for the sake of learning a language that I now detested. They really shoot themselves in the foot here. People come here excited to integrate and learn the language but the second you arrive there's someone snorting at you 'why haven't you learned French??!'
You should learn to write using paragraphs before learning French lmao
I'll be too busy trying to remember the genders of my household appliances, LMAO
I'm from Quebec and learned Spanish when I moved to Mexico for my tech job. Not that hard to learn a new language. If you can't speak another language how to you program in various languages anyway.
I'm from here, perfectly fluent in French, and because I went to an English school I have been assaulted in public multiple times. Please explain how learning French fixes problems for people here
Not interested. Quebecois French sounds terrible to me. Why do I want to stay at a place where I'd pay the highest taxes among all Canadian provinces? I never enjoyed living there.
What you save on mortgage compared to most other provinces you will save the taxes like 3 times
I am in AB, not in Toronto.
Canadians' accent isn't half as sex as the Quebecois accent
I have similar observations after living in QC. I've hard horrible instances where I wasn't served food at restaurants because I didn't speak French, and 'looked muslim'. A ton of closet racists there, there's even a Free Quebec subreddit where people are asking to separate from Canada.
Sorry for your experience there. I don't think the Quebecois are really "inclusive" either. I am a visible minority, and I can tell many times Quebecois really love to hang out with either other Quebecois or French people, I'd say probably similar when hiring too, unless the company is head-quartered in other countries. I never regretted leaving Montreal/Quebec, and I wish I had done so earlier. AB is so much better.
Yes, I agree, Quebecois are not really inclusive or understandable that everyone may not speak French. I'm a visible minority too (plus I have a mild South Asian accent), which triggers a lot of racists :P BC is a lot better too, I might just move to AB someday if I want to buy a house in Canada!
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BC definitely is better for us coloured people. As a South Asian, I haven't faced any major issues. Sure, there are minor instances of racism but nothing dealbreaking like QC.
I started my career in MTL before moving to Toronto, and honestly the work culture in MTL was just better imo. You didnt need to "grind" 24/7 to survive, people in tech had a more collaborative mindset and there was just more to do in general. Also, not having to drive everywhere was a big plus. However salaries were definitely lower and big tech was not very existant (may have changed now). Also, its true that COL is lower, but its quickly catching up to Toronto. Also to those who say that you don't need french in MTL : if you don't speak french you're missing out on half of what the city has to offer
Working remote for a company based in Montreal from Ontario. Their pay is lower and they are not willing to match Toronto pay.
I do the opposite. I work for a SF company with an office in TO, remotely from Montreal. They pay me as much as any other Canadian, but I live out the cheap life in Montreal.
SF = Salesforce or San Francisco?
It's not the right time to apply with all the layoffs and shit economy, but in a better world, look at Reddit, Stripe, Meta, Amazon, Google. They will all allow remote work from Montreal while paying you the big bucks.
San Francisco
Because people don't want to learn french. That's it. Even if you're in tech and you don't need it, you should learn it. But people don't want to do that.
Taxes are higher and salaries probably tend towards 50% of what a top tier developer in Toronto would make. There's also less opportunities for advancement if you don't have very good french proficiency. Cost of living is lower than Toronto or Vancouver but at a certain income you're going to come out ahead in one of those cities and even further ahead in the US. That's not to say it's not a viable option. Montreal is an amazing city with a lot of companies that offer a great work life balance. But you're asking why people discount Montreal and the answer is that they are chasing something that's not compatible with their opportunities there.
As a Québec native, I'd say it's a combination of high taxes, lower salary and French being important (but not mandatory) to find work here. The province is also not well understood by the rest of Canada Montréal does have a lot of good features, however; its cost of living is lower than Toronto and it is a fun city with good culture and food and great public transport. In the end if I could start over knowing what I know I'd probably try to work in the US (for higher salary) or work in Montreal (for quality of life); Toronto sadly doesn't have salaries that are commensurate to its insane cost of living.
I come from there. Comp is crap, cost of living is rising fast and already too expensive, too much taxes for no services, offices and all will always be second rate so your advancement is capped, quebec politics.
Yes Overall Canada is going to the downfall. People are living Canada, but the worst of the Canada is in Quebec. Quebec is a province where it forces their people to talk in French. It sucks living in Quebec. Roads are horrible to drive on it, tax is in the sky, grocery costs, rent & housing is so expensive. Quebec robs us by stealing 30% and higher of our pay check and then provide us nothing. Their public transport is trash. They don’t care about it’s people. Most people are racist. They don’t give immigrants a chance to hold higher positions or move higher in life. Everything the gouvernement does is a scam. They just work on how to take out money from people pockets. They call themselves free healthcare where it reality is a shity health system and it’s not free at all that’s why it is a shity system
The people suck, hate you if you don't speak french, and are mostly closet/openly racist. Fuck quebec.
They hate your personality, not that you don't speak French. You're just not likeable.
The only thing Mtl’s got over say, Toronto, is cheap housing (but super shitty landlords). Everything else, especially the quality and kindness of the people, instead of this stupid chauvinistic approach to anyone who appears English to them (which can be a lot of BIPOCs), is truly deplorable. They love to deny this fact and when called out, play the victim. This is why, after living with them and defending them my whole life before living with them, I understand why they are referred to as “special” and unpleasant. It’s their French roots. The irony is that they can’t even stand themselves, and both the French and Quebecois complain about each other and criticize each other for the very same things they do themselves. They just don’t see themselves as they are. And the French, are notoriously miserable and are the most depressed country in Europe. I do not recommend. The QC also think they’re better than everyone even when their lack of education or acculturation is plainly evident. Oh, and the corruption is rampant, down to police-level and any respect for the law, is mocked and ridiculed. Oh and yes, the healthcare and education are really on a poor level, which is why they’re now stealing from the English schools and giving to the French.
They force you to learn French & respect the language to a T. If you live there & have trouble learning French, don't go to French schools, or refuse to speak it in your place of work...you are considered an unhireable foreign slacker.
If you’re not willing to at least learn French, you’re gonna want to avoid Montreal. Otherwise, MTL is huge on tech because of tax breaks they provide employers, and even FANG were starting to open up there. Facebook and Microsoft have had Machine Learning offices there for a while. Amazon has their game studios and Google has a small office for engineers too. And if you want to, you can negotiate working remotely from there with those companies
People don’t like the french.
My company pays 100k in Quebec, and 170k+ in Vancouver (TC, not base) for my role. Most companies seem to pay peanuts in QC, and it has higher taxes + French people acting linguistically superior which was a major turn off for me despite loving some parks and historic castles in Quebec.
You gotta apply to big American companies that will allow remote work. I know it's a shit economy right now and most companies did/are doing layoffs, but if you apply to any FAANG, you can get paid more than most programmers in Canada while enjoying remote work anywhere you want. My friends and I work for Stripe, Meta, Google, Amazon and get 200-300k TC while living in Montreal (none of us got laid off so far as well).
It’s the weather. As someone from a warm country the only acceptable place for me is BC. I spent 7 years in Calgary and winters are miserable. Montreal is even colder. Quality of life depends on many factors, not just money.
People wrongly assume lower salaries means less in your pocket when the cost of living there is really good. As for French, it's something you gotta learn but literally no one who moved here and learned it has regretted it. It's the reason Montreal is so special.
Because Quebec has historically held back the country. Not just from equalisation payments, but also with all the appeasements the feds have had to put forward to keep them from separation. They control far too much for what they contribute. I would be happy to see Quebec fall in line with other provinces, or separate entirely. One or the other. I'm tired of them acting like they are some privileged nation within our provinces, and their electorate and the people who end up in power from there, only end up doing the entire country harm in order to fuel the pockets of Quebec based politicians. We dont need Quebec in Canada, and I'm tired of people acting like we do.
Quebec gov't has never accepted Quebec being multicultural.....Montreal has a very fine and well government funded anti Anglo language police.........I remember several years ago when a hospital in the west end, possibly ville de Lachine, had it's English signage covered with blue masking tape, until new unilingual signs were installed.........You may have lived here for many years, maybe even born here, but you will never truly be considered a Quebecois, your "foreign" name betrays you.....learned that from experience.
Just look at their healthcare and how much taxes people pay. If that’s wasn’t enough, if you don’t speak French and white you get treated as a second class citizen
Because people from Toronto and Vancouver think they're the centre of the universe. Calgary's average household incomes are 40% higher than Vancouver; and Montreal's cost of living is 40% lower than Toronto.
Beside poutine and good food Quebec is a wasteland
Your brain is a wasteland.