CMA numbers were always off, because of Toronto's position within the Golden Horseshoe, artificially limiting its borders because of adjoining CMAs. Toronto's "city" population was already larger than Montreal's as soon as the "new" city of Toronto was created in 1953.
Statistics Canada also show that the Metropolitan Area Population of Montreal was always more than that of Toronto’s, until 1981.
Any city could expand and annex adjacent neighbourhoods. Montreal could have easily done the same thing with Laval, Longueuil, Vaudreuil, Dorion, St. Lambert, Brossard, Boucherville… etc. Most of which are connected via bridges to the Island of Montreal, some of which are even linked to the city by metro lines that go underneath the rivers surrounding the island. I’m not sure why they still have not been amalgamated into the city.
Toronto's stock market was already the largest back in the 1930's
True but it wasn’t until the 1970’s that it started to gain real importance. Back then, Montreal was the true economic centre and cultural heart of Canada and it fully deserved to be chosen as the host for Expo67.
how can it be primarily french, and derive it's much smaller immigrant population from primarily french-speaking sources, and only be a "bit" more homogeneous than Toronto?
First of all, you make it sound like it’s overwhelmingly and crushingly French, which it is not; secondly, it doesn’t have a small immigrant population but a very large one. Let me refresh your memory with some demographics (some of which may interlap)…
· Around 60% are original Quebecois
· Around 18% are Anglophones
· More than 25% are visible minorities
· More than 30% are immigrants
· More than 20% are Allophones
· Almost 100,000 Jews (the biggest diaspora anywhere in Canada)
· Over 260,000 Italians (the biggest diaspora anywhere in Canada)
· 3% of East Asian descent
· 3% of South Asian descent
· 4.3% of Latin American descent
· 4.5% of Middle Eastern descent
· 7% of Afro-Caribbean descent
· Small population of First Nations, especially Mohawk
Also, just because most of the immigrant population comes from French-speaking countries or previous French colonies does not mean that it won’t be diverse and heterogeneous. A Haitian is different from a Lebanese, who is different from a Vietnamese, who is different from an Algerian, who is different from a Senegalese. Just because they can all speak French doesn’t mean they are similar.
This is like saying that Jamaicans are similar to Indians and Nigerians because they can all speak English.
Again, immigration to Montreal is not limited only to countries that have membership in La Francophonie; it also receives significant numbers of Latin Americans, East Europeans, and Asians (South, East, and South East).
I believe that Montreal has more of a balanced cultural mixture of ethnicities and racial backgrounds. On the other hand, Toronto has a massive population of South Asians, East Asians, and South East Asians, who tend to dominate over the rest.
With the advent of the railways, Toronto's better geographical location and fast growing industrial base had pretty much ensured Toronto's continued rise against Montreal.
Montreal had a better geographical location in that ships didn’t have to go an extra 400Km to Toronto’s port, coming from the Atlantic. Plus, the Lachine Rapids was a major obstacle for ships to overcome and continue going west so they were forced to stop at Montreal. In 1959, the St. Lawrence Seaway was opened, which facilitated the passage and increased the traffic of ships going to Toronto’s port.
And com'on....what's with the silly examples like the streets are dead at 2:00 am...Toronto's a far more 24hr city than Montreal...the streets aren't dead at 2AM on a Tues for crying out loud
This is absolutely ridiculous… I don’t know where you hang out but when I go clubbing in the Entertainment District on weekends, the last call is @ 2AM, after which most people are out eating hot dogs on the street then going back to their homes and suburbs. That area is the only thing alive at that time in the entire city, and it is almost completely dead on weekdays because nobody goes clubbing then due to work or school.
I’d love to know the street that is full of people @ 2AM on a Tuesday!
Toronto is livelier than Montreal? I vividly remember being in a patio overlooking rue Crescent in Montreal, I left @ 4:45AM but had to walk on the street because there was no room left on the sidewalk!
And I hardly think we can characterize the city as concerned about money because of something as silly as charging the ROM for extending onto sidewalk space
This is not silly… this is a very serious and disturbing issue, which I have a hard time believing that it could be duplicated in New York or Chicago or any progressive city that values and appreciates art and aesthetic beauty.
if the city were that concerned about money, it wouldn't have such low taxes.
… So how much does it cost nowadays to buy a decent starter home in the city? Is it half a million or not yet?
