So as canadians who plan on working in some leg of finance, our options are pretty limited. In descending order of size, we only really have Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver as ealistic expectations to find work in capital markets.
I'd like to get more info on which cities are preferable in the different paths of finance. I.E. Where are the most jobs? And where does the most recruiting happen? On a specific career path basis (ibanking, PE, sales/trading, equity research, asset mgmt).
Obviously Bay Street is the center of it all, and Montreal coming in second, but I can only gather comparable information on salary and compensation from CFA Institute reports; there is nothing available on volume of jobs, moreover within specific paths.
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Toronto has the bulk of the jobs obviously. From an IBD point of view, Calgary is actually bigger than Montreal (obviously O&G is very cyclical so not sure what the short / medium term has in store). Montreal does have more job diversity. To some extent, Montreal, Calgary and Vancouver do have great opportunities, but there's very little depth so within a vertical, there's often only one of 2 player in each city.
I am from Montreal and currently working in Toronto and found that the vast majority of Canadian finance professionals will have at some point in their career spent time in Toronto, it's almost unavoidable nowadays.
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Toronto - Financial center of Canada and therefore has the most bankers by far. Canadian banks are the largest players and every BB has an office there including some EBs. Mining is the biggest industry followed by FIG.
Calgary - Second largest financial center but only focuses on energy & power. Every Canadian bank is present as well as all BBs except DB. Given that it's the largest industry by IB fees in Canada by a wide margin (even in bad years), there's a sizable banking population there (most Canadian banks are ~20-30 bankers and BBs are 5-10) - still dwarfed by TO though. Disagree with the other poster on 1-2 players in the city - all the Canadian banks and a few of the BBs have very solid dealflow, even now. I'd also argue it's an easier place to get an IB job there than in Toronto (fewer East Coast grads willing to move west) so it's a good place to start even if you don't want to do oil & gas long-term. Just make sure you don't go to a boutique. Same/higher pay than Toronto. Shitty buyside exits.
Vancouver - Big 5, NBF, Canaccord Genuity, Macquarie and some no name boutiques are there. Weak dealflow at all; mostly mining focused. Go there if you want to live in Vancouver and be a pretend banker (not necessarily a bad gig though). Lower pay than other cities.
Montreal - Quebec-focused diversified industries. All the large Canadian banks are there including some BBs and EBs. Pretty weak dealflow but better than Vancouver given the higher number of large companies there (Bombardier, SNC Lavalin etc.). I think pay is lower than Toronto and Calgary at most banks but not sure.
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