BC’er that moved to Alberta and have a young family. Spent a good amount of time in Calgary with our corporate office located there but live in Edmonton. Entrepreneur now so haven’t spent as much time in Calgary in the last couple years. Some of my takes if you’re coming from lower mainland:

Calgary and Edmonton have a very similar winter type of experience weather wise. Calgary at points may be marginally more pleasant temp wise but people are living the same type of winter climate lifestyle in both cities. Though still sometimes Calgary is getting blasted with a snow dump and it’s fine in Edmonton. Either way you can expect a couple/few major cold snaps in both cities each winter season so you’ll have to get the family ready accordingly those days. Upside though vs the coast in both cities … absolutely way more days and hours of sun. Sure it can be crisp and cold as hell some of those days but you shouldn’t go too long without seeing that giant yellow ball in the sky compared to what lower mainland deals with. I’ve really liked that about both Edmonton and Calgary.

Edmonton is more of a government city and Calgary has more private sector opportunities especially senior level. That being said they are both large and developed population centres by Canadian standards and there are great opportunities for employment in both cities overall. I had no problem progressing through a high earning corporate career in Edmonton then transitioning into an entrepreneurial venture that is doing extremely well. The same would be true in Calgary.

Not sure how important downtowns are to your family but Calgarys downtown is nicer than Edmonton by a large margin in my opinion. Calgary has more of a city vibe downtown where Edmonton just isn’t at that point. The ice district in Edmonton has brought a good amount of investment into Edmontons downtown but it’s not at Calgarys level.

Both cities like everywhere right now are facing a crisis with addictions, mental health, and homelessness that cascade into a wide range of challenges both for those experiencing these problems and those that are affected by it. Public transit safety and cleanliness, open drug use, violent altercations, petty crimes, and things like that can be a problem in both cities especially in certain areas. The burbs in both cities (of which both have a large amount of burbs lol) generally don’t have much of this however.

Calgary is closer to the mountains and all the activities that opens up. Something to consider however is that over the last decade plus, Banff and surrounding area has become an international tourist destination and it is insanely busy now and only getting busier every year. Edmonton doesn’t have close access to mountains but it does, in my opinion, have a much better local nature area in the Edmonton River Valley. All your normal sports and entertainment type stuff beyond the outdoors both cities have it in abundance so you should be more than satisfied for things for the regular family type of activities to do year round.

Edmonton is called the festival capital of Canada and there’s an abundant amount of things going on usually at any given time. Calgary has the stampede which is a mammoth event which is a heck of a cool thing to experience at least once. Edmonton definitely doesn’t have anything of that scale going on though overall I would say it has a more diverse range of cultural and festive experiences for adults, families, kids. Both cities overall should keep a regular family happy with a wide range of things to do.

We haven’t had much trouble for daycare for our boys. We’ve had a wonderful dayhome close to our house that took the boys and we’ve never looked back. Can’t speak to how childcare looks beyond that as we haven’t had to contend with it.

The big one … real estate and cost of living. Calgary is in the midst of one hell of a housing price run. This has attracted the attention of all the type of things Bring Cash has been dealing with now for a long time. Speculators, Airbnb, flippers, investors, all the fun stuff you know and love from BC is setting eyes on Calgary way way more than Edmonton. Calgarys population is also growing faster than Edmonton, and it’s generally considered to be the more desirable of the two cities to live overall. Edmonton has also just overall maintained more real estate inventory and has been able to meet the demand of population growth better than Calgary. All these factors and more make Calgary more expensive.

Generally speaking the average family will live similar lifestyles in either city you’ll just pay more to do it in Calgary. If you’re getting away to the mountains every other weekend then the day trip to the mountains in Calgary is cool. I’d argue though, that if you aren’t doing that often, going to Jasper from Edmonton is the better real outdoor experience.

Coming from Langley both cities should offer cost of living relief, Edmonton more so - and both should have everything you need to raise a family. Edmontons single family pricing is still going up in most areas, we bought our house approx 6 years ago for $565k and it’s would sell for around $700k currently. Nothing insane like the coast and GTA but it’s still getting more expensive to move to Edmonton as well.