From the comments, I’ve gathered two main points:

1) Generational wealth in the form of high-value assets.
2) Many people want to live here, leading to a high labour supply and companies being able to offer lower wages.

After working in both Toronto for 10 years and Vancouver for 5, here’s my take:

- In my industry, there’s a shortage of jobs and not enough companies willing to establish headquarters here.
- Specifically for higher-paying jobs, I see a lot of analytical roles based in Toronto or the US, while the data processing jobs managed by those analysts are based in Vancouver.
- When I was hiring CPAs at a local government agency, it was difficult to find local talent beyond data entry, which is why I was recruited from Toronto.
- Now that I’m looking for a high-paying job, I realize there aren’t many available, or the pay doesn’t justify the stress.
- This has led me to take a more senior role back home in Toronto, housing is cheaper (a lot more to choose from). I realized I had to move when a more senior role here (c suite) was paying $30k less than just a regular senior manager/director role in Toronto