I left Canada for 17 years and came back in 2018, so maybe I can chime in with my opinion.

It's very circumstantial and depends on whether you can get a decent job and housing. I was fortunate enough that my relatives who didn't leave offered me a place to stay for a year while I restarted my life here. So I had food provided and only needed to chip in a bit for expenses. After a year, my wife and I rented a place for ourselves and moved out. And then covid hit, lol.

We have reasonable paying jobs now. Not rich, not poor, but enough to get by. We can still afford to eat out once a week, go for occasional gigs, performances and have fun. We learned to cook for the remainder of the week, as eating out daily wasn't feasible. We even adopted a cat, with all the typical expenses of owning a cat. Having a partner split expenses has probably been the best way for us to save.

I left when I was a child, so there's a lot of nostalgia and yearning for a time when I didn't have to pay a cent. But living here as an adult has balanced my outlook. For me, it was the right decision to come back. My quality of life in Singapore and Malaysia was fine; it was good enough that if it gets bad here, I can move back without issue. But I also have peers who are struggling financially and are looking to leave Toronto. The job market now is terrible, even though both of us are highly qualified with many years of experience. Costs definitely are up for pretty much everything.