Comparing Toronto with Ottawa is simply not a fair comparison. It is like comparing New York City with Albany or Seattle with Olympia.

The City of Ottawa includes the core of Ottawa plus all of its suburbs (excluding the Quebec side) and does not even top a million people. Everything is spread out and suburban such that our capitol is more like a bunch of closely spaced towns than anything resembling an actual city.

The City of Toronto (which excludes most of the suburbs) is, on its own, triple the population of Ottawa. The Greater Toronto Area is over 5x the population of the National Capital Region.

I spent most of my life in Toronto. I'm alright, thanks tho :)