Along with the "young" startuppy atmosphere and skillset is the commensurate payscale. It's cheaper than other cities and provinces to hire people, especially programmers. From everything I've read so far about the city, I think starting out is around 45k, then sr. positions is 60, and tops right out at around 70k for level IV guru coders. So, it's definitely not the Valley in terms of developer salaries.
The corollary is that the great programmers in Vancouver all move to the USA so that they can get paid effectively double what they would make in Vancouver. If you're good, it's also very easy on a TN-1. (I've worked with a couple dozen programmers from BC (Vancouver, Victoria) throughout my career)