Ask HN: What is the best place in Canada to live cheaply and work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is the best place in Canada to live cheaply and work?

11 pointsvisiblestorm9 comments

Similar to the US / Europe threads.

Full disclosure: I am an upper year UWaterloo Student so my opinion is likely biased.

If you are looking to work in tech in Canada, Kitchener/Waterloo is the place to be in my opinion. It has:

1. A fast growing Startup community that has a lot of support from both the city and various tech organizations in the region.

2. An excellent pool of talent with UWaterloo(excellent Engineering/CS programs with a focus on entrepreneurship), Laurier(Well respected business program), and Conestoga College (Well respected Graphic Design Program)

3. Getting more recognition for the companies it has been producing in recent years with a couple high profile companies taking off (Thalmic Labs, BufferBox, Kik) and PG saying the region has produced some great companies (http://www.techvibes.com/blog/paul-graham-y-combinator-water...).

The cost of living in the city seems on par with a lot of the medium sized cities in Canada and as a student I know you can definitely live off of a pretty small budget. I think the benefits of working in region make it the place to be and can definitely be done for pretty cheap.

Fredericton, New Brunswick, is a beautiful city with great cultural, government and academic facilities, and great business and communications infrastructure. Much cheaper to live in than Toronto or Montreal.

London, Ontario. Good proximity to technology hubs such as K/W and Toronto, without the high costs of living.

Population of almost 400,000. A University with an excellent business school (entrepreneurs!). Unemployment is somewhat high currently in London (~10%), but if you're a skilled developer, you won't be without opportunities.

There is a small, but fast-growing startup community as well, supported by the city, educational institutions, and a great new co-working space.

Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Regina, Halifax, Edmonton, Kelowna would all be places that are cheaper than the normal ones. Also, remember that the smaller towns you go to are usually more cheaper. It just depends how much snow you want!

Saskatoon and especially Edmonton, for what they are, are far from cheap. The amount of resource-based work is attracting workers in droves and driving up living costs.

Montreal has a very low cost of living, but taxes are high.

- Yeah I saw someone else mention Montreal. If you look at the similar US/Europe thread, someone had a list of cities from Canada/Toronto area.

+1 for Montreal.

It is so cold in the winter that working seems like a really good deal during those months ;)

Another +1 for Montreal.

While it is not necessary to find tech work, speaking some French can be very helpful. Also be prepared for cold ;)

Here are a number of vibrant communities in the city:

- Montreal Tech Watch: http://montrealtechwatch.com/

- MTL New Tech: http://mtlnewtech.tumblr.com/

- Notman House: http://notman.org/en/

- Montreal.rb: http://www.montrealrb.com/

- Montreal Ruby Hacknight: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/montreal-ruby-hackni...