I think there's a pretty decent argument for Montreal over Twin Cities though not by all that much. Its economic base is still pretty decently sized even if it has a smaller GDP than the Twin Cities as it's a fairly prominent financial center. Montreal is a fairly large media producer especially in the francophone world and also does quite a bit in video games and music among other such things. In the end, Toronto is still ranked below Chicago and four other US cities, so I'm not sure there's really that much of a bias.

But that’s because Toronto is more important compared to Canada than Chicago is to the United States not because on an absolute term Toronto is more important than Chicago Like if you look at the “international” passenger numbers at YYZ vs O’Hare YYZ is far higher because there is comparably nowhere to fly in Canada vs the United States.

So a small country gets “foreign inflows/outflows of capital” while the other dies not for preforming the same task. Global Cities Index and Emerging Cities Outlook, A.T. Well yeah an “international HQ” in Montreal is a “regional office” in Denver for say Google even if they’re the same size. McKinsey, Urban world: Mapping the economic power of cities. ing world, then city indexes have become the arbiters of how these cities rank in the.

Kearney global cities index