Wealth gap between Montreal and Toronto remains steady, report finds

A new report has found that Quebec’s regions have closed the economic gap with Ontario, even as the wealth gap between Toronto and Montreal remains.

The report by the Institut du Québec research group finds that Quebec’s gross domestic product per capita was 91 per cent of Ontario’s in 2011, when Toronto and Montreal were excluded.

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The group says that gap was nearly closed by 2022, when the per capita GDP of Quebec’s regions reached 99 per cent of Ontario’s.

However, the report found the spread between the two Canadian metropolitan areas did not narrow, with per capita GDP in Montreal remaining at about 80 per cent of Toronto’s.

Institut du Québec economist Jean-Baptiste Vallantin-Dulac says Montreal hasn’t necessarily performed poorly, but that Toronto’s economy is heavily based on the lucrative finance and insurance sectors.

The research group warns that the gap between Montreal and Toronto may widen if Quebec doesn’t reverse its immigration policies to attract a highly-skilled workforce.