Toronto is second-most expensive Canadian city to live in

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The pandemic has messed with Toronto, resulting in numerous lockdowns over the past year, but that doesn’t make the city any less expensive to live.

On the contrary, according to the Mercer Cost of Living Survey, Toronto remains the second most expensive city in Canada.

Vancouver is the most expensive Canadian city, but neither it nor Toronto sits high on the overall list, which ranked 209 cities based on expenses like housing, transportation, food and entertainment.

Vancouver ranks at 93 in the world, while Toronto sits at 98.

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Montreal has moved up, and is now in the 129th spot, while Ottawa is the least expensive city in Canada, ranking 156th.

The annual report blames the pandemic on impacting the cities’ rankings as “countries continue to struggle with economic, political and health fall out from COVID-19.”

Ilya Bonic, Career President and Head of Mercer Strategy explained in a press release that “the pandemic has added a whole new layer of complexity, as well as long-term implications related to health and safety of employees, remote working and flexibility policies, among other considerations.”

He added: “As organizations rethink their talent and mobility strategies, accurate and transparent data is essential to compensate employees fairly for all types of assignments.”

As for the rest of the world, there were some shifts in the rankings.

Hong Kong was bumped to second and replaced by Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, making it the most expensive city for international employees in Asia and globally.

Beirut, Tokyo and Zurich round out the Top 5, followed by Shanghai, Singapore, Geneva, Beijing and Bern.

New York City, which is used as the base city for all comparisons, is still ranked the most expensive city in the U.S. at 14, but dropped from 22 in 2020.