Toronto
A 12,000-year portage route became a colonial capital, then a manufacturing center, then absorbed Montreal's fleeing banks in 1976. By 2026: testing whether tech can layer atop finance atop industry.
Toronto exists because of a 45-kilometer portage route. The Toronto Carrying Place connected Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe, providing the shortest path between the Atlantic coast and the continental interior. For 12,000 years, Indigenous peoples used this trail as a highway through the continent—and when the British needed a colonial capital in 1793, they chose the same spot the Seneca, Mohawk, and Huron-Wendat had long understood was strategic.
The city that grew from York followed resources like a river follows gravity. In the 1800s, the Grand Trunk Railway made it a transport hub, and waves of Irish, Italian, Chinese, and Eastern European immigrants shaped its neighborhoods. The National Policy of 1879 imposed tariffs that forced Canadians to buy domestic goods—and American manufacturers, seeking access to the British Empire's markets, opened plants in Toronto's industrial belt. By the early 20th century, the city manufactured everything from farm equipment to packaged foods.
Then came 1976. When Quebec's separatist Parti Québécois won the provincial election, Montreal's corporate establishment panicked. Sun Life, the Royal Bank's operational headquarters, and dozens of other institutions relocated to Toronto almost overnight. Bay Street replaced St. James Street as Canada's financial center—not through organic growth, but through political fear. By 1974, Toronto had already surpassed Montreal as Canada's largest city, but the financial exodus cemented its dominance.
Today, all five of Canada's largest banks cluster at the intersection of Bay and King Streets—Toronto-Dominion, Royal Bank, CIBC, Bank of Montreal, and Scotiabank, each in their own tower. The metropolitan area produces over half of Canada's manufactured goods and has maintained 2.4% annual GDP growth since 2009, outpacing the national average. Employment rose 4.2% in 2024, and the city's diversified economy now spans finance, media, pharmaceuticals, and technology.
By 2026, Toronto's new Office for Tech and Innovation Sector will test whether the city can add another layer to its economy—tech hub atop financial center atop manufacturing base atop portage route. The pattern is succession: each era's infrastructure becomes the foundation for the next.