Montreal
Two rivers made it the fur trade capital, then Canada's financial center—until 1976, when separatism sent 200,000 anglophones and 30 corporate HQs to Toronto. Rebuilt as world's #3 aerospace hub. By 2026: racing Seattle for sustainable aviation.
Montreal exists because two rivers converge at an island with a mountain. Jacques Cartier scaled Mont Royal in 1535 and saw the St. Lawrence extending west toward the continent's interior. The island where rivers met became the logical control point for everything flowing in or out of North America's heart. The St. Lawrence Iroquoians understood this geography long before Europeans arrived.
The city that began as a missionary settlement called Ville-Marie in 1642 quickly became something else: the headquarters of the continental fur trade. While Quebec City controlled the river's mouth, Montreal controlled access to everywhere else—the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence, the Gulf of Mexico via the Mississippi watershed, the northwest via the Ottawa River. The North West Company, founded here in 1783, built a chain of trading posts across what would become western Canada. Canada's first bank, the Bank of Montreal, opened in 1817. By 1900, Montreal was the undisputed economic capital of Canada.
Then came November 15, 1976. The Parti Québécois won the provincial election on a separatist platform, and English-speaking corporate Montreal panicked. Sun Life announced in January 1978 that it was leaving for Toronto, taking 800 employees. Between 1978 and 1981, more than 30 major corporations followed. Some 200,000 anglophones left Quebec. By 1974, Toronto had already surpassed Montreal in population—but the exodus cemented the power shift. Today, the Toronto Stock Exchange handles 80% of Canadian securities transactions; Montreal's exchange handles 14%.
Montreal rebuilt differently. The city pivoted to aerospace—now the world's third-largest hub after Seattle and Toulouse, contributing 68% of Canada's aerospace GDP. Bombardier, CAE, Pratt & Whitney, and Bell Helicopter anchor an ecosystem of 230 companies investing $700 million annually in R&D. The same research infrastructure now feeds an AI cluster: Mila, founded by Yoshua Bengio, has made Montreal a global center for machine learning research.
By 2026, Montreal's aerospace sector faces a test: can it lead the transition to sustainable aviation fuels and electric propulsion, or will Seattle and Toulouse capture that future? The city that lost its banks may yet own the skies.