I'm in Waterloo at the moment. There are a lot of really good investments being made currently, but you're bang on with your thought that graduates are glad to move anywhere but here. It's hard to get people to come here from Toronto, never mind from somewhere in the USA.

Waterloo is very much a place where no one lives but everyone comes to for either a job or for school. Once either of those two are completed, the person leaves.

With continued investment, things will change. But, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Are you in Toronto? What makes people hesitate before moving to Montreal? The usual "disincentive" is the language - a lot of people (including immigrants) just don't care about learning French. Personally though, I have met plenty of immigrants (at school and work) and from my own sampling, the more educated immigrants all learn French - it's a no-brainer for them. They consider it a genuine advantage, not a chore. For natives though, that's another story.