Toronto is a great great great city to live in.

trka- are you a US citizen? From what I have heard it's increasingly difficult for US citizens to get work permits in Canada.

Toronto rules. It's so modern, so bright, so clean. It makes NYC seem like a sesspool

trka:
contact the ontario association of architects and ask them if IDP is transferrable. I think that may be difficult. But if you are keen on Toronto, you can always slip into Detroit or Buffalo to take exams when you are good and ready.
Though, I think the bigger question relates to quality of life, not dictatorial Associations.
Toronto is a seriously under-recognized city with tons going on. I say go for it. NY is tired. Toronto is on the up.

"Toronto is New York run by the Swiss.” (Peter Ustinov)

In terms of familiarity, Toronto is very much like NYC. In terms of quantity, it's much less. In terms of quality... you can decide that.

All I can say is that you certainly won't starve for culture, arts, architecture and general hustle-and-bustle in Toronto. The architecture scene right now is hot; there are hundreds of projects going up or in the planning stages, and we have a few recent and upcoming projects from well-known names (Alsop, Foster, Libeskind, Morphosis, Gehry...) and some excellent work done by local firms.

The architecture/arts community has strong foundations, with UofT, Ryerson, and the Ontario College of Art and Design all downtown.

As for living, Toronto is as Urban as it gets. There has been a strong condo boom for the last 10 years that's focused almost entirely on the core. The core itself is not unlike Manhattan.... you can walk for miles up Yonge St. and still be within business districts and skyscrapers. Theres a downtown, and Uptown, Yorkville, North York City Centre, the Entertainment District, 2 Chinatowns.... all very Urban. There are many distinct ethnic neighbourhoods that are all nice places too. The transit system is based on Subway and Streecar lines (with buses in Suburbia). There aren't any really bad places to live in the core, it's generally very safe.

In comparison to other Canadian cities, Toronto is the place to be. Vancouver is nice, Montreal is amazing, but they don't have the same economic and constructive momentum that Toronto has (which is all so important for us architects). However, Montreal has an urban, European and historic appeal that has Toronto beat hands down. Admittedly, if you want character, go to Montreal. If you want something like NYC, come to Toronto.

Anyhoo, you're welcome to come up, just don't steal my job!

dear all

thanks for the responses. i think that idea about taking exams in buffalo is good. i was in a few offices in toronto and i liked what i saw .rationally i do not have problem about moving. my biggest problem is the fact that i love this city. it seems very hard to leave it although it is hard life here, i am struggling, live in small small place ….i like toronto, too, i have family and frieds there. any advice about leaving new york would be useful.

What Toronto needs is more people in Toronto building Toronto! Go to Toronto and do it! For whatever reason, the recent, dominant attitude has been that Toronto needs foreigners to put it on the map or to 'make it a world-class city' as they tend to say. We pulled down our blocky, cool dinosaur museum to make way for Leibeskind branding. We are pulling down the really beautiful, clean, cool canadian-style Art Gallery, (barely 10 years old) to make way for Ghery. All this with the support of Ontario Superbuild Fund (ie. Tax dollars.) There's nothing wrong with having buildings by major household brand names in your city, but I do think that it is a shame that that seems to come at the expense of building a local architectual culture that we can export one day. Go to Toronto and help make it cool on the ground with little projects the big magazines can't ignore! I love toronto.