New Vancouverite here, previously from Montreal. The answer is that it's fucked. 1bdrm hitting 3k a month and 2bdrm is about 3800. I can't imagine how service works are surviving. Min wage is 16.75/hr but living wages are mathed out to about 25/hr and even that would be hard.

Salaries seem to be generally lower since it's beautiful and has mild winters. I'm not sure how long we'll stay if things don't get better soon. Sadly local politics are NIMBY friendly and not doing anything useful. In fact they just reduced the vacant home tax...because people weren't reporting it on their taxes voluntarily.

It's too bad because we found dream jobs in specialized fields here, the only other real option is Toronto (ugh, no) or the US (hard no).