[stevenameyer]

Full disclosure: I am an upper year UWaterloo Student so my opinion is likely biased.

If you are looking to work in tech in Canada, Kitchener/Waterloo is the place to be in my opinion. It has:

1. A fast growing Startup community that has a lot of support from both the city and various tech organizations in the region.

2. An excellent pool of talent with UWaterloo(excellent Engineering/CS programs with a focus on entrepreneurship), Laurier(Well respected business program), and Conestoga College (Well respected Graphic Design Program)

3. Getting more recognition for the companies it has been producing in recent years with a couple high profile companies taking off (Thalmic Labs, BufferBox, Kik) and PG saying the region has produced some great companies (http://www.techvibes.com/blog/paul-graham-y-combinator-water...).

The cost of living in the city seems on par with a lot of the medium sized cities in Canada and as a student I know you can definitely live off of a pretty small budget. I think the benefits of working in region make it the place to be and can definitely be done for pretty cheap.