Love the blog, but as a resident of montreal, i feel obligated to defend her status as THE most gay city in canada-- Le Village has more gay nightlife than Paris, and as much as New York or the Castro.

Montreal, second gayest city in Canada? I'm curious, what do you consider the gayest city in Canada? Certainly not Toronto... Well, I suppose everybody is entitled to their own opinion -- assuming that you have, at the very least, visited Montreal.

On a separate note, it might also be worth mentioning that the International Conference on LGBT Human Rights is taking place in Montreal starting tomorrow: http://www.montreal2006.org/en_conference.html

Statistically speaking, Toronto has more openly gay residents, and more gay businesses and establishments. Plus it has the second largest Gay Pride parade in North America (after New York, but reportedly larger than San Francisco), at 1.2 million revellers.

But both Toronto and Montreal are incredibly gay. I don't understand the need for Montrealers to always feel like they need to "one-up" other cities. *waits for flames from sensitive Montrealers*

I have been to Montreal, and I was speaking statistically (Toronto has more gays than any city in Canada). However, Montreal does have more old world charm than Toronto, plus it wins the Eurotrash award hands down. -F

Alright, I admit, Toronto does have the biggest pride parade in Canada. But.... (and you knew that there was one coming), if we are going to speak "statistically", perhaps we should reveal our method. If you mean "statistically": because Toronto has the greatest metropolitain population in Canada and 10% of Toronto is (openly?) gay, then yes, Toronto is the "gayest" city in Canada. Apply the same logic to Montreal, and yes, Montreal is the second "gayest" city.
However, where this logic fails us (miserably), is by looking at the our friends south of the border "statistically". Houston TX is the 4th gayest city in America, where our beloved San Francisco CA falls to 14th on the "gayest" city ranking -- also of note, cities like Jacksonville, Dallas, Indianapolis and Detroit rank higher on than the Castro on the gay scale.
And what is "gayest"? For me, it is not necessarily a matter of population. Moscow and Beijing are pretty high up there on the population scale, but you couldn't pay me enough rubles or renminbis to live an openly gay life in either of those cities. Moreover, I don't think that our friends at queerty would introduce Beijing as the "gayest" city in Asia!
I guess what it comes down to is how confortable I feel holding my parter's hand outside of the gay ghetto in a city is perhaps how I define and rank "gayest" cities. For some reason, I feel more comfortable in Montreal than Toronto. My opinion. But, if you want to base gay ranking on population, I say, let's move to Tehran (population: 12 000 000)!