Remember in the SV costs are astronomical, so there's a kind of buy-in threshold necessary which won't make sense for most companies.
Shopify is a perfect company for Canada - they are not making 'tech for other techies' and don't require all the best devs in the world. It took a while to get going, so costs needed to be lower. They can make some income early on, thus 'proving the model'.
There is a reason that the nations top social network started at Harvard, which has an elite status among young people. There's a reason that Snap was started by an attractive young man from Cali, from a the top school in Cali. Glossier, a 'makeup company' is actually, truly a 'social network', and there's a reason it was founded by an ex-model/reality TV star with deep connections in LA/NYC.
On the technical side, there's a reason that certain companies really need to be in the Valley as well.
So if your business needs to be in the Valley, it might make sense to do that, but if it's a 2cnd-tier kind of thing, not something the FAANGS would ever look at, and doesn't require the best technical talent in the world, than you can do it other places.
Montreal a tier 2 cities, Ottawa/Vancouver, not really tier 2, Toronto is probably a solid tier 2. FYI that is actually not bad considering tons of American cities are not tier 2 either. Chicago, Toronto's 'twin' really might not even be Tier 2, there is a weird lack of entrepreneurial activity there for its relative size and power.
Montreal has cheap prices, decent AI grads, stable economy, supportive government, weak VC but the top could of firms are fine places to go for smaller up to round A, and if your business fits well into Quebec's strategy, following rounds can be supported by Desjardins and nationalist players.
Also, Porn.