renting house: vancouver is cheaper, ottawa has more appartment for renting, but in vancouver, you can rent basement or first floor from private house and you dont have to have a lease.
living: vancouver is more beautiful, and traffic is not a problem, Chinese servise is everywhere
eating: vancovuer has lots of nice restrauant, not only chinese, but also Japanese and Korean restraurant, and cheaper and better than here. If you go to supermarket, you can find, vegetalbes and fruits are much much cheaper than here.
buying house: vancouver is more expensive, the price that you buy a townhouse is the same price you buy a house in Ottawa.
environment: vancouver is more beautiful, you can find small park wherever.
people: people in vancouver is more nice than here. it wont happen get in bus without tickets. when you drive a car, you can find driver is much nice. you can not drive to fast in city even highway. much safer than Ottawa. In Ottawa, people always were stolen. but in vancovuer, I live there almost 3 years, i never was stolen.
language: in vancovuer is English, Mandarin, Cantonese. in Ottawa, French and English.
PS:Vancovuer has lots of Kara OK, and other leisure place. and most of them were opened by Chinese ppl. In summer, there is a Chinese market in Richmond at every weekends night. Vancovuer has lots of chinese, you can find lives are much easier. In vancovuer, there is "safeway", "superstore" instead of " Loeb" and "Loblows". same company but different name.