That was a bug in the list. Toronto had only 7000 visitors to LW last year. However, Vancouver was actually listed twice on purpose because it was in analytics twice. I assumed at the time that one was Vancouver, BC and the other was some other major world city named Vancouver... but now I'm not so sure there is another city named Vancouver that could credibly have had ~5,000 visitors as well. So that bug is by design but I'm not sure what that's all about.
Anyway, Canada is still well represented on LW and Toronto is easily the best city to start Canada's first LW meetup. If you won't start it yourself, you should at least bring this up a bunch and goad someone else into doing it. Similarly sized cities like Pittsburgh, Sunnyvale, and Cambridge have all had meetup before.
There's a city north of Portland called Vancouver. Pop: 161k+
All you need to do is:
That’s all -- anything else is optional. If folks come, just say “Hi, my name’s [whatever your name is]”, and see where the conversation goes. Most major cities, and many minor ones, have some LW-ers. And if no one comes, all it cost you was a few hours of reading a book in a restaurant. You don’t need to have a LW history; many a lurker has enjoyed in-person LW conversation (and the folks who actually show up to meet-ups are often less intimidating than those who post on the main site).
Meet-ups are fun, and the simple act of talking to other LW-ers (in person, where your primate brain can see that they’re real) can help: (a) you become a better rationalist; (b) other attendees become better rationalists; and (c) LW become a stronger community.
Also, if anyone is interested in starting a meet-up but wants to discuss it with someone first, I'd be happy to help. There is also a good meet-up resources page.
(This was discussed a bit in this comment thread, but it seems worth repeating it somewhere where more people might see it, especially since the idea was new to someone at Saturday's H+ conference who now plans to start a meet-up.)