We were looking at small “primarily undergraduate” universities in eastern Canada. My understanding is that this is what @MWolf was referring to as Canadian “Liberal Arts Colleges”.
We explicitly visited Bishop’s (in Quebec), Mount Allison (in New Brunswick), St Francis Xavier (Nova Scotia), and Acadia (Nova Scotia) after one daughter was accepted to all four (she had strong stats). We liked all of them quite a bit. The most difficult part of the application was deciding which to attend. I think that my daughter went back and forth in her mind between three of them before deciding on one. I rather quickly got to “they are all very good” which means that I was not going to be bothered by whatever she decided. She graduated from one of them this past May after having a very good four years, having very good research and internship options, and learning a great deal. The COVID pandemic did not help much but of course that was an issue literally everywhere in the world. They are also relatively affordable for international students.
She has recently said something that my wife and I have suspected for a while: The culture seems a bit different than at the highest ranked LACs in the US. I have a sense that the culture is a bit more down to earth than at similar US LACs but it is hard for me to put my finger on just why. The academic excellence seems to be the same.
I have heard very good things about the University of Northern BC (in Prince George BC) and the University of Lethbridge (in Alberta). There are also some good small universities in Ontario, and some other schools that I have not mentioned (eg, U. PEI). We did not look in Ontario nor anywhere west of that.
Maclean’s magazine has a list of what they rank as the top “primarily undergraduate” universities in Canada.