<p>apple2pie9, you’re right of course, but there are a few fields where they can compete with the best. Just today I was looking at a few of the most highly cited departments in the last decade, in a few life/health sciences fields, McGill and Toronto found themselves in the top 10-15 in 1 category, each. Whereas Harvard was in the top 5 in every category. Oxbridge doesn’t come close to HPYS, the closest in Europe in terms of research in the fields I know is MPI. At the end of the day even the best Canadian HS and CEGEP students go to American colleges. Canadian universities have to balance funds and resources, compete for government funding, and these rankings reveal output differences more than differences in research quality, but it’s an unavoidable reality.</p>