“The University of Toronto has a policy of relatively lax admissions standards and willingness to let students fail. I am not certain how exactly that plays out among its various campuses, however. My impression is that the main campus is a lot like, say, Wisconsin.”
You should remember that there are some differences between countries. At the risk of slightly generalizing and simplifying: In the US getting accepted by Harvard is impressive, and once there graduating is no big deal. In Canada getting accepted at Toronto is no big deal, but being able to graduate from Toronto is impressive.