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Well if the situation is so bad you have major conventions canceling and citing its attendees safety as the reason I'd say it was that bad. As for why...I'd start with ~$4K mo. rent for a ~900sq ft apt. My 1,770sq ft. 3 BR 2.5 Bath home mortgage with insurance is less than half that.

Average rent for a 900sqft housing in Toronto: $1,501 USD per month (source). Average rent for same thing in San Francisco: $3,620 (source). So, uh, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say Toronto's a fair bit cheaper. Also, if you want to buy, I'm finding median prices in Toronto of more like $835k versus $1,600k in SF (not sure if the former is CAD or USD, but USD makes sense for both).

Average rent for a 900sqft housing in Toronto: $1,501 USD per month (source). Average rent for same thing in San Francisco: $3,620 (source). So, uh, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say Toronto's a fair bit cheaper. Also, if you want to buy, I'm finding median prices in Toronto of more like $835k versus $1,600k in SF (not sure if the former is CAD or USD, but USD makes sense for both).

Looks like the sum quoted wouldn't pay the rent for a small studio flat in Helsinki:
https://www.expatistan.com/cos...
Maybe rent is paid for separately.

take a look at pretty much anywhere in Europe and you'll struggle to find a single country where high speeds have come as a result of deregulation. The countries with the highest speeds have them because of government intervention in the markets

That's not however true; see Romania for a very strong counter-example. According to a 2016 Akamai study (quoted here) Romania has the highest internet speed in Europe (and Timisoara, a Romanian city, has the highest average download speed in the world, at 89.91 Mbit/s in 2013). This happens at very low prices - comparisons here show the internet price in Bucharest to be less than half of London, and about 5 times smaller than Buffalo, NY. Some older national averages put the price in Romania to 2 cents per Mb - while the USA is at 86 cents/Mb.
 
The explosive growth of Internet adoption in Romania started from about 1999 - and it can be directly traced to the fact that the minister for Communications explicitly refused to regulate ISPs and wireless providers. As a result, hundreds of neighborhood ISPs popped up, savagely competing for customers, on speed and price. There is also a very high level of competition between cellular providers. Deregulation is now being expanded to new areas.

Maybe you could try this site for price comparison. Or maybe you could check this one for another overall comparison. To me, price of goods only doesn't mean anything much if it doesn't affect the local "cost of living".

There you go. The price of 1 liter (1 qt.) of whole fat milk in Shenzhen is $2.23 (15)

Does it burst your bubble yet?

Your argument doesn't follow. $34k per year goes a lot further in some parts of the world. Example.