<p>1) The top three schools are McGill, UBC, and Toronto. McGill and Toronto are considered the most internationally recognized by people who live in the East, which in Canada is more people than not. UBC definetly on a similar playing field on the international level, although not necessarily among your every day neighbours, but among academics and business professionals. Case in point - UBC recently acquired a nobel prize winner as a physics professor who is working specifically to improve the quality of undergrad education. I have to get a good word in for my school, right? :) </p>
<p>Also, depending on your intended program, there are many other schools to consider, such as Queen's, Western, or York for business, Calgary/Alberta for any type of oil industry-related science or business, and Waterloo for math and computer science. </p>
<p>The international rankings of Canadian schools vary depending on the organization that does them. Canadian schools are ranked amongst themselves in Macleans magazine, which puts out a special issue every year. </p>
<p>2) I would say that the top Canadian schools are comparable to the top US ones. There are a few noticable differences, such as much less grade inflation (many people even say Canadian schools have grade deflation), and simply put, less money. I think this goes with any school though (regardless of its budget), if you want top research opportunities and good professors - you can find them, you just might have to look. Class size could also be an issue in the beginning years - U of T has massive first year classes. There are ways to get around this, however, by taking smaller specialized programs. UBC, for instance, offers integrated first year programs such as Arts One, Coordinated Arts, or Science One. I took Arts One and the majority of my time in the course was spent with a group of 19 students. Our tutorials were even better with four students and our seminar professor. Like I said before, everything you could want with a top school is there, you just need to look. </p>
<p>3) If you have Canadian citizenship you'll most likely get canadian tuition. One other thing to look at in terms of financing your education is scholarships. I don't know much about Toronto's situation, but I do know that McGill offers very few scholarships while UBC has a fair amount, including the automatic President's Entrance Award that is given out upon admission if your percentage-scale GPA or IB diploma score is above a certain level.</p>