The two cities' populations closely parallel each other up until around 1975, so the cause or catalyst is pretty clear.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/...fig1_227717868
So, briefly, and simplistically stated, the article says that the size etc. of a city depends upon the size of its hinterland (sphere of influence), and that depends on things like language and culture. When Montreal stopped being a city which is inclusive of English, and became a de facto French speaking city, it's hinterland and sphere of influence, shrunk drastically, inhibiting growth. Montreal today is a city relatively starved of meaningful and copious outside cultural or social interaction (especially in the economic sense from the Anglosphere), except those within the province. Here is an excerpt from an older quoted text.
Quote:
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The English people of Montreal are more than an ethnic minority in a city. They are, in fact, the metropolitan element of Canada’s metropolis. Some among them direct the great economic institutions which operate throughout Canada and beyond the national borders. . . . English Montreal’s hinterland is half a continent. . . . Those of the French who are in dominant positions are concentrated in institutions which have for their hinterland, not the continent, but merely the province
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https://www.researchgate.net/publica...nd_Toronto#pf3