There's quite a few companies, all competing for a lot of talent. The problem is that when you get into specialized roles, you get into the 'only need one' prob

There's quite a few companies, all competing for a lot of talent. The problem is that when you get into specialized roles, you get into the 'only need one' problem – a company might need a data scientist (e.g. mine is actively hiring for one last I checked), but they only need one data scientist. A competitor might also need a data scientist, but they probably also only need one data scientist. That said, Vancouver also has a lot of biotech and energy firms, though they're not as flashy and well-publicized, and I wouldn't be surprised if they have data which needs sciencing. That might be worth looking into as well.