This is the type of post you make when you have direct experience in a major european city, but have fuck all in the way of tools to analyse this situtation, and have also given the subject zero extra thought beyond your gut reaction. I know this, because I had the exact same type of thinking when I was 19 and had just started university.
Also just a quick story time: When I had a job in central Copenhagen, there was definitely an element of class to the choices in transportation, as me and the other young grads had to take the train to work, as both of us lived some 20 odd kilometers from the office we worked in, while my boss and most of the upper management were all congratulating themselves on being eco-conscious and biking to work.
I mean, did Canada have a significant ethnic minority that people were afraid of the same extend that white america feared black/brown america? A lot harder to do white flight if the people who remain in the cities are also white. The only real ethnic conflict in Canada in the immediate post war period was between the French Canadians and the majority Anglo Canadians, and even the palest englishman is not really all that afraid of a french guy.
Obviously not correcting you, just wondering if my explanation makes sense, since Canadian history isn’t really a thing that people can passively pick up for the most part.