Maybe I can shed some light in this. I'm going to be a 4th year engineering student in University of Waterloo. Let's talk about reputation as that is what really matters when you are applying for jobs, so it's more practical. I'm on exchange in Europe right now so maybe I have a different view than everyone else. 

Without a doubt, Toronto and Waterloo are the top engineering schools in Ontario, I hope there’s no argument about that. Let's take another look outside of Ontario, but within Canada. In my own tiny class, just domestic students alone, we have people from Quebec, Alberta, BC, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and not to mention Ontario. It's a fair estimate, but not definite way to say that with people willing to leave their hometowns and pay tuition that is much higher than the schools in their own province is a good sign that the school has good reputation. This applies especially to Quebecers, where they pay a fraction of what Ontario schools charge if they attend schools in Quebec. This is more or less the case in UT as well. 

Let's look at jobs and graduate studies now. I have friends in UT engineering science, and they're definitely proud of it and their PEY system. In UW, you have 6 work terms where you can try out 6 different jobs until you find out what you like or dislike, while some people claim that 4 months is not long enough to learn. Let's face it, if you don't know what the company does in 4 months, you probably won't get it any time soon. If you really dislike the job, PEYs will be stuck with it for 12-16 months, poor PEYs! Many of my friends, including my sibling, went down to the states for co-op, in companies like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, NVIDIA, Harvard (Yes! They hire from UW), etc. Others went to big companies in Canada like GE, Toyota, Honda, Honeywell, RIM, etc. Due to our diversity of experiences, UW grads have distinct advantage when it comes to job finding upon graduation. Although I have a year left of studies, some of my classmates have already made arrangements to return to the employer for full time employment in a year. In terms of reputation among employers, UW is definitely the top in Canada. Let's talk about applying for graduate studies. From my own experience, I worked on research projects at the university for a couple terms. I have published a paper during that time. Having a publication definitely gives you a distinct positive flavour to the schools/scholarships you have applying for. I would definitely not have that opportunity if I went somewhere else. 

Let's look at North America now. Many of my professors are from famous schools in the USA; they all told me that UW is the only Canadian school they've heard of in engineering, that's why they came here. A few Americans I met commented on that UW is Canadian MIT. One PhD I met in Germany, he went to school in Boston also commented on UW being the top engineering schools in Canada. My brother, UW engineering as well, worked at Google, and everyone knows UW there, but no one can name another Canadian school. UT is a great school, no one can deny that, but in terms of reputation in North America, UW engineering is up there. 

Let's talk about on the European and Asia scale. I will start with Europe first. To be honest, no one has heard of UW or UT in Europe and Asia other than professors and grad students. The only school they've heard of in Canada is McGill. I have respect for McGill and it is a great school as a whole, in my opinion, Harvard of the North definitely suits it. One of the Swedish students I met thought McGill has the top engineering school in Canada. It's definitely one of the top, but I don't think it is the top in engineering as a whole. One of the most important factors that determine if the school is good is funding. Canadian schools are mostly publically funded, so majority of the money comes from the federal and provincial levels. McGill has some political troubles to receive federal funding because McGill is a both French/English school. Calling McGill top in engineering is similar to saying Harvard has the best engineering school. In China, UW has a great reputation in math and engineering. In India, only school they've heard of is UT. In Iran, UW and UT are both very famous. In Malaysia and Singapore, UT dominates. These are my personal experiences from meeting people. This is not to say that UT and UW dominate in all fields of engineering, I will explain this later. 

UBC and U of Alberta have great engineering programs, but to be sarcastic, I think there are more top BCers and Albertans in UT and UW than in UBC and U of A. If you are REALLY bored, check out the top math/science students (based on Euclid, COMC, CCC, SIN, Chem 13, Da Vinci, and National Biology Competition) from Alberta and BC, and you'll find majority of them in UW for math/engineering and many of them in UT for engineering/science. I know this because some of them are my classmates. Believe me, you will hardly find anyone that has heard of UBC and U of A outside of North America. This is just my observation. 

I personally like to call UT as Canadian Berkeley, UW as Canadian MIT, UBC as Canadian Stanford, and McGill as Canadian Harvard in terms of engineering. I'll let you figure out the metaphors on your own. Is MIT engineering better than Berkeley? The answer is maybe, maybe not. There are certain fields that MIT does really well and there are some fields that Berkeley does better than MIT. For example, in the growing field of MEMS, Berkeley's BSAC definitely outguns MIT. MIT's aerospace is definitely the best, but Stanford's robotics research can't be beat. Harvard's biomedical engineering is infamous, due to their expertise in medicine. They all have their strengths and weaknesses, just as top Canadian schools have. Sometimes you cannot attend your dream school due to financial, family, personal issues but I think as long as you attend one of the four schools I mentioned, you're not bad. If you can attend UT or UW, the co-op programs will give you an advantage no matter whether you want to get a job or apply for further studies later on. If you cannot attend any of the four schools, attend a school with co-op system would be in your best interest. 

Final words I would to mention is that, be skeptical about rankings, question their methods, and find out why. Most rankings out there rank universities or faculty as a whole. Often, the published rankings are based on research output and not so much on undergraduate studies. If you are interested, you need to ask about departments and more specifically, certain fields. To get the best answer, ask your professors, they would know the best. 

To even try to compare Canadian universities to American ones is ridiculous. None of the Canadian schools can compare to Ivys.

Blah, blah, Waterloo, blah, Let's look at, blah, blah, name drop, blah, blah, blah...

There are exactly three Ivys with Engineering programs that can be considered superior to any the Canadians can offer. Stanford, Princeton, and Carnegie-Mellon. Not a terribly large list. Ivy is overwrought.

By all means, a student should go to whatever university he wishes to, but he must do that with an understanding that some of his other options would benefit him much more both academically and professionally.

Just so you know, Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon are not Ivy League schools.

Sorry to be a word Nazi but it drives me crazy how people overuse the phrase "Ivy League" without knowing what it means. There are only 8 schools in the ivy league and, while they are all highly regarded institutions, they aren't part of the ivy league because of how prestigious they are or because of their quality of education. Historically, the Ivy League was actually an athletic conference and had nothing to do with academics.

This was posted verbatim on another forum. Was that you? Or are you just passing off a previously long winded name dropping exercise as your own? It was stupid there and it's stupid here. Anecdotal BS, wild guesses, and a condescending attitude does not impress. Waterloo is a fine school. It's not MIT. Let's look (heh) at international rankings. None of the major rankings list Waterloo as #1 in engineering in Canada or even #2, and definitely nowhere near MIT, so pride in your school is fine, but let's not jump off the deep end into crazy, shall we?

(And yes, rankings are arbitrary and subjective but they are still more substantive than saying "some guy I knew somewhere said...")

Ignore sch16les, he proabably goes to Lakehead. To the poster who said Mcgill is ranked higher than UofT in Rankings, I would like you to state your source. Mcgill is seriously underfunded, and there high selectivity is a myth. Mcgill accepts all CEGEP students with an above 75% avg, it is only the outer province students who have to get a 85+ to get into mcgill.