AC should have provided a hotel room at Pearson. The fact that you live in YYZ shouldn't really have mattered.

I've never heard of an airline compensating passengers for "lost work" or the like. Realistically, imagine if they were responsible for these kinds of things. "Hey, I had a date with the hottest girl in the world, but my flight was delayed and she blew me off, and I want a million dollars compensation."

It sounds like you were not experienced enough to know that once someone utters the magic word "Mechanical" that you should immediately ask to be moved to another airline. I was at YYZ a couple years ago, flying to RDU on a 6:30AM connection on AA, which was delayed, and delayed again, and I was going to miss the connection and miss a whole day of work. And as soon as they said "Mechnical" I just said "There's an 8:45 nonstop on Air Canada, can you put me on it?"

Your opportunity was there at the airport, to ask for a hotel room and maybe a dinner voucher.