Originally Posted by
YYCCL3
What time of year is your proposed flight ?
In my experience, having done both options a few times, YVR flight gets in too late to self connect to YYC same day, so an overnight is required. Self connecting in YYZ with checked baggage could take forever, so you might have to build in an overnight there, too.
Good point here. If it was me I think I'd go to YVR, stay the night and fly to YYC next morning. Mitigates the risk of misconnecting and I think it would be shorter flying time (c. 12 hours vs c. 10-11?)