In Eastern Canada, there are a lot more competitions, but in Vancouver, we basically have 2 bigger players, Shaw and Telus, and smaller players such as TekSavvy and Primus (aka. Costco Internet). Not much competition = Poor & expensive service. :-(

Recommendations

• If you are in a newly developed residential area, look for providers with Gigabit connections (1000 Mbps). If not, contact Telus AND Shaw to see if they offer fiber optics connection (150-600Mbps) to your area. There is a slower service (copper connection) but the price difference can be small, so shop around for your options.
• I would recommend going with unlimited data, but if you want to select a cheaper plan, I would advise you go with at least 100GB of monthly allowance per family member. It's hard to estimate this, especially if you come from a country where you're not used to track how much Internet you use at home.

What I'm personally using and why?

• I've been switching between Shaw & Telus, every 1.5-2 years. I used to pay $53/mo for Shaw Internet 300. It's unlimited data, 300Mbps upload and 15Mbps upload (upload being significantly slower than Telus' fiber optics, unfortunately), but Shaw lets you register 10 WiFi devices (phone, tablet, computer, etc) and connect to 100,000 public WiFi hotspots across Canada. This is quite handy, especially if you don't want to get your children expensive monthly data plans. Here's map of Shaw Go Wifi.

  Shaw Go WiFi - Over 100,000 hotspots across Canada | Shaw

• I switched to Telus when our condo building got the Fibre Optics gigabit upgrade. I now have 980MBbps download/upload with wired connection, and around 350Mbps down/up wireless, and I pay $75/mo for Telus Gigabit Internet (unlimited usage).

• I'm not paying for TV / Movie package from my Internet service provider. Since I don't watch a lot of cable TV, occasionally subscribing to Netflix seems to be a better alternative.

Tips

• If you live in a multi-residential area (Condo, etc), contact your Strata to see if they have any group discount plans. Telus has a program where they give 25% discount (but the strata has to sign up first, and you need to call them once every year to renew your rate)
• If you're an Youtuber, or if you need to send big large files, pay attention to the upload speed you're offered.
• If you live nearby a university campus, visit a in-campus branch during the back-to-school promotion period (late August / early September) to see if they can get you a student plan (even if you're not technically a student, they may be able to give you a student plan)
• If you have your own WiFi router, contact the customer service and ask if they can reduce the fee by either returning the modem, or replacing the bundled modem/router with a cheaper modem/router. I was able to get $5/mo discount from Shaw by doing this.
• After your 24 month contract is over, always contact the retention department and ask them to reduce your bill. If you say you're considering of moving to a competitor, they usually come up with a proposal.