Fergie,
Not sure where you lived in the USA, but I have also resided and paid income taxes in the USA and Canada and I can tell you that my US income taxes (Washington State) were much less. My girlfriend who’s a Chartered accountant worked it out for one year and I would have paid $95,000 taxes if I was in Canada, but I paid just under $50,000 in Washington. Thats a big difference I think.
What’s more is, the income needed to hit the highest US tax bracket is much higher than in Canada, about 3 times higher if my memory serves me correct.
By the way, I grew up about 1.5 hours north of Victoria also, are we talking about Nanaimo?