You weren't kidding, this guy is angry.

There seems to be a smug moral superiority among Canadians that they are somehow better than the Americans. Having lived in both countries and many other places in the world, I have not come across a more mediocre, conservative, lethargic, non innovative, risk averse culture than modern day Canada. It wasn't always like that but the last 50 years have been a disgrace. They are only getting by because of their small population which will change soon because tax payers need to be brought in and only the bottom of the barrel will immigrate there due to a lack of exceptional skills / industries in the country. Places like the US and UK are where you can really flourish if you want to push humanity forward. When Canada's only industry is real estate you know it is a country filled with risk averse people sitting on their bums on top of a house like a lazy dragon and waiting for it to appreciate. Also if you have been there recently, nothing works there anymore especially their healthcare and airports.

Most of their "advantages" (in "progressive" policy, "free" healthcare etc.) come from the fact that they have us paying for their defence, coupled with having plenty of natural resources and good geography. It is not a country that seeks or bothers to innovate much beyond riding the coattails of the US like a typical large anglosphere nation. In other words, the Australia of North America. Their primary tech sector functions as a cheap outsourcing service for US companies. The national industries are natural resources, real estate, and immigration. Canadians are tremendously proud of their "recent" innovations that are decades if not centuries old. If you look at the typical Canadian cultural propaganda, the country appears to have nothing to show beyond insulin (invented a century ago) and the Canadarm (a gimmick that allows them to pretend to be an aerospace player). They have no launch vehicle to speak of and their leaders happily destroyed their aerospace industry (see Avro Arrow and the whole Bombardier forced sale incident during the Trump era). The primary reason for their high quality of life is easy access and integration with the US market, without which they would be much poorer. They claim to be a middle power but are more like a middling power. By every metric of innovation and technological achievement, they are an embarrassment.

I guess high CoL and low wages relative to the US.

I've lived there and in the US (and other countries.)

I would say it is best to be poor in Canada, best to be rich in the US. So if you are middle class in Canada, there is a good chance you are living hand to mouth and if you are poor in Canada, you have the luxury of time. From first (well technically second) hand experience, a family of 6 can be on the dole in Canada until the children are grown up after which the parents can go on disability until retirement kicks in.

It's not necessarily a bad way to go, the children of the aforementioned family utilized the free education and healthcare to get a leg up and most of them became middle class. At which point they will see the other side of the coin.