I refused moving from Canada to the US multiple times because the extra pay wasn't worth the downsides. There is value in things that are hard to translate into simple numbers like money. And that's as an immigrant to Canada.
Living in Canada gives access to universal healthcare that won't bankrupt you if you need medical help, whereas in the US getting sick can financially collapse everything you've worked for - all so some CEO can have their yacht. Chances are also significantly higher in the US that you will be shot dead in a grocery store or movie theater.
Maybe it's because I've lived in Canada for 4+ decades now, but I wouldn't exactly call what we have access to universal healthcare. It's hard to find a family doctor, if you do find a family doctor, whether you can get reasonable appointment access, is highly dependent on the doctor and not always available. If you do get an appointment and you need to see a specialist or other service that needs a referral you often face a substantial wait list. It's nothing like what it was in the 80's and 90's where appointments were always easily same day or next day and wait lists were short or non existent. To me this is just broken in the opposite way that america's system is broken.
Also, the gun thing makes me think people don't understand statistics. The number of gun related deaths in the usa was 14.6 per 100k people in 2021 and around 0.5 per 100k in Canada, so yes it's drastically higher in the usa but that ignores that 60% of those are suicides and it ignores the highly geographically concentrated nature of the problem.You avoid a handful of neighborhoods and think happy thoughts and your gun death risk basically disappears. unadjusted its a ~1% risk over an 80 year lifetime in the USA vs 0.04% in canada. When you take into account reality and realize you aren't suicidal and you aren't going to visit or live in that tiny handful of extremely high risk neighborhoods the USA risk also drops to almost zero, even over a lifetime.
Canada is a country that takes better care the people living there, and that changes how people behave. Public health care, less inequality, no school shootings... overall a more caring culture where I am happy for my children to grow up.
I lived for a few years in the UK and it reminds me a bit of that.
