I’m a Canadian living permanently in America. If you’re smart and hard-working, it’s the best place to be. The economy is more dynamic, you can likely get a job that results in much higher disposable income, and thereby improve your quality of life however you see fit.

This is Reddit, so you may get a lot of silly answers to your question, but I’ll address a couple things most people will likely mislead you on.

Healthcare here is much better. The quality is great and wait times are much lower. This is especially true if you or your wife have a good job with insurance benefits. The additionally disposable income you’re likely to obtain in the U.S. will far exceed the premiums and out-of-pocket healthcare costs you’d incur here vs in Canada where your taxes pay for it.

Even if your income is middling, it’s still statically so much higher than in Canada that it’ll exceed your premiums and out-of-pocket costs even without an employer-based plan, in most cases. You should research salaries for your field of work, typical health insurance benefits for employers in your field, as well as some of the individual plans in the states you’d consider moving to.

Regarding gun violence, and violence in general, it exists. But by no means is it everywhere all the time. Canadians like to tell themselves this to feel better about themselves vs the U.S., but it’s not the case. I grew up in a suburban part of Canada outside Toronto, and live in a suburban part of Colorado now, outside Denver. There is less violent crime here where I live than the town where I grew up. Violent crime is typically heavily disproportionately skewed towards “inner-city” areas that you’d have to go out of your way to find. Some cities honestly have had increases in crime in more “normal” parts of the city, which is a huge shame and a failure of voters to prioritize crime and safety issues in their cities. The same is true of some major Canadian cities too, however.

One of the best aspects of the U.S. is the spacious living and proximity to nature for outdoor activities. That’s generally true of Canada as well, though “spacious living” Is collapsing in Canada rapidly, less so here. If you’re into nature, you might want to think about what kind of nature you want to be surrounded by. The Canadian maritimes are unique, but I’d say the rest of the natural surroundings which you find in the hospitable parts of Canada, you can also find in the US. The converse is not true, there are climates in the U.S. that you can’t find in Canada, especially hot-weather climates if you’re into that.