13% only applies if you live in Ontario. If you don't like that, move to Alberta. You mentioned being tired of oil, though, so maybe Alberta's not the best choice. Avoid Saskatchewan and Manitoba; those provinces aren't commercial enough, unless you
really like wheat and rural living.
Ontario and British Columbia are culturally diverse enough to accommodate virtually any type of living aspiration. Most Canadians agree that it's the weather which is a deciding/motivating factor. Hot, humid summers in Ontario, or moderate Oregon-like drizzly weather much of the year 'round in Vancouver.
There's also Montréal, which, if you're from Louisiana and know a little French, would also be a great place to live. Montréal has the harshest winters of the three places I've mentioned, though, and the most apparent tourists. (Toronto's inundated with Koreans pointing cameras at things, but somehow they look like part of the landscape.) Montréal also has the best women, but. . . moving on.
Canada is not filled with megalopolises like the US is, and that will be the prime difference.
However, actually living here is different in more nuanced ways. Our HDI beats out America not because the frequently cited higher median age-of-death or birth survival rate, but because of many more slightly different things. We have tighter credit controls, greater freedom of the press, more thorough privacy laws, consumer protection, and things like that, which, as judged by whoever measures these things, are deemed advantageous. As well, they account for things like infrastructure, cost of living, job availability, "upward mobility", social/class restraints (glass ceiling, racism etc - these are big perceptive deterrances to America being highly rated), preponderance of violence, state/corporate corruption, environmental responsibility, general public health (obesity, heart disease etc) and whatnot.
Canada's current unemployment rate is about 8.5%; last I heard, USA was hovering around 10.1%. It varies by province, just as USA's varies by state. I doubt you'll have trouble starting up a successful business in Ontario. (The HST ("tax harmonization" - a flat combination of Provincial and Federal sales tax) was initiated to attract business in Canada in the wake of general tax cuts to the public. This is their way of re-couping that income. Long story short, it's a business incentive, planned before the economy actually fell.)
I don't think you'll have any problem slipping in here.
Edit:
Word of warning
Canada is a paragon of Liberalism. It has been for the better part of 100 years now - it's been a case study of Western liberalism and is something worth studying and appreciating. Many Americans seem to be at odds with this.
Something worth reading
But I guess if you are in nothing but colder weather when it gets a little hot it seems fairly hot to you. I am in the south of the states where it actually gets hot.
