Assuming this was supposed to reply to my response (you're just responding directly to the main post FYI).

Canadians actually pay about HALF of their gross income in taxes

I haven't ever heard a number this big. Where did you get this from, and how does it compare to other countries?

I don't disagree - we're taxed more than the US, but that comes with things like single-payer healthcare and higher regulatory enforcement. GST, for example, isn't something collected in the US meaning they only have the effective PST component of our sales tax, which varies widely by municipality to municipality, but is quite a bit less.