I know you're mostly joking, but you do not get taxed to death. Taxes in Canada (and Ontario) are reasonable on global standards. Your housing costs in TO are too high, but that's not taxes at fault.

Also, Toronto gets its fair share of flooding.

Not to encourage anyone, but effective income tax rates in California are far above those in Ontario.

Relative to cost of living, I'd pick Ontario any day of my life.

Which is actually partly artificial, because they're not allowing lake Ontario to drain: https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/38580/201...

But the "flooding" is NOTHING like What Houston/etc got. It'll cause bad traffic and some highway closures one day per year but the actual damage is negligible relative to what an actual flood causes. It's a minor nuisance, not a catastrophe.

There's also freezing to death on the sidewalk. Sadly, it happens to some people every winter.