My experience
Hiya,
I'm sure you got a bunch of replies already, but thought I'd throw my hat in with some personal experience for a fellow Calgarian.
I made the move to the US on 9/11 of all days. 500 hours total at the time, very little multi but all the other Canadian ratings save the ATPL. So, you'll need to do a few things (sorry if you know this already) commmercial (single and/or multi-engine add-on)written and flight test, instrument rating, to have any hope of any job other than skydiving and flight instructing, regs require it for anything other than a 25 mile flight radius for commercial ops (or something like that) and eventually an ATP, of course.
If you want to flight instruct, there are ton(nes) of jobs, I believe. Largely because people have been sucked up into the regionals so quickly.I'm sure you've seen the ads for 1000 hours and 100 multi for right seat RJ jobs. A CFI is the most prevelant way of doing things stateside. Or, do what I did and head to Alaska, better pay ($36,000/a for a C-172 job), and better experience, in my opinion. Character building is probably what my father would call it, but a lot of fun too. Per the regs, 500 hours min total, 25 night and 100 cross country for a VFR 135 company.
I noticed you posted this back in August, so maybe you know all of this already, but wanted to help out a fellow Canuck, or at least share a perspective. I grew up in Calgary, went to Okotoks for flight training, 1 year at MRC and 3 at UofC. So let me know what you've done.