Getting into medicine in Canada is extremely hard
An 85% is a competitive GPA for either Canadian or US medical schools. Fine, your friend didn't get in. That doesn't mean that you wouldn't. US schools have a much more favourable acceptance percentage due to the sheer number of spots available. You could still go to a US med school and get all the benefits I named earlier, and not have to deal with the IMG stigma and associated problems mentioned previously.
It is true, many of them were not very competitive residencies but getting a competitive residency is not all that important to me (I have done my research and job shadowed many physicians in IM or Peds and either of these careers would be more than good enough for me).
I think it's good that you've already acknowledged that fact, which is that going abroad will limit your career options. The next question is: Why would you deliberately choose a medical school setting which will put limitations on your future career.
Some personal anecdotes. I thought I was going to be a family doctor when I got into med school. I just recently matched into Radiology. Somewhere in the 4 years of med school, I discovered that I really enjoyed the diagnostic challenge of the field, as well as that I wanted to incorporate my skills in Anatomy and Pathology heavily into my career field. I also really enjoy working with computer technology. Family Medicine just doesn't do that to the same degree as Radiology, nor was my Family Medicine rotation experience anywhere near as satisfying as when I had been shadowing family doctors previously.
Classmates of mine who thought they were going to be Pediatricians ended up loving Geriatrics. Surgeons who loved anatomy ended up going into Psychiatry. Emerg wannabes decided to go into Anesthesiology. Internal Medicine guys ended up going into Pathology. Neurosurgery guys ended up in ENT. And tons of people floated into Radiology from all sorts of other specialties. The point is that people change their minds, and do so frequently in medical school. Those changes can often be pretty dramatic. I flat out don't believe you when you say that you are certain you'd be happy in Peds or IM. Especially since because I'm certain you haven't shadowed doctors in all the above specialties.
Rule #1 of Medical School is that you can NEVER be certain of your career choice until you are actually living it in clerkship, and probably not even then. Shadowing a doctor is nothing like the actual job itself; you have no idea how much other work is involved in running the office, hospital administration, patient charting, malpractice paperwork, insurance issues, dealing with patients and other hospital staff, etc. You might very well discover in third year that you really love Radiology, or Dermatology, or Urology, or Orthopedic Surgery, or ENT, or Ophthalmology, or any number of other competitive specialties, and it would be a damn shame that you wouldn't have a realistic shot at any of them because you went to a foreign school and have that IMG label slapped all over your application.
Particularly since you also need an H1B visa (which would be much easier to get coming from a US med school because of that F1 visa extension option).
Take Dr. Cuts as an example. He was a US IMG who ended up matching into Radiology, which was an incredible accomplishment. I take my hat off to him. Despite getting USMLE scores in the 240's, he still only ended up with some 6 interviews out of 140 applications, which, no offense, is a pitiful ratio. In contrast, this year, guys who graduated from US med schools with USMLE scores in the 230's routinely could expect some 20 interviews from 40 applications.
You could extrapolate that out to say that while an IMG gets 6 interviews, the US medical graduate could expect to get 70 interviews! That's a blatantly HUGE difference. 6 interviews is often not enough to match into a tough specialty.
I went to 20+ Radiology interviews, and saw not a single IMG applicant out of the hundreds of other interviewees. They all got rejected pre-interview. Why would you want to start your career off with that IMG label? It makes no sense, especially considering that you've never even taken the time to apply to either the US or Canada first.
Even if you did end up wanting a less competitive specialty, going to a US medical school will open up doors in getting that residency in awesome locations, like San Francisco, San Diego, LA, Portland, Seattle, New York, Boston, Chicago, Miami, etc. You would have increased options in deciding which location you want, instead of being stuck with whatever locations are left after the US medical graduates get first pick. Wouldn't it suck if you had family/friends/girlfriend/wife in a certain city, and you weren't able to match into a residency there because you weren't competitive enough?
Many Canadians are doing it and becoming doctors in the states every year
That's true, but few to none of those Canadian IMG's are doing their residencies in competitive specialties like Derm, Ophtho, etc, and if they are doing them in uncompetitive specialties, they are more likely to be at less desirable programs or locations. That's a very significant point. Might not seem like it at your stage, but it's true nonetheless.
The FMG route may be more expensive but it also saves me two years of a degree full of courses that I am not all that interested in as opposed to spending those years in a respected medical school taking courses that I am very interested in (I have researched thouroughly the courses I would be taking and the program itself).
Listen. EVERYONE goes through the same weeder courses. Do you really think that most doctors loved studying Physics or Organic Chem for their MCAT/prereqs. No. But they sucked it up, got through the material, and developed a better character and work ethic for it. Two more years of undergrad is nothing, and it's a time to learn and develop all sorts of academic and non-academic interests. If you completed your BSc and either a Canadian or a US MD, that would take you 6 years. In contrast, if you go foreign MD next year, that takes you 5 years plus a complete year wasted filling out paperwork for your H1B visa. It STILL takes you 6 years!
The difference is that 6 years from now, if you stayed in Canada or the US, you'd look back and say to yourself: "Thank God I had the foresight to stay in North America so I could more easily match into my #1 specialty in my #1 location." If you head to SGU or Ireland, 6 years from now you might be seriously kicking yourself because you were discriminated against because of your IMG status, couldn't land that specialty or location you wanted, and worse yet, knew that you could have avoided all those hassles and all that discrimination if you'd simply stayed in North America for your medical school education.
THAT'S why you should go to a US or Canadian med school. Your choices don't really make any material difference to me; I've got my Radiology residency all set up. It's just that I've gone through the residency application cycle already, and I think that you are on the verge of making an incredibly naive and impulsive decision to go offshore for medical school, considering that you definitely will have visa issues for residency and might someday want a tough specialty. Offshore is an option for those who don't have the numbers to get into North America (and have been repeatedly rejected) or perhaps want to stay and practice in those locations. You don't fit either of those categories.
It's your life, I just happen to think you'd be making a really stupid decision, and it very likely may come back to haunt you 6 years from now as you start the competition for a residency position. Stay in North America for your medical education. It's more than worth it to do so, even if that means two more years of undergrad.