That pay rate equals about $41600 Cdn ($27040 U.S. at 0.65 on the $) per year with $10400 in tax deductions. In other words 25% gone in federal taxes!
Now, you have to add on the provincial income taxes. Last I lived in Ontario, 9 years ago, that amount was fixed as a percentage of your federal taxes and was 54%. So you also pay out of every paycheck an additional $297x 54% = $160. That's a total of $560 out of $1600 taken just in taxes.
You only have $1040 in Canadian dollars to keep for yourself. That comes out to $676 in U.S. dollars. Now, if you want to spend that money, you have to pay a 7% federal sales tax and an 8% provincial sales tax. Effectively, you have the spending power of $676 x 85% = $575 every two weeks.
In summary, this is the equivalent of a person in the U.S. making roughly $27K per year and paying 35% in sales and income taxes. Also, in Canada, the interest on your mortgage is NOT tax deductible and this does not consider property taxes, too. Moreover, on an item by item basis, Canadian retail prices are higher than they are in the U.S.
Another curious bit of Canadian psychology is that, during tax time, you have to figure out how much money the government lets you keep, in the U.S. you figure how much money the government is taking away from you.