I've heard it's very difficult to get H1B visa's now a days, so Canadians looking to move to the states, might not be able to.

Canadians have a TN visa option which is much simpler to get than H1B. There is no quota limit.

But software programmers don't qualify for TN visa. System analyst is the closes I think.

They do under either Engineer or Computer Systems Analyst, depending on the case.

They do if they have a Software (or otherwise) Engineering degree, and getting in as a CSA just means you need to have 'microservices' and 'managerial' duties in your role

Wrong. You just need to phrase it the right way. The government bureaucracy considers programmers as typists, and systems analysts as programmers.

And if the border guard doesn't like the wording, they'll reject you at the border.

I don’t know.. Vancouver is a great place to live!