I never fly from a Canadian airport if at all possible (unless of course, flying to another Canadian city only). The fees and taxes are one reason but the big one is the time involved clearing customs (almost nil when driving, and no border lineups at the crossing I use). At the airport, the lineups are huge because all US bound flights use one line for US customs and the grilling is usually more in depth than when driving. There it is 'where do you live', 'purpose of your trip' that's it. And then the TSA. In tiny Bellingham, the TSA are actually nice. Friendly, no body scanners (yet) and maybe one or two people in line ahead of you max as there are only a couple of airlines that use BLI, not to mention not a whole lot of flights in total. I can arrive much closer to my flight time with no checked bags as I know clearing security will take mere minutes.

I can't speak for other border towns, just suggesting the OP try BLI of he lives near Vancouver. Sadly for me, the secret is now out and more and more people are flying from there so it is getting busier. I have been doing it for over 25 years (I used to work on a cruise ship and could buy a cheap open RT within US which you couldn't do from Canada back then without paying full fare) but back then BLI was REALLY small and it involved a prop plane to SEA first. But the fares were so cheap compared to flying from pre-deregulated Canada.