GC difficult questions raised

A friend of mine recently brought up his idea of applying for canadian immigration. His reason - GC in US will now take up 7-8 years to get processed. He has only 6 years on h1b and he is not sure if his current employer would sponsor a GC for him.....and even if he does he is not sure if he can stick with him for so long...these and many other innumerable questions are being faced by foreign nationals in US. Everyone facing these questions have to find an answer for one and only one question - where would they want to be in 8-10 years from now. Understandably, this question is not an easy one to answer as there are lot of variables involved. If one intends to settled down in US he/she needs a GC and complex questions follow. If one wishes to go back to their home country for good, several questions have to be answered such as - What kind of job ? Will I be able to maintain the same life style ? Will I be able to adjust to the social conditions after 7 or 8 years in US ?. The bottomline is there is no definite answer to this question. The key to this problem is to keep one's options open, which is easier said than done.