"You mentioned different demographics - do you mean more minorities in USA, illegal immigrants, generaly wider social gaps, something else?"

Well, they have easier access to cannabis in Canada, and they get their fights out on the hockey rink.

Really, I'm not sure I can put my finger on it. I don't know if in general the gaps between the wealthy and less well off (I don't say poor because in my opinion with only a few exceptions, comparing the North American 'poor' to say, Sub-Saharan African 'poor' puts things into perspective, so I say less well off) are as great in Canada as they are in the US. I think that pinpointing the causes of increased violence is a very difficult task. I believe that violence levels are affected by (in no particular order): education, wealth, self-image, booze/drug prevalence, and feelings of hope or hopelessness. Monetary/physical goods are only part of it.

There's a line from a movie: "I'm not poor, I'm broke. Broke is a temporary condition, poor is a state of mind."

I don't think more minorities is a negative, it's the lifeblood of this country and always should be.

Your noted omissions to my answer are on the money, I did not mention these things on purpose, as I don't think we have too much to be proud of on a lot of those fronts. Not to say the western civilization's core tenets - science, rationalism, democracy, tolerance aren't worth fighting for, but I'm not sure those things aren't more often used as a pretext for less lofty goals.

I don't think anyone really has a solid, cogent answer to the difference in crime rates between the US and Canada, I know I don't; I only have suspicions.

-Zeke