Actually the crime rate in Canada and the USA is remarkably similar. This site gives a fair comparison. The biggest difference between Canada and the US is the larger amount of gun crime in the US.
Total crimes (per capita) by country. Definition, graph and map.
Point well taken, but it's hard for me to get over the comparisons of homicides in US and Canadian cities. The difference is so stark that they are really what I mean when I talk about US having higher crime.
Take for example, Washington DC and Vancouver. Similar resident populations (DC has a little more). But still, according to the following link, 18 homicides according in the city of Vancouver in 2009.
CBC News - British Columbia - 2009 another year of B.C. gang violence
In DC during 2009, there were 140 homicides.
There definately are some caveats: there are probably somewhat differing methodologies in determining number of homicides.
Also, it has to be pointed out that the 140 number is exceedingly low for DC. It's been going down for almost twenty years. Other US cities have their homicide rates sliding like that too. I can only expect US cities to become even less crime-ridden over time, but we still got a way to go to reach the Canadian lows.
I mean, only 18 in a year for a city of 550,000-ish people?