Also, Finland has a way smaller number of people that constitutes their society, so I'd think it's dramatically easier to make changes. Finland, for instance, has fewer people than NYC -- and only about twice as many as Chicago.

So it's a bit hard (in my opinion) to compare it to the US, let along North America, which consists of the following countries (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_de...). I guess you meant the US though :)