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I feel like this question is stemming from a comparison of Canadian and American social safety networks, welfare programs and so on and making an assumption that since Canada has nationwide healthcare and other forms of social safety nets, Canada is more like Europe which also has the same social safety nets and unlike America which resists them.If that’s the case, then User-11726029917195839384 covered this well in her earlier answers which I’ll base my argument on (apologies to Irene in advance if I misrepresent her work).Irene Colthurst's answer to What are the biggest differences between American and Canadian politics?Canada doesn’t have a political history rooted in chattel based slavery like the US which makes the Canadian general population far less averse to having their tax payer money go towards social welfare programs that benefit immigrant populations of a different race and ethnicity than them.This is not the case in the US, where racial attitudes prevent the adoption of nationwide social welfare programs and safety nets which would require taxpayers to provide tax money for programs that would benefit non-white citizens.Indeed, the federal government has erected a vast, unspoken middle- and upper-class welfare state. Every year, millions of Americans get a tax check from the government for buying a house, another for getting married, and another for having kids. We spend billions of dollars in corporate welfare. Yet, none of the recipients of these benefits are called “welfare queens.” Instead:Half of white Americans and 65 percent of Republicans say black Americans “take more than they give” overall.45 percent of Republicans incorrectly think that black people are the majority of welfare recipients.45 percent of white Americans also say “blacks don’t have the motivation or willpower to pull themselves out of poverty.”Clearly, our country still has a deeply racialized view of federal entitlement programs. In the Jim Crow era and throughout the 1960s, this view was evident in both racist “vagrancy” laws and Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s drafting of War on Poverty policies that assumed that black poverty stemmed from black single motherhood. The early 2000s saw economists link increased access to abortion to crime reduction and “black names” to unemployment. Even President Barack Obama’s oft-used symbol of slothfulness and apathy—“cousin Pookie” on the couch—played on a black-sounding name as a shorthand for shiftlessness. In these ways, black need, black privation, and black exigency have been pathologized, moralized, and justified through legislation, academics, and politics. Stripped of its human face, causes, and story, black need has been reduced to caricature, bromide, and punchline.It’s against this backdrop that Trump tweeted last year that “illegal immigrant households receive far more in federal welfare benefits – than ‘native [sic] American households … I will fix it.” That’s false. Trump is neither a capitalist nor a socialist; he’s a welfare chauvinist. Trump is for big government—just maybe not for everyone. This is why Trumponomics violates free-market ideals to purportedly save Carrier jobs and proposes a more than $1 trillion New Deal 2.0 of massive government public works to employ mostly white men—as steelworkers, oil rig machinists, and construction workers. At the same time, he urges cutting Meals on Wheels, the Minority Business Development Agency, and affordable housing.Race Has Everything to Do with Trump’s Budget. Here’s Why. - Center for American ProgressIn a nutshell: Large swathes of the white American electorate in the more sparsely populated but politically significant conservative states of the American South and Interior are not too keen on social safety nets because of radicalized attitudes stemming from America’s chattel-based slavery political past.The United States has a significant portion of it’s history rooted in chattel-slavery and segregation, leading to current political attitudes in the US which uphold the view that “Blacks and non-white immigrants are lazy, do not work, and our tax payer money is going towards subsidizing their inferior lifestyle” despite evidence to the contrary which show white Americans as significant recipients of state welfare.So they would rather that no one have access to state sponsored healthcare rather than they indirectly pay for a Black American’s healthcare (or at least, they THINK they are paying for it).Of course, such a reason is never outwardly touted in American politics and you can see long answers from several American conservative Quorans on how it’s more of a fiscal responsibility issue than a racial one.Despite the fact that the Republican Party has always backed large state funded welfare projects that benefit mostly white voters and white welfare recipients. And at the same time, gutted welfare programs that were targeted to alleviate the conditions of African Americans or other minorities.A secondary reason could also be Geography where the lack of arable land in Canada meant densely packed urban settlements breeding more community oriented politics than the US where prevalence of Arable land permitted for a far less dense settlement pattern that was more individualistic than community oriented.This too, makes the political culture of Canada far more recipient of state backed welfare programs than the US.In other words, the US population geography and geography of political economy are different, and so there is in terms of contemporary political alignments more potential for reactionary politics, while the leftish history that has shown success in the US has not been the urban, industrial leftism seen elsewhere in the West. Canada is large in land mass, but most of its land is not temperate and able to support lots of settlement. Most of its population is urban and densely packed close to the US border. Australia is much the same way — settlement is not even remotely evenly distributed across the continental country, but rather concentrated into dense coastal areas.The US, meanwhile, had lots of temperate land.The US was actually set up to maintain its low density, self-reliant small-r republican socio-political structure — the political implications of wanting to give poor whites possession of a bit of land for themselves were a significant motivating reason behind the Louisiana Purchase and subsequently the Homestead Act. Jefferson and the Jeffersonians looked at Western Europe with its density and its dispossessed peasantry and did not like what they saw. Dense settlement, urbanity — they meant decadence, corruption, autocracy, especially when combined with landless people in those countries’ rural areas. Rural homesteading was virtue personified, the autonomous citizen who could then look on public affairs with a broad and lofty mind.So small holding took off through out the broad US interior, including among many whites who culturally weren’t very communitarian-minded. Which culturally most foundational settlers in Canada were. Canada also, for geographic reasons, lacks a history of entrenched chattel slavery.That alone makes Canada more “left-wing” by contemporary lights.Irene Colthurst's answer to Why is Canada as a whole so left-leaning compared to the U.S.?But as far as present day politics are concerned, my conversations with actual Americans tend to highlight the racial roots preventing the implementation of large government welfare programs in the US.Canadian politics has no such roots in slavery and segregation, leading to a political culture that is far more relaxed in it’s attitudes towards sharing mostly white, taxpayer funded social safety networks and welfare programs with minorities and non-whites as well as the waves of immigrants who have reached Canadian shores. I have noticed that Canadian Whites are also far less aware/concerned of their white identity and don’t attach much importance to it vis a vis American White populations.There is, therefore, a political consensus in Canada on the usefulness and validity of such welfare programs which also benefit minorities besides the white majority although there are always questions on how they could be run better.I feel like this might be the only similarity between Canada and Europe though, as Canada is still far more culturally closer to the US than it ever will be with Europe. If I were to stretch it, I COULD maybe argue that there are some similarities between Canada and Russia based on how both of their economies are largely modeled around the resource extraction and export model with some industry on the side. But that would really be stretching it to be honest. And again, this is more of a economic similarity than a cultural one.This is perhaps an underlying, if somewhat overlooked, strength to the Canadian national identity. That taxpayers of different shades and hues are far more willing to fund social programs they might not even benefit from as long as their neighbors and their overall community benefit from them, regardless of differences in race and ethnicity.What shall we tell our children who are black?What shall we tell our children who are white?What shall we tell children of every race and hue?For all children are the children of all of usAnd all of us bear responsibility for all childrenWhat shall we tell them?How can we show them the conditions of their livesSo they will see how they can change them?What Shall We Tell Our Children? An Addenda, 1973 by Margaret BurroughsJagmeet Singh, a member of the NDP party in Canada, announces his political run for NDP leadership based on a platform of wealth distribution, accessible housing and healthcare.Image source: Jagmeet Singh talks wealth distribution, housing, and health care

Actually socialism and communism are responsible for less deaths than religion, and far, far less than capitalism. The reason is because socialism involves one short period of revolutionary violence. But the system itself is peaceful. But under capitalism the imposition of artificial scarcity to maintain prices systematizes violence. It is built into the system. Hunger, lack of medical care, and homelessness are required to maintain social control and stabilize prices.Examples of death by capitalism:Deaths caused by the introduction of neoliberal capitalism in Russia after 1991.The Irish Potato Famine was made worse by the refusal of the government to interfere with the “wisdom of the markets” based on the belief in laissez faire capitalism. This exacerbated the famine, causing millions more to die. Capitalist markets are inherently unstable and cannot self correct once in a collapse. Similarly, President Hoover during the Great Depression refused to act and because he feared it would prevent the “invisible hand” from working. It was not until FDR intervened that the suffering was alleviated, and WWII would pull it out of depression. Religious faith in dangerous capitalist dogmas of the “wisdom of markets” has proven deadly for over 150 years.In the U.S. farm technology is so efficient that if farmers grew to capacity the grain markets would collapse from too much supply. So the government pays farmers NOT to grow food. It could pay them to grow to capacity and issue food stamps to hungry people, but this is not done for political reasons because conservatives belief that “getting free stuff makes you lazy.” Therefore, school lunch programs for impoverished children and Meals on Wheels must be slashed, so these people can learn “tough love and personal responsibility.”Millions of Americans die from preventable diseases due to the inability to afford medical care.Republican governors reject the Medicaid expansion because “Obamacare is socialism,” and hate the government. People die from this anti-socialist, capitalist ideology.These nations provide universal healthcare. There are no people that die from lack of preventable diseases due to cost. And there are no medical bankruptcies.Despite there being more empty homes than homeless people, people die from hypothermia related to homelessness. Most of the homeless are people that would have previously qualified for addiction and mental health treatment in government hospitals. But Ronald Reagan cut these to give tax breaks to the rich, and mentally ill people were dumped on the streets.In Wisconsin, people die from hypothermia related homelessness. Many shelters don’t permit pets, and others limit how many of your personal items can be brought with you. Others are simply too full.Capitalism kills. We hear incessantly about how violent communists are, the reality is that capitalism is a hidden killer. It kills and we don’t even notice it.Mark Twain on French Revolution and the Reign of Terror:“There were two Reigns of Terror if we would but remember and consider it. The one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood. The one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years. The one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million. Our shudders are all for the 'horrors' of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak. But what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heartbreak?”At least under socialism there were some protections.SocialismUSSR2.76 million. This list is here, with sources: death toll 2.pdfThis is the death toll of the actions of the USSR.The Holomodor was not intentional and should not be counted. Alexander Finnegan's answer to What is the history of famines and starvation in Russia 1850-present day?All the other numbers you are used to hearing have been shown to be inflated and exaggerated, many fabricated.This document is based on reliable research from respected authors and official figures.The Black Book of Communism has been shown to be a fraud. Alexander Finnegan's answer to What is the most biased book you’ve ever read?This includes the Great Purges, the NKVD Polish repressions, the transfer of various populations that resulted in death, the gulags, etc. Alexander Finnegan's answer to Why did Stalin kill the kulaks?Gulag numbers are here: number of gulag.pdf 1,053,829 died in the gulag. But it must also be remembered that this includes people who died from natural causes. The death toll went up during WWII because everyone in the nation was on food rations so there was no starvation, but sick people and older people sometimes succumbed out of the stress. There were also outbreaks of diseases that caused deaths. Solzehnitsyn Lied pdf.pdf,The Great Purges included 777, 975. But this includes a large number that were sentenced to execution but it was never carried out. The Great Purges were not as top down as one might guess. Alexander Finnegan's answer to Was Stalin central to the Great Purge of the 1930's?What about Mao Zedong? Didn’t he kill 75 million?No. The lies about Mao are the most ridiculous of all.The supposed terror of Mao’s rule is total propaganda. In fact the supposed “famine” that he caused turned out to be a period of hunger, and the numbers extolling his supposed 45 million killed are unsubstantiated lies. Most of it comes from bitter members of the CCP who found themselves purged for embracing capitalism and had to do some service work in the country to learn the value of not being antisocial. Mao did not execute his political enemies. He believed in rehabilitation and service work. That is why President Xi’s father and Deng Xiaoping himself were not killed and Deng would eventually become the leader of China.The only landlords that got hurt were the ones who took up arms and violently resisted the land reforms. Landlords that caused deaths or had collaborated with the Japanese invaders would face a trial and if found guilty could be executed.Source: How Mao Greatly Strengthened ChinaWhen the land reforms were announced Mao anticipated there would be resistance from the landlord class, as any privileged class is unlikely to just happily give up their riches for the well being of others. But landlords had the option to abide by the law and be fine. Estimating resistance is not a death sentence. In fact landlords that complied were given land to till and welcomed into the community. They were not exterminated.Source: The Land Reform -- china.org.cnI double checked the Wikipedia account of Mao’s land reform measures, and the citations refer to rabid anti-communist books that are filled with lies. I shouldn’t be surprised. The story of Mao in the West is filled with outright lies.You rarely hear it but the reality was that even though slavery was officially abolished, the practice continued before Mao stopped it. The Dalai Lama had slaves up until 1959. But for Mao this would continue.Source: White Paper on Tibet's March Toward ModernizationSource: Gwydion Madawc Williams's answer to Is it true that landlords in China still owned slaves before Mao initiated land reform?The Mao as mass murderer lies began, interestingly, 20 years after his death with cooked numbers. But in the West these lies are entrenched.Monthly Review | On the Role of Mao Zedong Exploring the lies about Mao cum monsterMonthly Review | Did Mao Really Kill Millions in the Great Leap Forward?Gwydion Madawc Williams's answer to What happened to those who opposed Mao Zedong?Mao’s only screw up was during the Great Leap Forward, in which he tried to go too fast, causing a setback. But this in no way reduces his prior accomplishments. Further, the nation bounced back quickly.Graphs and sources charts from Gwydion Madawc Williams's answer to Considering that China has a great firewall, what level do Westerners know about China and Chinese people know about the West? Who knows more objectively and comprehensively? and Godfree Roberts's answer to Was failure of communism the reason China switched to capitalism?What about Castro?After the revolution Castro did not kill people on a mass scale. The total death toll from his regime is less than 237 people.What about Pol Pot?Yes. Pol Pot killed on a grand scale. But there is nothing intrinsic to Marxism Leninism that demands mass killing like that. That was Pol Pot’s fetish.What about Che Guevara?His biographer meticulously investigated claims about Che killing children, innocent people, etc. Lies. Every one of them. Che did savor killing Batista’s torturers and executioners. But this was during the revolution.ReligionMyth of religious violenceOthers such as William Cavanaugh have argued that it is unreasonable to attempt to differentiate "religious violence" and "secular violence" as separate categories. Cavanaugh asserts that "the idea that religion has a tendency to promote violence is part of the conventional wisdom of Western societies and it underlies many of our institutions and policies, from limits on the public role of churches to efforts to promote liberal democracy in the Middle East." Cavanaugh challenges this conventional wisdom, arguing that there is a "myth of religious violence", basing his argument on the assertion that "attempts to separate religious and secular violence are incoherent".[34]Cavanaugh asserts:Religion is not a universal and transhistorical phenomenon. What counts as "religious" or "secular" in any context is a function of configurations of power both in the West and lands colonized by the West. The distinctions of "Religious/Secular" and "Religious/Political" are modern Western inventions.The invention of the concept of "religious violence" helps the West reinforce superiority of Western social orders to "nonsecular" social orders, namely Muslims at the time of publication.The concept of "religious violence" can be and is used to legitimate violence against non-Western "Others".Peace depends on a balanced view of violence and recognition that so-called secular ideologies and institutions can be just as prone to absolutism, divisiveness, and irrationality.John Morreall and Tamara Sonn have argued that all cases of violence and war include social, political, and economic dimensions. Since there is no consensus on definitions of "religion" among scholars and no way to isolate "religion" from the rest of the more likely motivational dimensions, it is incorrect to label any violent event as "religious".[11]They note that since dozens of examples exist from the European wars of religion that show that people from the same religions fought each other and that people from different religions became allies during these conflicts, the motivations for these conflicts were not about religion.[11]Jeffrey Burton Russell has argued that the fact that these wars of religion ended after rulers agreed to practice their religions in their own territories, means that the conflicts were more related to political control than about people's religious views.[12]According to Karen Armstrong, so-called religious conflicts such as the Crusades, Spanish Inquisition, and the European wars of religion, were all deeply political conflicts at the core, not religious ones. Especially since people from different faiths constantly became allies and fought each other in no consistent fashion. She notes that the Western concept of separation of church and state, which was advocated first by the Reformer Martin Luther, laid a foundation for viewing society as divided when in reality religion and society were intermixed to the point that no one made such distinction nor was there a defining cut between such experiences in the past. During the Enlightenment, religion began to be seen as an individualistic and private thing and that modern secular ideals like equality of all human beings, intellectual and political liberty were things that were historically promoted in a religious idiom in the past.[35]Anthropologist Jack David Eller asserts that religion is not inherently violent, arguing "religion and violence are clearly compatible, but they are not identical." He asserts that "violence is neither essential to nor exclusive to religion" and that " virtually every form of religious violence has its nonreligious corollary."[36][37]Moreover, he argues that religion "may be more a marker of the [conflicting] groups than an actual point of contention between them".[38]John Teehan takes a position that integrates the two opposing sides of this debate. He describes the traditional response in defense of religion as "draw(ing) a distinction between the religion and what is done in the name of that religion or its faithful." Teehan argues, "this approach to religious violence may be understandable but it is ultimately untenable and prevents us from gaining any useful insight into either religion or religious violence." He takes the position that "violence done in the name of religion is not a perversion of religious belief... but flows naturally from the moral logic inherent in many religious systems, particularly monotheistic religions...." However, Teehan acknowledges that "religions are also powerful sources of morality." He asserts, "religious morality and religious violence both spring from the same source, and this is the evolutionary psychology underlying religious ethics."[39]Historians such as Jonathan Kirsch have made links between the European inquisitions, for example, and Stalin's persecutions in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, McCarthy blacklists, and other secular events as being the same type of phenomenon as the inquisitions.[40]Others, such as Robert Pape, a political scientist who specializes in suicide terrorism, have made a case for secular motivations and reasons as being foundations of most suicide attacks that are oftentimes labeled as "religious".[41]Pape compiled the first complete database of every documented suicide bombing during 1980–2003. He argues that the news reports about suicide attacks are profoundly misleading — "There is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any one of the world's religions". After studying 315 suicide attacks carried out over the last two decades, he concludes that suicide bombers' actions stem fundamentally from political conflict, not religion.[42]Source: Religious violence - Wikipedia

It seems that the Bush administration did propose a Greater Middle East Project in 2004.In late April, the United States presented to the G-8 “sherpas” a new set of proposals for a Greater Middle East Initiative (GMEI) to be adopted by the eight industrialized nations at their June summit in Sea Island, Georgia. The initiative is part of President Bush’s “forward strategy of freedom,” by which the expansion of political rights and political participation in the Muslim world is meant to combat the appeal of Islamist extremism.The draft proposal includes five core components:A “Greater Middle East Forum for the Future” would provide a regular venue for discussion of reform goals and programs, and to promote cooperation between states on behalf of reform. The forum would also include business and civil society leaders to facilitate coalition-formation between these groups on behalf of reform efforts.A Greater Middle East Democracy Assistance Group would coordinate the efforts of the various American, European, and other foundations that sponsor non-governmental programs to build democracy. The National Endowment for Democracy and the German party-affiliated Stiftungs, for example, would participate in a concerted effort to maximize the effectiveness of their joint and independent programs in the region.A Greater Middle East Foundation for Democracy would go one step further, establishing a multilateral foundation modeled on the National Endowment for Democracy and focused on the Middle East.A Greater Middle East Literacy Corps would address one of the least controversial and most fundamental barriers to citizen participation in governance.A G-8 Microfinance Pilot Project would focus an existing French proposal for a microfinance initiative on the Middle East. By funding new small businesses across the region, the project hopes to build the middle-class foundation that democracies need to survive.In addition to these concrete projects, the new proposal also lists “notional elements” that together form a broad array of pro-reform programs. These elements include civic education programs, parliamentary exchanges, women’s leadership workshops, legal aid, media training, anti-corruption efforts, and labor union support. Each element is backed up by quotations from recent non-governmental calls for reform—the Sana’a Declaration, the Alexandria Document, and the Arab Business Council communiqué—that have emanated from the Middle East.The New U.S. Proposal for a Greater Middle East Initiative: An EvaluationAuthors Dona J. Stewart and Bakhtiyar Mirkasymov wrote books about itThe Greater Middle East and Reform in the Bush Administration's Ideological ImaginationThe US Greater Middle East InitiativeHere is ‘The Greater Middle East Initiative: Sea Island and Beyond’ Wednesday, June 2, 2004 from the U.S. Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-108shrg96429/pdf/CHRG-108shrg96429.pdfRobin Wright and Glenn Kessler from The Washington Post in February 2004 wrote a detailed piece reporting extensively about Bush’s ‘Greater Middle East’ initiative, before it was officially put forward to the G8 summit.The Bush administration has launched an ambitious bid to promote democracy in the "greater Middle East" that will adapt a model used to press for freedoms in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe."It's a sweeping change in the way we approach the Middle East," said a senior State Department official. "We hope to roll out some of the principles for reform in talks with the Europeans over the next few weeks, with specific ideas of how to support them."Details are still being crafted. But the initiative, scheduled to be announced at the G-8 summit hosted by President Bush at Sea Island, Ga., in June, would call for Arab and South Asian governments to adopt major political reforms, be held accountable on human rights -- particularly women's empowerment -- and introduce economic reforms, U.S. and European officials said.As incentives for the targeted countries to cooperate, Western nations would offer to expand political engagement, increase aid, facilitate membership in the World Trade Organization and foster security arrangements, possibly some equivalent of the Partnership for Peace with former Eastern Bloc countries.Vice President Cheney first hinted at the initiative last month in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. "Our forward strategy for freedom commits us to support those who work and sacrifice for reform across the greater Middle East," he said. "We call upon our democratic friends and allies everywhere, and in Europe in particular, to join us in this effort."Unlike Helsinki, however, the administration's "Greater Middle East Initiative" seeks to avoid creating committees and structures to strictly monitor progress and issue report cards, U.S. officials say. It also seeks to avoid appearing to dictate to the Islamic world."The idea is not to come out with proposals that say, 'This is how the West thinks you guys should live,' " a senior administration official said. "This can't be seen as telling these guys what to do. That won't work. It is instead about saying, 'We hear voices in the greater Middle East region who want democracy and reform, and here are the things we can do to support them.'"The key to all of this is to get the [Muslim] countries in question to feel ownership in this process," a Danish diplomat said. The Danish and Canadian governments have done serious work on the issue and are coming up with their own draft proposals, U.S. and European officials say.The administration's general goal is to put meat on the bones of Bush's call for political change throughout the Islamic world, outlined in two speeches last fall at the National Endowment for Democracy and in London, U.S. officials say.The administration had originally pledged that ousting Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and creating a Palestinian state would serve as catalysts for democracy. But now that the Arab-Israeli peace process is deadlocked and Iraq's political transition is in trouble, the United States is effectively leapfrogging both to generate political change in the region, U.S. and European officials say."We also expect to hear warnings of Islam emerging stronger in the region if countries democratize," he added. "But we recognize the danger of too rapid democratization. We want to see steady progress over a period of time -- and we want to build in checks in the system."The European Union is also cautious because of its long-standing dialogue with Arab nations on the Mediterranean, which has had some success in reforming education and health systems but marginal impact on politics."We welcome the goal, but we want to see how the Americans plan to get there," a European envoy said. "We've been trying for a while, and efforts at modernization don't easily seep through to politics."A well-placed U.S. official said European allies are concerned about "being tarred with the U.S. brush if they cooperate" and fear the U.S. initiative would become a "black hole that would suck everything else into it." But he said the United States is trying to reassure them that "there's work enough for everyone."The concept of promoting a "Middle East Helsinki" has long been discussed in U.S. and European think tanks, but the administration's idea has received a huge boost in recent weeks. Yesterday, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, gave a speech in Munich calling on NATO to establish a partnership plan that would help Middle East militaries with tasks such as peacekeeping, counterterrorism, military reform and civilian control of the military.Bush Aims For 'Greater Mideast' PlanBut it seems like this project, or initiative, left with the Bush administration and has been discontinued since.