"Tim Douglass" wrote in message
I think they both went to their systems later than Britain and Canada,
so they are benefitting from seeing what didn't work there. It might
also be worth considering that culturally they are farther removed
from us than are Britain and Canada

I agree with that assessment. And, it might possibly be that if those newer
systems have any faults in them, they haven't been in operation long enough
to show. The British and Canadian systems have been in operation for a long
time. While they've remained pretty static in their operation, their
populations have changed over time and the existing systems haven't exactly
kept pace.