I would say there are two things.
First, when you're comparing rates, the key point is precisely the point that you raise. For 70% of Canadians, the effective rate is zero. For Americans, that's a much smaller rate.
To do a real card-by-card comparison, you have to look across the board. Of course, interest rates tend to be affected by the local economic conditions, inflation rates, the strength of the economy, and so on. You'd have to look at the low-rate cards, the premium cards, the standard cards.
I think Canada compares very well. If you look at fees, and certainly compare with the United States, our closest competitor, we have fewer fees and we have lower fees.