I grew up in Canada in the 70s/80s. It was a much nicer holiday there somehow! We dressed up as anything, not necessarily scary or Hallowe'en related - the idea was the disguise. i think it originated with the idea that you were disguising yourself so that the spirits and ghosts that roamed the earth that night wouldn't recognise/get you. But by the time I was doing it, it was just about disguising yourself in whatever costume you wanted, and people were very creative with it at times; others not so much. You could wear Hallowe'en related stuff like witches, ghosts or pumpkins, or anything else - but it didn't tend to be full on horror or anything like it is here.
Pretty much the whole neighbourhood took part, whether they had kids or not, so you could go from house to house; the darkened ones you didn't go to, but it wasn't that common. Shops sold packs of Hallowe'en candy, so people would have stocked up. You also got a box at school to collect coins for Unicef. We either said Trick or Treat, or Hallowe'en Apples. (And sometimes did get apples or nuts as well as sweets, or homemade things). Your parents checked it all before you ate any of it. Sometimes you were asked for a joke or a song (we usually sang some Christmas carol with funny words, like Jingle Bells). I lived in a city so never got up to mischief; my cousins who lived rurally, and my dad when he was younger, told tales of mischief that they got up to.
It was primarily children up to about age 12 that went out, but older than that still had Hallowe'en parties. You'd often wear your costume to school in the primary schools, and the middle school age would have things like Hallowe'en activities and discos. Not so much at high school though. Clubs like Brownies etc would have 'haunted houses' or other Hallowe'en activities, crafts etc, and shopping malls and stuff would sometimes have sweets or competitions etc.
it was never seen as begging, never aggressive, etc. Wasn't an unpleasant or scary holiday particularly, just slightly scary fun. I guess it's a bit more along the lines of Scottish traditions perhaps.