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There was a poll going around on the general U.S forums where Canada was beating California for "which is more liberal". I was under the impression it was only slightly more liberal than California.
There was a poll going around on the general U.S forums where Canada was beating California for "which is more liberal". I was under the impression it was only slightly more liberal than California.
It depends on where you go. In general, all of the West Coast including BC and WA and OR and CA are very liberal. CA is definitely significantly more liberal than Alberta or Saskatchewan or whatever.
You also need to look at the cities....Vancouver, Seattle, Portland and San Francisco are all about equally liberal. I would have no idea what criteria a person would find to measure which was more liberal, it would depend on their own personal bias for that.
You can't really compare 'California' with 'Canada'...as California is like an entire other world from the rest of the U.S., and parts of Canada feel surprisingly similar to their counterparts immediately across the border - i.e. BC feels like Washington, Manitoba like Minnesota, Ontario like upstate New York, etc.
And what is more liberal, Manitoba or Minnesota? They are too similar to tell...New York or Ontario...again, both contain the large liberal international cosmopolitan cities again...and too similar to tell.
But if you want to compare All of United States with all of Canada...than yeah, Canada is significantly more liberal.
I don't think its fair to call Canada more liberal than the US. Its is certainly less uptight. The US isn't liberal, so calling something more liberal than the US doesn't tell you much about how liberal it is, while at the same time implying that it is liberal.
I don't think its fair to call Canada more liberal than the US. Its is certainly less uptight. The US isn't liberal, so calling something more liberal than the US doesn't tell you much about how liberal it is, while at the same time implying that it is liberal.
On the world stage the US would be considered very liberal, it was really the first country to being liberalism to the mainstream.
Parts of California are very liberal socially, parts aren't. Same with Canada, but I believe there is a difference.
The difference is that in Canada most have a live and let live attitude. Religion has no real influence in politics, so you don't get very far as a politician openly pushing your particular religious beliefs. That's why Harper, a Conservative PM, knew that it would be political suicide to open up the abortion debate, or gay rights including marriage.
There are usually less extremes in Canada, and the divide of liberal and conservative is not the same as in the US.
These are generalities of course, but overall, you do get the feeling that Canada is a pretty liberal country in it's policies and it's mindset.
The difference is that in Canada most have a live and let live attitude. Religion has no real influence in politics, so you don't get very far as a politician openly pushing your particular religious beliefs. That's why Harper, a Conservative PM, knew that it would be political suicide to open up the abortion debate, or gay rights including marriage.
Evangelical Christianity doesn't take hold on a region like in the U.S. South. If Harper tried to use similar discourse like Dubya or Trump to woo Evangelicals, he would be literally preaching to the choir--a small minority in Alberta, usually American-Canadians.
Canada is what it is, and I think it can be tough comparing politics across an international border. Canada and the US may be similar in some respects, but we're widest apart when it comes to where were coming from historically as societies, and in our political cultures and organization. These are quite relevant to the discussion here.
Americans are more expressive people than Canadians, regardless of regional culture (on either side). It's something I've noticed as perhaps the defining difference. If an American is liberal or conservative, you'll know. Canadians are a bit more reserved about expressing their political positions with people they don't know well. An American came up to work in our office for a month as a consultant. At day 2 I knew his politics, but after a year I still couldn't tell you who any of my Canadian co-workers voted for.
I think Canada, as a whole federation, is more "liberal" than California, once again as a whole state. There are of course plenty of things that don't easily fall into these neat little boxes, like language politics, free-trade, immigration policies, and democratic reform. But Canadian peoples, as a whole, do believe in the role of government as a tool to achieve collective societal goals, believe in secularism, and that changes to social norms can and sometimes should change for the better. Our society seems alot closer to the ideals that the people who call themselves liberal in the US espouse, and the policies they champion often fall short of what we've already achieved here. We can achieve these things because we're a country and California is a state in a much larger nation. Their politicians have to be realistic and espouse policies that make sense in their local cultural and political context. So it's a bit apples to oranges to look too closely and try to quantify things, but of course we have more liberal and more conservative provinces too. If you average them, they seem to the left of places like California on most of the metrics, but not all.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Canada is more practical Liberal, USA is more Marxist (failed) Utopian Liberal. Lots of legal immigrants with higher levels of education but illegal immigration isn't tolerated. American Liberals think the govt gives people 'free stuff', Canadians think they pay more in taxes and get more back but not free.
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