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"Liberalism" in US is more similar to Conservatism in Canada. Conservatism in the US is something we simply don't have in Canada... our most right wing party would still be considered Liberal by US standards. Our most left wing party (NDP) which has the popular support of about 35% of the country would be considered pure socialists in the US.
Conservative and Liberal are empty words to me, and probably many others as well. I think it might be because those are the actual names we give to two of our political parties. They're all lying thieving bastards.
"Conservatism" and "Liberalism" seem to have different meanings in Canada than they do in the United States.
Conservatism and liberalism in Canada also mean different things to different people in Canada. A liberal in Canada would probably define conservatism differently than a conservative. Also, conservatives from Alberta have a different view than conservatives from Ontario. It's the same as the US, there is no one single definition of what either word means, and it means different things to different people. If you're really interested, look at each party's platform to get an idea and compare them to the Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians
It's not enough for him to look at the platforms of the party, it's important to get a handle on the political history of the place, and in this one instance it's much easier to understand Canada from a British perspective then from an American one. In fact, the make-up of the British political landscape seems to roughly mirror Canada pretty well, with Conservative = Conservative (UK), Liberal = Liberal-Democrat (UK), NDP = Labour (UK), and Bloc Quebecois = Scottish National Party. I think alot of this has to do with having roots in the same political movements.
In Canada, the Conservative tradition differs from that of the US as it really has its roots in Toryism, and Conservatives are nicknamed Torys (Liberals are nicknamed Grits) Tory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the early twentieth century, the ideas of the Progressive Party and the Progressive Movement that was born in the US had a big impact in Western Canada amongst the tightly nit agrarian towns where people were collectist and community minded in order to survive. Coupled with the Depression later on, this helped give birth the Progressive Conservative Party which was still basically Toryism but with some ideas from the Progressive party that made it more appealing to the people of this mostly egalitarian society of farmers and workers. Parties calling themselves Progressive Conservative were the most powerful of the conservatives in the twentieth century and impacted peoples thinking. Other conservative parties were Social Credit (now defunct) and Union Nationale. In the late eighties two important socially conservative parties arose out of the West called the Reform Party of Canada and the Canadian Alliance. They were more socially Conservative and have a big impact on the modern federal Conservative Party they merged with the Progressive Conservatives to create in the 2003. Probably the biggest difference between American and Canadian Conservatism is the impact of Red Toryism as an ideology in Canada, I feel it's had an impact in some way on all the parties.
I think part of the reason it seems like there's a big divergence in what the terms mean in Canada is that there's so many parties with elements of conservative ideology in their platforms at the provincial levels and even though the Conservatives are now united federally, that only happened in 2003, so when one says conservative, they mean conservative in relation to something else because there's no monolithic party like the Republicans present at all state and federal levels for it to be a synonym for. Are they socially conservative or do they just like neoliberal economics? If they were just the fiscal type and in Alberta they'd probably vote Progressive Conservative instead of Wildrose Party. Parties also seem to kind of drift sometimes around the political spectrum, for example under the premiership of Danny Williams in Newfoundland a political culture that seemed to hug the centre already sort of just deteriorated and seemed to just have the left-right thing deteriorate and it became a personality based political system. The parties might also become more socially liberal or conservative or more economically conservative or liberal over time depending on the public mood. The NDP, for example, is much more socially liberal then it once was, and Quebec's right wing party, the CAQ, promotes lots of left wing ideas because they're really popular and they'd do poorly in elections if they didn't favour those ideas.
The confusion with what liberal means might also have a similar origin. There's a ton of leftist parties so someone might say, "I lean left" but you don't know if they'd vote communist party, NDP, or Liberal. People also don't like to use the word liberal as it's too associated with the Liberal party and if you said "I'm a liberal" they'd hear "I'm a Liberal". The Liberals followed Classical Liberalism until the 1960's: Classical liberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
And now follow that with social liberalism since Lester B. Pearson and an emphasis on evidence based policy. Should be noted they're more right or left in their policies depending on the province, Jean Charest who was premier of Quebec for 9 years as head of the Liberals was originally a Tory MP in the federal government.
The NDP is generally rooted in Social Democratic ideology and the Progressive Movement that took root in the West in the early twentieth century. They started off a farmers party and to this day the very socially conservative people in places like Manitoba and Saskatchewan will vote NDP or Conservative (but the Liberals are very unpopular, both provincially and federally). They're seen as a salt of the earth workers party while the Liberals can be seen as more of bourgeois, urban Eastern party. The NDP of course is still changing and now basically has a mixed power base amongst the collectivist rural poor and urban left wing socially liberal people. Bit of an interesting dynamic.
Great info BB
Unfortunately its lost on many of our neighbors to the south who view Canadas Conservatism and Liberalism as just different degrees of Communism.
Oh, no, my information on Great Britian's politics was quite out of date, they're definitely not neo-liberal at all, they've moved a bit to the centre but they're still far left on the economic front.
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