Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I have heard this before, since the French are more ardently secular and "socialist". Do you think this is true? So, I hear historically, ties to the French would have made Canada more left wing which is why Montreal is that way, relative to American cities or even Anglo-Canadian ones like Toronto or Vancouver. (Americans would be really unlikely to believe college education is a right and protest on the street as students the way they did there).
Without the French influence, would the English-speaking parts of Canada be more like the United States politically?
I don't know. BC is one of the most socially left places in Canada and they are mostly of British descent. At the other end of the spectrum is Saskatchewan and rural Alberta, mostly of German and Eastern European descent.
I'd be careful about how the label "French" is used in the Canadian context as France itself has had little or no role in Canada's affairs since the 1760s. Even in Quebec.
But of course goings-on in France do influence Quebec via media, literature, and various exchanges. Part of the student protests was certainly fuelled by knowledge of how cheap higher education is in France, something that might not be common knowledge elsewhere in North America. Or at least not top of mind.
Does the presence of French or French Canadians in Canada influence English Canadians and English Canada to a degree that would make them lean more to the left politically than Americans do?
The answer to this is probably no.
While there is some French history (and also francophone minority populations today) across all of Canada, the reality is that the influence on the main anglo society in most parts of the country is marginal at best.
People who are unfamiliar with Canada often greatly overestimate the cross-Canada "Frenchness" that exists but realistically there is not much of an impact.
There could have been, but that's not really the case in modern Canada.
Another question is: does the Canadian polity as a whole lean more to the left because of the "French" influence?
On this one, I'd say that if the "French" influence is the province of Quebec, then yes the government of Canada tends to be more left-leaning than it would otherwise be because Quebec tends to vote very predominantly for left or at least centre-left parties, and almost never for truly conservative parties.
Since Quebec has close to 25% of the population, this is a considerable pro-left weight given that it is so predominantly of that leaning.
For example, the current Canadian government is Conservative and was elected with very few members from Quebec. Over the past 40-50 years, Quebec has only voted for a "conservative" party from 1984 to 1990, and these were probably the "reddest tories" we've ever seen in Canada, under Brian Mulroney.
The rest of the country is more divided 50-50 between conservatives and progressives, although the harder-core conservatives you find in some parts of the U.S. are not as present in Canada. And it is true that the ultra-conservatives are not very present in the parts of the U.S. that border Canada either... with a few exceptions.
I have heard this before, since the French are more ardently secular and "socialist". Do you think this is true? So, I hear historically, ties to the French would have made Canada more left wing which is why Montreal is that way, relative to American cities or even Anglo-Canadian ones like Toronto or Vancouver. (Americans would be really unlikely to believe college education is a right and protest on the street as students the way they did there).
Without the French influence, would the English-speaking parts of Canada be more like the United States politically?
The "French influence" in Canada is that of a period mostly prior to the American revolution. The Quebec Act, by which the British were able to largely reconcile the French settlers to their rule, in large measure restored the legal regime (for French subjects) that existed prior to that takeover. It even allowed for the Roman Catholic church to operate with a freedom that made it virtually coequal with the British state Church of England. (This aspect of Quebec Act particularly enraged settlers in the lower 13 colonies who were ardently and enthusiastically anti-Catholic.)
This certainly made French Canada a conservative society, and after the lower thirteen had their revolution the society and government of English Canada as it rapidly evolved was conservative as well. I think any left-leaning trends in Canadian society have developed from within that society, both in its French and English components. The French Revolution was at first greeted with enthusiasm by French Canadians, but that did not last long as high revolutionary ideals turned to naked violence and political instability. On the other hand, the Rights of Man have had an influence all around the world since then, probably a greater one than the American founding documents, and leaders in all sorts of nations unconnected with French history and culture have embraced its ideals.
Below is a link to an interesting article which pertains to this subject.
I have heard this before, since the French are more ardently secular and "socialist". Do you think this is true? So, I hear historically, ties to the French would have made Canada more left wing which is why Montreal is that way, relative to American cities or even Anglo-Canadian ones like Toronto or Vancouver. (Americans would be really unlikely to believe college education is a right and protest on the street as students the way they did there).
Without the French influence, would the English-speaking parts of Canada be more like the United States politically?
I agree with what Acajack said, I only want to add that while I understand where those "why/how are Canadians different from Americans" threads come from, what is often lost is that the western world outlier on social issues is generally the US, not Canada: the answer could almost always be "well that's because Americans are different", and then digging deeper we'd find that some Americans are distinctively different from everybody else in the western world.
In other words, the question could be different: why are all other countries in the western world more left-wing or liberal than the US?
Another question is: does the Canadian polity as a whole lean more to the left because of the "French" influence?
On this one, I'd say that if the "French" influence is the province of Quebec, then yes the government of Canada tends to be more left-leaning than it would otherwise be because Quebec tends to vote very predominantly for left or at least centre-left parties, and almost never for truly conservative parties.
Since Quebec has close to 25% of the population, this is a considerable pro-left weight given that it is so predominantly of that leaning.
For example, the current Canadian government is Conservative and was elected with very few members from Quebec. Over the past 40-50 years, Quebec has only voted for a "conservative" party from 1984 to 1990, and these were probably the "reddest tories" we've ever seen in Canada, under Brian Mulroney.
The rest of the country is more divided 50-50 between conservatives and progressives, although the harder-core conservatives you find in some parts of the U.S. are not as present in Canada. And it is true that the ultra-conservatives are not very present in the parts of the U.S. that border Canada either... with a few exceptions.
Mulroney is pretty much the polar opposite of a red Tory. Even Harper's more of a red Tory than he is. Quebec was probably voting conservative because the separatists hated Trudeau (and therefore the Liberals) and because Quebec has always been more supportive of integration with the United States.
Another factor is that if you take Quebec as an "entity", leftism vs. conservatism is not that dependent on geography or demographics like it is in most other places.
For example, in the latest Canadian federal election in 2011, the NDP won the vote across almost all demographics in Quebec.
Mulroney is pretty much the polar opposite of a red Tory. Even Harper's more of a red Tory than he is. .
Hardly, although the definition of what a red tory is is a matter of debate.
Anyway, Mulroney was certainly a bit more to the left when compared to classic conservatives. He is reviled by some people because of free trade with the US (seen as a sellout) but he was also against the death penalty, pro-choice, and under his reign Canada was much less militaristic and "get tough on crime" than it is under Harper.
He also bit the bullet and created a new consumption tax (the GST) which caused him all sorts of grief with voters.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
