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are there 'real conservatives' when you get out of the biggest cities, kind of like what you'd always expect in the states?
('real conservatives' by american standards)
We have different conservatives. The history of political thought, the different political parties that have made a splash in how people think, and the experiences of the population mean that 'conservatives' in every country (if the term is even used), often have different sets of beliefs that are common on different issues, even if they agree on other fronts. For example, capitalism is a profoundly un-conservative force. Progress and innovation destroys traditional forms and ways of doing things. As such, in many countries the rural areas are socialist and the urban areas are capitalist, with the rural areas being more socially conservative and religious. Spain would be an example of this. In Canada, there was some of this in the first half of the 20th century, but these days rural people who would describe themselves as conservative are usually for less bureaucracy regarding firearms, since so many are hunters or might have to shoot an animal, not so much for defense against other humans, which is a minor part of it, and not at all because of a desire to be able to revolt against the government. That's an ideology born of the second amendment and that aspect of the debate is really totally absent from the Canadian psyche and conversation. Much of it is also very regional. Abortion and the place of religion are factors in the rural west, but much more rarely an important issue for those east of the Ottawa river. Social conservatism in general totally is present in the rural areas, but they're too small a camp to really drive the political agenda in conservatism and are vastly outnumbered by fiscal conservatives who see social conservatism as much less important or maybe even oppose it. Conservatives also don't always get to see their feelings expressed by their parties. Alot of rural conservatives don't like non-whites and don't support immigration, but that sort of talk would never be reflected in a conservative party platform, the capitalists love immigration. The Action Democratique du Quebec tried to be anti-immigrant and while they got some supporters, the strategy largely backfired and they declined into oblivion, leaving a vacuum that was eventually filled by a more competent capitalist party called the CAQ. Most are Monarchists. Also, they may oppose many social programs and funding, but very few are the full free market fundamentalist libertarian types you find in the US. The vast majority of Conservative voters support state sponsored universal health care even if they might advocate for a parallel private system like they have in the UK. They typically advocate for industrial development over environmentalism if they vote Conservative, but the Green Party of Canada is a fiscal conservative party that's main deal is also being environmentalist, and their main base of support is rural British Columbia. So, you'll find 'rednecks' in Canada for sure, and they might have many views that line up with the thinking in conservative rural USA, but IMO they are much less radicalized then you would find in the US, and they almost invariably disagree with the Republican Party on some key issue or another. I've also found that in general, rural Canadians and rural Americans differ much more culturally then do urban Canadians and urban Americans.
Only about 100 million Americans cast their ballots,
Canada only has like 35 million people. i know they have a higher voter turnout but still not easy to make a comparison between the two.
If the question was " are they more liberal people in the U.S. than Canada in actual numbers, the answer would be yes. The question is Canada overall more liberal than the U.S. overall, the answer would be yes.
Even Canadian Conservatives are more liberal than American Liberals.
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