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Originally Posted by mackinac81
So is Steven Harper that conservative? I've always gathered that he's more "american" than other PM's. (He did support Canada going into Iraq after all).
Also, where does the NDP fit in. Are they to the left of the Liberals? Where are they strongest in Canada?
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Harper is one of the more *conservative* Conservative leaders Canada has seen in recent years. Previous Conservative PMs like Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark were more what one would call "red tories", whereas Harper is much closer to traditional conservatism.
How Harper would compare to Obama vs McCain on the left-right spectrum in the States is difficult to say. He's certainly not as right-wing as Bush and McCain, but regarding Obama... not sure. I found Obama's acceptance speech in Denver to be very "lefty". Much more left-wing than anything Harper would say. Of course, Harper as PM of Canada is technically the guardian of many social programs that don't even exist in the States, but that's not so much his own doing as stuff he inherited from previous (mostly Liberal) governments, and that he can't change too much (or too quickly) without provoking an uproar.
The NDP are the most left-wing party of them all. Even more to the left than the Bloc Québécois. In some parts of the States they would be considered near-Communists, but they most closely resemble the social-democratic parties you find in many countries in western Europe.
Their support is strongest in the downtown areas of large and largish English Canadian cities that could perhaps be considered hipster enclaves with higher than usual concentrations of artists, students, gays, etc. (In Quebec, this crowd generally votes for the Bloc, though the NDP has one MP in Montreal now.)
The NPD is also strong in certain specific areas with a high concentration of blue collar or mining jobs, like auto manufacturing places like Oshawa and Windsor, or northern cities like Sudbury and Timmins.
On the whole, NDP members are really spread out all across the country, and don`t really dominate any large regions.
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