Liberals in Canada Crazy like a fox?

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Yes, I think the lack of a sales tax here has a great effect on our economy. We get a lot of shoppers from BC and Saskatchewan.

I see you are relatively new here at WP. Welcome.

In Alberta we often get miss-tarred as religious fundamentalists. More properly Albertans(and western Canadians in general) tend to be fiscal conservatives, but not of the sort that you see in the American Tea Party. I dont think any significant group of Canadians advocates the dismissal of subsidized health care and such things.

For example, only 2% of Albertans are baptists, and only a portion of that would be the fire and brimstone sort more common to the States. With 23% of Albertans having no religion, and 25% being nominally catholic, you have almost half the population not engaged in social groups that favour biblical literalism. Of that other 1/2 you have to assume that most of them are not particularly hell bent on spreading their various creeds either. For example, 13% are of non white ethnicities, primarily being Chinese and North American Indian. These too do not beat people with bibles.

Most Canadians are largely supportive of a secular society. Even the religious ones.

That has an interesting effect on our politics because our political divides shift around more than American ones. When money is tight people tend to favor the reduction of taxes and they will vote that way. Which, I think, is what we are seeing right now.

The Liberals seem willing to shuffle around the centre spectrum, and as visagrunt said, the Conservative parties routinely collapse and reinvent. So in effect, you get a lot of people who would be liberals in the states voting conservative in Canada. It isnt correct to call a Canadian Conservative the same as an American Conservative. Not by a long shot.

Definitely that shift to the right in the US is going to (and is) putting some fear into Canadians. Still, that right wing bent in Toronto, thats ODD.

Thats what I meant that there is an central Canadian Fundie undercurrent that gets ignored in favor of slagging the west. And its huge.

Fundies in Canada? http://christiangovernance.ca/ You'll note they list a phone number in the 613 area code. Thats near Ottawa. Look up Andrew Lawton as well.

I expect that the real fights going to happen there. As usual.

As for "tarring" the west, I'd say it's probably more of an urban/rural divide. The rural areas are stock full of social conservatives be they in the Maritimes, Quebec, Ontario, BC, or the Praries. Take away language and specific (French Canadian or English Canadian) culture, and rural ADQ voters and rural Wildrose Alliance voters would be pretty unified when it comes to social policy and immigrants. The main reason the rightwinger won in Toronto was because of the suburbs being included in the city.

I would mostly agree with you about that. But people are remarkably short sighted about their neighbors and even more so about distant people. As I pointed out, 2/3 of Westerners are urbanized. There really should be little surprise that Winnipeg and Calgary elected who they did. Its just that we all swallow some stupid stereotypes. I know I did until I looked at the census numbers.

Although I think part of the reason is that quite a while ago - in the 1980s or 1970s - Calgary was much more socially conservative relative to the rest of Canadian cities than it is today.

I, for one, am always horrified by the amount of racists I've meant who hail from small towns in PEI or Nova Scotia.

They have a pretty insular(well, historically) and homogeneous society. Out west we have a great deal more diversity, and thus familiarity. So maybe that partially explains it.

What sort of ethnic background do you have by the way?

My father is of Dene (Barren Lands First Nation) descent. My mother is Ethnically German, Hungarian Gypsy, Scottish, and has some Metis ancestry.

Thanks, pretty sure I have asked you before.

My mums Family is straight from Bremen, while my dad parents families came from the Volga River German Colonies. Prior to that, they were Alsatians and Bavarians, apparently.

My maternal grandparents immigrated to Canada from Germany (at the rather inopportune time - in terms of Canadian-Saxon relations - of WWII).

The Liberals and Conservatives are both in the pocket of the oil companies. Their rivalry is barely enough to maintain the illusion of choice.

I have not read this section yet; I hope it isn't as bad as the summary on the index.