Why do northern Canada and the Atlantic Provinces vote Liberal?

[Hatman 🍁]

For the north, it's because it has a lot of first nations people. They vote en masse for the Liberals unless there is an NDP candidate they like.

This ties into the Atlantic too. Both are poorer regions, with higher welfare recipients. Perhaps they feel the Conservatives are more likely to take away their welfare. Although, the tories do hold every atlantic provincial government.

[Hatman 🍁]

Part I...

North (Territories)

Three huge (in terms of area that is... in terms of population they are waaaay undersized. Nunavut only has about 17,000 registered voters for example) with very scattered populations. In all three candidates matter a lot more than parties, but despite this and many other similarities, the three Territories are very different;
 
With over 85% of the population being Inuit, NUNAVUT has (suprise, suprise) the highest % of aboriginals/first nations in Canada. Economically the territory is almost entirely reliant on Govt. transfer payments; pretty much the only jobs are in hunting/trapping/fishing and the service sector in places like Iqaluit (the capital). There are various longterm schemes to change this (everything from proposed mines to building a big road to Manitoba) but there have been for ages and nowt has happend.

Not that "building a big road to Manitoba" would change anything... except for creating a large number of maintenance jobs paid for by the federal government.
What it might do though is lowering the cost of living. Anything imported is insanely expensive up there - which means people pretty much have to supplement their government transfer income with hunting/trapping/fishing ... and now climate change makes that A LOT more difficult. Anybody doubting global warming should just speak to a Nunavut Inuk for 2 minutes...

No doubt that the reason that everything is insanely expensive up there is the difficulty of transporting goods up there.  I would think a well maintained road would probably help with that.

Yeah, but it would be insanely expensive. Remember, Nunavut is 3 times the size of Texas but its population could fit into Giants Stadium 3 times.

[Hatman 🍁]

Interesting analysis, Al. I don't often associate religion with politics, at least not in Canada. I looked at the statistics, and the two St. John's ridings are the only two with more Catholics than Protestants. However, they are close, as is Avalon.