Rank English speaking countries from most conservative to most progressive

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

How are Canada and the U.S the farthest apart but the closest geography and (on the surface) culturally?

Geographical proximity to the US is precisely why Canadian politics is so different. We're much more exposed to US politics than most others, and the more you see the horror show of US politics, the more you try to be different

I'm only half kidding btw. Canada's founders specifically wanted Canadian politics to be different from American. Originally this meant being good Tories who love the queen and hate liberalism in all its forms, but over time it morphed into a much more progressive identity

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

1. USA
(Huge gap)
2. Aus
(Small gap)
3. UK
4. Ireland
(Medium sized gap)
5. Canada
6. NZ (interchangeable but I'm leaning NZ because they weren't quite as genocidal as we were)

I would caution against the assumption that Canada is more conducive to left-wing politics simply because of our more progressive culture. The UK is more right wing than Canada on the whole, but it's also a country where someone like Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of a major party. You'd never have someone like him heading the Liberals, and I'd argue Corbyn's political philosophy would put him on the left wing of the NDP.

Canada is ultimately a liberal country where the range of relevant political discourse stretches from social democracy to liberal conservatism. But it is not really a left-wing country, and leftist/socialist/labourist politics have never seen much success here.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

An interesting aspect of Canadian progressivism is multiculturalism, which is celebrated in Canada to an extent rarely seen elsewhere. Ironically, this is in part due to a relatively selective immigration policy that places huge emphasis on economic and family migrants who are much more likely to integrate easily, and it shows.

To be sure there are ethnic enclaves in Canada, like Brampton, but I would hardly call it a ghetto. But there is an easy acceptance of Canada that immigrants have that helps with integration. I grew up in an area with a lot of Iranian/Persian migrants and generally they were some of the most patriotic Canadians I've known. It's much harder to stoke fear of "outsiders" when the outsiders are often your neighbours.

Immigrants from socially conservative countries also tend to accept Canada's freakish social progressivism more easily than you'd see in places like the UK. I'm thinking of Rob Oliphant, an openly and vocally gay MP who represents a heavily Muslim constituency in Toronto and has a lot of support from the Muslims there. There was also talk of an anti-Liberal backlash among minorities, particularly Muslims, in ontario after the former Liberal government in ontario introduced a new sex ed curriculum that would discuss sexual orientation and gender identity early on. To be sure there were Muslim faith leaders who spoke out against this, and yet the precint-by-precinct data from the following election shows that areas with large Muslim populations were much more Liberal than average. So even if socially conservative immigrant groups maintain that social conservatism within the household, they are more than happy to support socially progressive politics that are pretty foreign to their homelands. By second and third generations, they assimilate and this personal conservatism tends to fizzle away too.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

How are Canada and the U.S the farthest apart but the closest geography and (on the surface) culturally?

Another thing is, while Americans and (English) Canadians are 90% the same culturally, there are a few big differences that result in different voting patterns.

I think religiosity is an enormous part of political differences between Canada and the US. Evangelical Protestantism is rare up here, while it is a major driver of conservative politics down south. Many Americans wear their faith on their sleeves to a genuinely creepy extent by Canadian standards.

Canadians are also a lot less chauvinistic. Don't get me wrong, we're patriotic too, but it manifests differently in Canada because we're not exactly a superpower but share a continent with one. The US is the economic, cultural, and military powerhouse of the world, and this lends itself to a "we're number 1" kind of right-wing nationalism. This obviously doesn't exist in Canada - instead there's a more Scandinavian cultural identity of "we're a pretty small and culturally insignificant country, but we have it good and like to keep things polite and peaceful" which lends itself to a preference for progressive politics.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

How are Canada and the U.S the farthest apart but the closest geography and (on the surface) culturally?

Another thing is, while Americans and (English) Canadians are 90% the same culturally, there are a few big differences that result in different voting patterns.

I think religiosity is an enormous part of political differences between Canada and the US. Evangelical Protestantism is rare up here, while it is a major driver of conservative politics down south. Many Americans wear their faith on their sleeves to a genuinely creepy extent by Canadian standards.

Canadians are also a lot less chauvinistic. Don't get me wrong, we're patriotic too, but it manifests differently in Canada because we're not exactly a superpower but share a continent with one. The US is the economic, cultural, and military powerhouse of the world, and this lends itself to a "we're number 1" kind of right-wing nationalism. This obviously doesn't exist in Canada - instead there's a more Scandinavian cultural identity of "we're a pretty small and culturally insignificant country, but we have it good and like to keep things polite and peaceful" which lends itself to a preference for progressive politics.

I think there are a couple other factors that are underrated and haven't been mentioned yet but need to be in order to fully explain how progressive Canada is.

First of all, while being very culturally similar to the US, Canada is far more urbanized than the US. Hence, the left has a natural advantage it doesn't have in the US.

And second of all, it's just really, really hard to build a winning coalition for the Conservative Party in Canada, because for the Conservatives to win, there are 3 groups that they almost always need to win: Western populists, the Ontario business community, and Quebec nationalists.

To get all 3 "pillars" to support the conservative party at the same time is really tough, as the Conservatives appealing to one may alienate the others, given how different their interests are.

The last conservative to win all 3 groups was Mulroney, and I think the only Conservative Party leader in modern history who's managed to win without doing well with all 3 groups was Stephen Harper (who did not do well in Quebec in 2006 and 2008 iirc).

I'd argue that Conservatives don't need all three, but do just well enough with two of them. The three blocs I would define are Ontario+Atlantic (who tend to have rather similar voting patterns, weirdly enough), the Western bloc, and Quebec. The O+A bloc has about 45% of seats, the West bloc has about 30%, and Quebec the remaining 25%.

The history of Canadian politics suggests to me that majority governments usually dominate with two of these three blocs. The Liberal majority of 2015 and the Chretien majorities were ON+QC (Ontario heavy in both cases, far more so for Chretien who never won more seats than the Bloc iirc), the Harper majority of 2011 was West+Ontario, and the 1988 Mulroney majority was Quebec+about half of the West and Ontario each.

The age of one party dominating all three political blocs is probably over because parties aren't as big tent as they used to be (I mean, what even was Mulroney - his coalition stretched from the centre-left to full-on Thatcherites). The CPC's path of least resistance is the West bloc + Ontario/Maritime bloc. But the leftward shift in Metro Vancouver, as well as Trudeau's strong numbers with Ontarian suburbanites makes it a difficult coalition for the CPC. O'Toole flirted a bit with Quebec but that seems to be going nowhere.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

A left-wing perspective that agrees with Miles Lunn's analysis of Canada's leftward shift:

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/06/15/Thomas-Piketty-New-Data-Tells-About-Canadian-Left/

The Quiet Revolution occurred around the time the shift started.

Interesting parallels IMO with the "modernisation" of Ireland which began at about the same time.

Quebec's quiet revolution has echoes of secularization movements throughout the Catholic sphere. Because the Catholic Church has historically been more controlling and politically dominant, anti-religious backlash seems to have been much more a thing in first-world Catholic areas. Protestantism by definition is a lot more individualistic and has had less organized opposition - except for more fundamentalist Protestants like the Orange Order in NI and Scotland, and evangelical Protestants in the US.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

A left-wing perspective that agrees with Miles Lunn's analysis of Canada's leftward shift:

https://thetyee.ca/Culture/2021/06/15/Thomas-Piketty-New-Data-Tells-About-Canadian-Left/

The Quiet Revolution occurred around the time the shift started.

Interesting parallels IMO with the "modernisation" of Ireland which began at about the same time.

Quebec and Ireland have similar historical backgrounds both linguistically(it’d be even more true if Quebec was more like Louisiana) and religiously.

Linguistically? The French language is absolutely dominant in Quebec in a way Irish hasn't been in Ireland for centuries.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

Sikhs also (most likely) went NDP in the last provincial election in Ontario. 

According to the Ipsos Reid exit poll for 2006 federal election on Wikipedia, the NDP was statistically tied with the LPC on the Sikh vote in 2006. Could be a small sample size issue too, but if Sikhs were voting NDP in that election, they certainly favoured the NDP massively in an election where the Singh brothers had massively increased NDP appeal among Sikhs and the NDP won official opposition and 3/5 Brampton seats.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

An interesting aspect of Canadian progressivism is multiculturalism, which is celebrated in Canada to an extent rarely seen elsewhere. Ironically, this is in part due to a relatively selective immigration policy that places huge emphasis on economic and family migrants who are much more likely to integrate easily, and it shows.

To be sure there are ethnic enclaves in Canada, like Brampton, but I would hardly call it a ghetto. But there is an easy acceptance of Canada that immigrants have that helps with integration. I grew up in an area with a lot of Iranian/Persian migrants and generally they were some of the most patriotic Canadians I've known. It's much harder to stoke fear of "outsiders" when the outsiders are often your neighbours.

Immigrants from socially conservative countries also tend to accept Canada's freakish social progressivism more easily than you'd see in places like the UK. I'm thinking of Rob Oliphant, an openly and vocally gay MP who represents a heavily Muslim constituency in Toronto and has a lot of support from the Muslims there. There was also talk of an anti-Liberal backlash among minorities, particularly Muslims, in ontario after the former Liberal government in ontario introduced a new sex ed curriculum that would discuss sexual orientation and gender identity early on. To be sure there were Muslim faith leaders who spoke out against this, and yet the precint-by-precinct data from the following election shows that areas with large Muslim populations were much more Liberal than average. So even if socially conservative immigrant groups maintain that social conservatism within the household, they are more than happy to support socially progressive politics that are pretty foreign to their homelands. By second and third generations, they assimilate and this personal conservatism tends to fizzle away too.

I get the sense that the last paragraph is very applicable to Canada's South Asian and ethnic Chinese communities (although the first partially overlaps with "Muslims").

To be fair Chinese Canadians are a swingy group and probably leaned Conservative in the last election. Marijuana legalization in particular was a huge bridge-burner with the Chinese community, who tend to have very conservative views on drugs.

You're right about South Asians though, apart from some flirting with Conservatives in 2011 (which I think is greatly overstated, but it did exist), the South Asian community has been loyally Liberal. Sikhs are easily the most left-wing subgroup there, usually voting Liberal but with a strong NDP base, especially now with Jagmeet Singh. Muslims (and especially those of South Asian origin) are deferential Liberals, even in 2011 Muslim Canadians voted Liberal in huge numbers. Tamils are a large but relatively new group in the GTA, who have "shopped around" a bit politically, but Tamil-heavy areas seem to be somewhere between Sikh leftism and Muslim deferential Liberalism. Non-Tamil Hindus are the most conservative of South Asian groups and probably voted CPC in big numbers back in 2011, but in general they too lean Liberal.

I was thinking more in terms of 2nd+ and younger Chinese Canadians being more progressive minded than the middle-aged, bespectacled Hong Kongers repping the Tories in BC and the demographically similar voters they seem to appeal to. Responding here so I don’t derail the good posts megathread.

That's a fair point. The Chinese community is very interesting in that, different groups of Chinese immigrants tend to be very politically distinct, which isn't really the case with other diverse immigrant groups like South Asians who seem to be "Liberal-first" voters, almost regardless of background.

[The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ]

In modern context,

1 USA
2 Australia
3 UK
4 Ireland
5 New Zealand
6 Canada

I would caution against the assumption that Canada is more conducive to left-wing politics simply because of our more progressive culture. The UK is more right wing than Canada on the whole, but it's also a country where someone like Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership of a major party. You'd never have someone like him heading the Liberals, and I'd argue Corbyn's political philosophy would put him on the left wing of the NDP.

What’s interesting about Canada and the UK is that they’re both effectively 2.5 party systems (with regionalist parties) at the national level. The biggest difference is that in Canada, the half party is the generally left wing (NDP), whereas in the UK, the half party (Lib Dems) is generally centrist. That’s not to say that I think the Canadian Liberals are centrists (they’re center-left), just that the NDP is defintiely to their left. Both countries have a tiny number of Green parliamentarians and a fair number of nationalists from a specific region.

NDP occupies a similar position of authority as the Lib Dems/Lib+SDP did from 1983-2015, which is to say, a significant minor party. Lib Dems now have 12 seats which in Canada's smaller parliament would be around 6, and a 6 seat NDP would be unprecedented (and a huge disaster). In that sense, Canada is more multi-party than England, but the regionalist parties add a different element to UK politics that only the Bloc represents in Canada