Why is Atlantic Canada so left-wing?

[Diabolical Materialism]

Atlantic Canada is North America's Celtic fringe.

All of it? Newfoundland and Labrador, certainly (Newfoundlanders even speak with a bit of an Irish brogue). But Nova Scotia outside of maybe Cape Breton or New Brunswick, where a sizeable portion of the population is French-speaking Acadian?

It's a known fact that French Canadians contain the most Gallic DNA of any post-Caesar ethnic group. Hence their proclivity for braided mustaches and wearing pelts.

[mileslunn]

I don't think Atlantic Canada is left wing at all, rather its centrist with very few on too far from middle.  Ontario, BC, and Quebec have much larger left wing population while former two have more right wing as well.  Otherwise provinces further West have greater polarization than Atlantic Canada but median voter outside Prairies is not any further left, just everyone concentrated near middle.  Liberals are generally seen as centrist party so do well.  Tories used to do well there and still do provincially and if they moderated enough, I think you could see them winning there again.  Real problem is their base and the Prairie style version is too far right for most in Atlantic Canada so many who are centrist may not be keen on Trudeau's move leftward, but find Tories too far right wing so reluctantly vote Liberal.  Someone like Dennis King who is very much a Red Tory is quite popular.  But for federal party, someone like Kenney is what the base wants and that style of conservatism is too extreme for Atlantic Canada.  Its no different than New England where GOP still does well down ballot, but loses in presidential.  Reason is down ballot they are moderate like Phil Scott, Charlie Baker, and Susan Collins, but nationally party is too right wing.  Types base want and conservatism popular in middle of country and southern states doesn't sell in New England.

A good comparison is Prairie style conservatism is too extreme for Atlantic Canada just as Southern style conservatism is too extreme for New England and in both countries that style now dominates party whereas in past did not.  NDP doesn't do particularly well and NDP and Greens elected in Atlantic Canada tend to be more centrist than other provinces.  In fact in PEI, Liberals, Greens, and PCs aren't that far apart and have far more in common than differences.

[Sol]

Regardless of how Celtic or whatever Atlantic Canada is, it's basically the Canadian equivalent of Cornwall or something politically, to be a little lazy.

[cinyc]

Regardless of how Celtic or whatever Atlantic Canada is, it's basically the Canadian equivalent of Cornwall or something politically, to be a little lazy.

Doesn't Cornwall tend to vote Tory or Lib Dem, though?

[Pouring Rain and Blairing Music]

Regardless of how Celtic or whatever Atlantic Canada is, it's basically the Canadian equivalent of Cornwall or something politically, to be a little lazy.

Doesn't Cornwall tend to vote Tory or Lib Dem, though?

They were historically a Lib Dem stronghold, but have been Tory in the elections of 2015, 2017, and 2019.

The Lib Dems are a rough equivalent of the Liberals. Again, looking historically, Canada’s 2.5 party system has the left wing bringing up the half, while the UK’s has the center bringing up the half. Any more, they’re both getting to be two party countries with regional and minor parties that can’t really compete for government.

[DC Al Fine]

Atlantic Canada is North America's Celtic fringe.

All of it? Newfoundland and Labrador, certainly (Newfoundlanders even speak with a bit of an Irish brogue). But Nova Scotia outside of maybe Cape Breton or New Brunswick, where a sizeable portion of the population is French-speaking Acadian?

All of English-speaking Atlantic Canada basically has a Celtic-derived accent. It's certainly stronger in the Newfoundland out ports, but the rest of the region has an accent too. 

Yes. Even in Halifax among the doctors, lawyers etc, there's a slight, but noticeable difference from the standard Canadian accent, and it gets stronger the further down the socioeconomic ladder or away from Halifax you get.

Actually, a friend of mine from Ontario swears up and down that Atlantic Canada is the closest thing North America has to the English class influenced accent system.

[Hash]

I'm not answering the question, but Atlantic Canada doesn't have a 'giant base' of French-speakers: across all four Atlantic provinces, a bit less than 12% of the population are Francophone (~270,000) and of course that's heavily dominated by New Brunswick's Francophone population (which is roughly 32%). Nova Scotia and PEI only have minor (and quite geographically concentrated) Francophone minorities of 3% and Newfoundland essentially has no Francophones.

While it's true that Francophones in the Atlantic provinces have more often than not tended to vote Liberal, that's not universally true and it hasn't always been the case. Conservative parties, particularly the New Brunswick Conservatives, have almost always (recent provincial elections in N.B. notwithstanding) made efforts to attract Francophone voters (at times quite successfully). The Madawaska (Edmundston) region in northwestern New Brunswick, which has a separate regional identity from other Acadian regions, has often voted Conservative (including not so long ago) - for example, in 1996, when the provincial Conservatives were led by Bernard Valcourt (who later made his brief return as a federal Tory MP for Madawaska-Restigouche from 2011 to 2015), three of their six seats came from that region. Historically, the old 'Acadian' seats in Nova Scotia and PEI have elected both Liberals and Conservatives. Chris d'Entremont, Nova Scotia's lone Tory MP since 2019, used to represent the 'Acadian' seat of Argyle (a municipality which is around 45% Francophone) provincially until the seat was abolished in a redistribution in 2012.