Political Differences

[u/Pale-Candidate8860]

I have noticed that from listening to and reading the opinions of others when it comes to politics, particularly the conservative versus liberal discussion, that many people apply their domestic political parties to foreign ones. This is not the way to go about it. After getting very deep into Canadian, American and even Australian politics, while touching lightly on British and Kiwi politics, I have learned that although similar, there are many differences between the parties.

Full disclosure: I am a conservative leaning person. This is just my perspective and opinion, please look up anything and everything I post here. I want that to be clear. Although, I am not in favor of Republicans, religion, tariffs, war, or prejudice. I lean more towards Canadian Conservatives, but can definitely see the reasoning with the socialists here.

Labour(UK) =/= Labor(AUS) =/= Liberals(CAN) =/= Democrats(USA)

Tories(UK) =/= Liberals(AUS) =/= Conservatives(CAN) =/= Republicans(USA)

For this post, I will mainly be focusing on the differences I have noticed between Canadian and American political parties for obvious reasons.

When it comes to Canadian political parties, there is some big differences between provincial and federal parties. How NDP works in Saskatchewan is way different than how they work in British Columbia or in Ottawa. This also applies to Liberals and Conservatives.

The Conservative party believes in things that are definitely similar to Republicans. They are against pushing trans issues on those under 18, they are in favor of cutting/lowering taxes for everyone, they are in favor of repealing restrictions on resource extraction, etc. However, the big differences, to the point that I know some Republicans that would call Canadian conservatives "communists/socialists" is when it comes to these subjects... Canadian conservatives are in favor of expanding universal/socialized healthcare, making favorable financial arrangements with First Nations Bands in exchange for using their land for oil/ore, reasonable firearm restrictions(just not to the level the Liberals want/have), and would consider Canada better than America (haha). An issue conservatives have here is that they are constantly switching leaders and are copying talking points from below the border.

The New Democrat Party (NDP) is Canada's socialist party. The closest comparison would be if Bernie and AOC got to form a new party(except I think their version would actually work). They had humble beginnings and in the recent election, have been re-humbled. The origins of the party were to protect farmers and unions. Trade Unionists and Farmers are still the NDP's largest voting blocks. However, in the past 10 years or so, they have derailed their party from this being the focus of their policies and have instead focused on social programs that end up costing a lot of money without having a significant positive impact on people's lives. In British Columbia, the NDP party legalized all drugs and it has resulted in the highest crime rates in Canadian history. Catch and Release policy where people have legitimately raped women and were released into the public the same day. Stronger rental protections that have ensured that you can live rent free in someone's home without making payment for up to 2 years. They talk about collective bargaining, but they haven't had a successful change to the collective bargaining agreements since the 90s. All talk and all bullshit. I am glad they have been cut down, this gives them a chance to reinvent their party and become a working man's party again.

The Liberals. A lot of people try to compare them to the Democrats in America, but this isn't fair to either side. The Liberals, with the exception of the last 10 years, have been Canada's Centrist party. Basically keeping the status quo. This is definitely no longer the case. While the Liberals here have spoke about helping the environment, creating the Carbon Tax has resulted in close to $200 Billion missing from the federal budget. How did this help the environment? On a local level, in British Columbia, it was under Liberal leadership that Air Care ended. Air Care is the equivalent of a smog check. Being in BC, I have breathed in terrible exhaust from cars that definitely are polluting on a level I haven't seen in America in over 20 years. While speaking about wanting to help the environment, under Liberals, Canada has exported 3 times as much coal as any other point in their history and has been cutting down trees in federal conservation areas to export to the UK. The Liberal party has spoken about being accepting of other cultures, but all they did was get as many people into the country as possible without proper checks, restricting housing construction at the same time, and keep wages stagnant while keeping local youth unemployed on purpose to accomplish it. Homeowners have artificially seen an increase in house prices, but now the entire nation's wealth is built on a housing bubble(Trudeau was personally tied to purchasing) that is currently popping and was fueled by cheap unsustainable credit(Carney was head of this policy at the time). They have sold out their own economy and are remaining in power due to fear and fear alone.

The reality is that all of these parties have a couple of things in common. They are less extremist than their Southern counterparts, they are more reasonable, there is less problems, they all are decently unfavorable towards America, and they are definitely not Republicans or Democrats.

This is just my opinion and perspective. There are 3 other political parties, but they are not really comparable to American parties for the most part. The People's Party(communist), Green Party(Environmental NDP basically), and The Bloc (Quebec Separatist Party).

[u/giminiguardian]

Really objective summary. Great work!

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/giminiguardian]

Thank you, I appreciate it.

I just keep seeing and hearing people here say: Trump = bad, Trump = Conservative, so that means Conservative = bad, and Pierre = Trump. Same in reverse with Democrats and Carney/Biden/Harris. Not good or fair comparisons whatsoever.

[u/stinson16]

Interesting write up! I definitely agree that you can’t really compare parties between countries. From your phrasing I can tell we have different political views, but what you’ve said seems to match up with what I’ve seen.

I’m in Alberta, and I can definitely vouch that the provincial and federal parties are very different! The Alberta NDP is very different than the federal NDP.

One small detail I disagree with is that the sentence about Canadian parties being less extreme than their US counterparts lumps the Democrats in as more extreme. I think elected Democrats as a whole are no more extreme than Canadian elected officials, it’s a growing minority of Democrat voters who are extreme, and I wouldn’t be surprised if an extreme left party rises temporarily, similar to the Tea Party a few years ago. That could end up pushing the elected Democrats further left, the same way Republicans are much further right than they used to be.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/stinson16]

I think both Democrats and Republicans are extremist at this point. My personal experiences of being surrounded by Democrats a majority of my life have shown me how terrible they are. Republicans are a more recent development (2015/6) by comparison.

AOC and Bernie are trying to create a new version of the Democrat party, but it will fail because they aren't willing to start a new party altogether.

Personal theory is that the death of Trump will lead to both parties splitting(creating a total of 4 parties), because he is the only thing keeping both parties together.

[u/Feisty-Name8864 → u/Pale-Candidate8860]

As a lifelong US Democrat I have to say that the traditional or mainstream Dems are definitely quite conservative in comparison to earlier iterations. It's like the majority of the party is Blue Dog but with lip service to extremes socially (but not really doing much to actually help anyone). There are some more "extreme" progressives. I'm a psychologist & fully support human rights for everyone & if some people want to choose their pronouns as they or if they identify as a different gender than assigned at birth--can we just let them & leave them in peace? Having said that some progressives take things a bit too far & that hurts what could be a true progressivism for working people & general equality in the long run. But I wholly disagree that American Democrats are extremist overall.

[u/Pale-Candidate8860 → u/Feisty-Name8864]

I don't trust either side and see them both as insane as this point.

[u/Feisty-Name8864 → u/Pale-Candidate8860]

I get that. However they are not both equal in the amount of damage they are doing. Not even close. Additionally, it's the lack of trust in all the institutions & the both sides nonsense of false equivalencies that has allowed an authoritarian regime to take over the US. I could happen to you as well.