The Topline
- Prime Minister Mark Carney is facing criticism online over whether he’s “liberal enough” for the Liberal Party, sparking fresh debate about Canada’s political identity
- Polling shows most Canadians cluster around the centre: centre, centre-left, or centre-right, with fewer than 20 per cent identifying truly left or right
Progressivism features, conservative heart
Scandinavia this is not. Taxes here are low and wealth inequality is higher by OECD standards . Corporate tax rates have been steadily cut since the 1990s and corporate lobbying remains a constant in our politics.
Universal healthcare exists, but offers no universal dental, nor national pharmacare or mental health programs. Childcare is semi-affordable, and only after decades of delay. Canada provides the floor, but not much in the way of a ceiling. There’s a safety net here, but it sure is no hammock when compared to European social democracies like Sweden or the Netherlands.
On fiscal matters, balanced budgets and debt reduction is essentially a religion. Both the Liberals and Conservatives tend to govern with a cautious, pro-business streak, and the more left-wing NDP has never made it far enough to test how it would handle such matters.
Deficit-spending is scandalous behaviour, which compared to the U.S.’s trillion-dollar shortfalls, shows how conservative the Canadian government apparatus actually is. Even the Trudeau government, all gussied up in a progressive veneer, initially marketed itself as a budget-balancing superpower ( despite never delivering one ). Carney’s Liberals are no different.
There are regional divides as well. Alberta and Saskatchewan lean harder to the right, dragging the national conversation toward resource extraction, lower taxes, and (particularly in Alberta), skepticism of Ottawa. This region has soured on immigration as well, and for the first time in decades, a majority of Canadians think w e’re allowing too many immigrants into the country.
This pulls the Overton window more to the centre than the lefties in Canada’s largest cities may care to admit. Trudeau greenlit the Trans Mountain pipeline, after all, and there’s nothing eco-progressive about that.
So what?
Strip that away the multicultural branding and free visits to the doctor, we get a country where business dominates, balanced budgets are sacrosanct and resource extraction is a national sport. That said, it’s nowhere near as extreme as the U.S. in this regard.
Social policy is where the lefties shine
Canadians bicker over carbon taxes and pipelines, but on the cultural and social front, this country leans progressive when compared globally, and certainly more left than other Anglophile nations.
Polling consistently shows Canadians more supportive of multiculturalism, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate action than Americans or Brits. Medically assisted dying has gained more support as well. Support for immigration has subsided lately, but support for it remained steady for decades up until 2024.
Redistributive instincts exist – barely, but perceptibly – in the form of federal child benefits, income-tested tax credits, GST rebates and affordable childcare agreements. Communist? No, but certainly not Thatcherite either, and Canadians broadly support these policies.
There’s also universal healthcare, along with a social safety net, flawed as it is, and more robust labour protections than the U.S., even if people have been decrying the government’s role in the Air Canada strike.
Then there’s Build Canada Homes, Carney’s new federal entity aimed at solving the housing crisis, where the government will use tax-payer funds to build new, affordable homes. This was a plan similar to one Conservative leade r Pierre Poilievre had advocated for during the last election cycle. That’s borderline socialist thinkin’ there, PP!
So what?
Canadians may favour low taxes and oil royalties to boost the economy but the political gravity is still centre-left. Universal healthcare, progressive cultural values, and a baseline belief that this government should soften capitalism’s edges all designate Canada as a centre-left country with a pragmatic streak. Compared to the U.S. or the U.K., the median Canadian voter looks like a mild social democrat.
