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Well this is a first, I usually get told that Canadian politics is center (NDP), center-right (LPC), right (CPC) or far-right (PPC) because it’s compared to the politics of Western Europe.

Generally I don’t consider it useful to conceptualize a global “center” and say that a countries political parties are mostly to the left or right of it. I only ever hear this in the context of somebody painting an entire country as (unduly) off to one side or the other.

Compared to most comparable countries Canada is to the economic right and social left, and people tend to vastly overestimate how much social spending Canada does and vastly underestimate how much social spending the US does… when you crack open the books the amount spent on social services is shockingly similar.

I mean, when American say they are 'leftists', 90% of the west hear 'right of center'.

NDP being 'far left' is quite funny, but I guess it is from an American perspective.

You're following the American definition of "left" vs "right", and while America may dominate international culture, it is not the defacto standard for policy.

The conservative party would be considered "left-of-centre" only in the United States. Whereas the Democratic party would be considered "right-of-center" everywhere else in the developed world.

Unfortunately the Canadian conservative party imports a lot of unfortunate ideas from the American right including most recently a suspicion of vaccines and gender affirming care for youth. (inb4 "don't mutilate children" -> 'gender affirming care' is a broad spectrum of medical care including mental health, social changes, and hormonal care).

> The PPC is perhaps the most "right wing" of the mainstream parties, but platform-wise, it's still quite centrist in pretty much all respects.

I genuinely don't understand how you can write this in good faith unless you are actively trying to mislead those not following canadian politics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Party_of_Canada#Pri...

While the placement of various political parties differs based on the nations involved, the "left" versus "right" political scale itself is uniform in all cases.

Collectivism (which implies more/larger government, e.g., socialism, fascism, and communism) increases toward the "left", while individualism (which implies less/smaller/no government, e.g., libertarianism and anarchism) increases toward the "right".

The "center" is a mix of the two, to varying degrees.

As mentioned earlier, almost all of the major Canadian federal parties fully support large and intrusive government, extensive socialism, high taxation, forced medical treatments, and so on. Some, like the NDP and Liberals, are also rather pro-union. This puts them to the "left".

The PPC are the only exception, with a platform that proposes a more balanced mix, putting them much closer to the "center". They support more individualism, but are still rather support of large government, too.

There are no major federal parties in Canada to the "right" of that. None offer a platform that would end immigration, deport most foreigners, significantly reduce the size of the federal government, and end taxation, for example.

I think if there were truly a "right" wing party in Canada, it'd be clear to you how different it would be than the existing parties, and it would instantly clear up your confusion.

> the "left" versus "right" political scale itself is uniform in all cases.

I agree. Except in every one of those definitions in impartial sources like Wikipedia, categorizes the Conservatives as "right", and PPC as "far right"

> There are no major federal parties in Canada to the "right" of that. None offer a platform that would end immigration, deport most foreigners,

So long as people who lived through World War 2 remained alive, we called people that advocated for this fascists, and they held no sway in most elections or political representation. Once the majority WW2 veterans started dying, suddenly these perspectives started rising again under a new coat of paint.

> significantly reduce the size of the federal government

It's cute that conservatives still pretend that this policy disagreement is still in any way of a signifier between left and right wing parties ANYWHERE in the world. US right wing parties, for instance, do not reduce the size of their governments. They just reassign their priorities to things like processing citizen reports of abortions, or banning books in school libraries.

> , and end taxation, for example.

Does anyone actually think this is a good idea? Are we intending to go back to the days of private firefighters not putting out on fire buildings that didn't pay them?

The NDP is a centre-right party. Don't apply the USA's very very right-shifted political spectrum to Canada. The American Democrats and Republicans both would be parts of the Conservative Party. The Democrats are closest to the Red Tory wing and Republicans to the Blue Tory wing of the Conservative Party. It's just there is very little difference between the USA's two conservative parties.

This is pretty accurate. American Democrats don't like hearing this though.