Canada is a nation much to the left of the average U.S. voter for sure, but the recent convoy protests have put a spotlight on which parts of Canada are actually pretty conservative.
That award goes to Saskatchewan, which is lifting it's vaccine mandate and vaccine passport verification ASAP. The fact that they even had a vaccine passport shows just how much the rest of leftist Canada influences even the most conservative provinces though.
Not to be outdone, historically conservative Alberta (home to Edmonton and Calgary) is racing Saskatchewan to be the first to lift the mandates.
All of this is to say the Famous Trucker Convoy is working, but it hasn't crossed the finish line yet.
To the left, British Columbia, home of Vancouver, is a mixed bag of left & right, as is it's opposite coast counterpart Nova Scotia. If one of these provinces lift the mandate soon, then the whole thing is about to give. But don't count on the truckers giving up until even it's most leftist areas capitulate. That being Ontario (home of Ottawa and Toronto) and Quebec (Montreal).
This is the biggest and most consequential worker uprising of the last 40 years in North America, so the stakes are high.
The politics of Canada are not exactly the same as the U.S. though. What we refer to as "left" and "right" are overlapping, but have some dissimilarities.
For instance, Quebec Province has long been considered the most "rogue" of the Canadian states, mainly due to language and cultural differences. Speaking English is not a requirement in Quebec City, and if you don't speak French, you might find yourself rather lost trying to read road signs. Quebec has come close to secession on several occasions, but in recent years, that has become less expected, as Canada has begun to mirror Quebec's far-left policies more and more.
On the other hand, historically conservative Alberta, which went bankrupt after the Great Depression and was isolated by the rest of Canada, has been moving slightly to the left, although not dramatically. That leaves it's neighbor, Saskatchewan, carrying the conservative mantle, and recently, the talk of secession is heating up there.
Using the Quebec playbook, Saskatchewan has been looking at what it would take to break off and become it's own nation. The Premier recently said they would be, "Looking for every opportunity for us to carve out our provincial autonomy." And just to be sure there was no ambiguity, later tweeted, "Saskatchewan needs to be a nation within a nation."
And though the nation itself has been drifting left for quite some time, watch these vaccine mandates closely. If anyone other than Saskatchewan and Alberta declares an end to them before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does, that'll be an indication that traditional alignments in Canada's left-right spectrum may be getting a makeover before our eyes.
Ryan Wiggins is the author of the extremely serious and not funny robot novel, The Life of Human, and is a writer and producer of television shows. He is the host of Wiggins America on 97.1 FM Talk in St. Louis.
