Social conservatism in Canada

Social conservatism in Canada represents conservative positions on issues of family, sexuality and morality. In the European and North American context, social conservatives believe in natural law as well as traditional family values and policies.

Canada's political and social history stems from long established ties to conservative institutions and ideals. The major founding institutions of pre-Confederation Canada, both in English and French Canada, were religious organizations. Groups such as the Jesuits in Quebec and various Anglican missions in Ontario gave rise to the founding educational, political and social hierarchies of the ensuing centuries. The Catholic Church's control and influence in Quebec was insurmountable for nearly 3 centuries prior to the Quiet Revolution. Similarly, British Toryism and Protestant puritanical ideals in Ontario were so deeply entrenched after the migration of conservative United Empire Loyalists fleeing the American Revolution that laws regarding alcohol, tobacco sales and gambling are still strictly regulated in Ontario. At the turn of the 20th century, Toronto was referred to as "Methodist Rome", an homage to the city's strict Protestant by-laws (which included a ban on Sunday sports into the 1950s as well as Sunday shopping into the 1980s) and the numerous Protestant cathedrals, most notably St. James Cathedral on Church Street and the Metropolitan United Church. To this day, Ontario has some of the strictest liquor laws outside the Near and Middle East.

The extent to which conservative ideology was embedded in 19th and 20th century Canadian society is evidenced by the power and influence of Tory factions in pre-Confederation Canada, such as the Family Compact and the Chateau Clique, the prominence of the Conservative Party of Canada after Confederation and the pronounced stifling of extreme left-leaning or progressive views until after the Second World War due to widespread public aversion to Marxist ideologies. Even to this day, social conservatism in Canada has a wide base of support outside the major urban centers of Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

In modern times, however, social conservatism has not been as influential in Canada as in the past. The main reason is that right-wing, neoliberal politics as promoted by leaders such as Paul Martin and Prime Minister Stephen Harper have not been linked to moral or social conservatism. That is, there is no large political party behind it, and social conservatives have divided their votes.

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