Unemployment, and so on

[DeeBye]

Yes?

I'm pretty sure he means that the rest of the world (1st world countries - do I have to clarify that?) don't place nearly the emphasis on abortion and gay rights issues as the US does. There are more important things to campaign on.

This is certainly true in Canada. The debates are pretty much settled here. Abortion is legal and on-demand, and same-sex marriages are the law at a federal level. Every now and then a conservative member of parliament tries to oppose one or the other, but the results have been a support of both, and have been for years.

In our last federal election, the ultra-conservative Christian Heritage Party (283% more conservative than our Conservative Party!) didn't even run on a platform that would outlaw abortion. They of course oppose it, but the only thing they said they would do would be to eliminate federal funding for abortions. The CHP is pretty much a joke and received a total of 18,910 votes out of almost 15 million ballots cast in our 2011 federal election. Our Conservative Party doesn't oppose abortion or same-sex marriages and received 5,835,270 votes and garnered a majority government.

The Conservative Party of Canada is more liberal than the Democrats in the US. In fact the only party we have in Canada that would be roughly analogous to the Republican Party is the CHP.

I talk too much about Canadian political parties.