Well, originally, because loyalists from the Northeast settled there. For example, in 1783, New Yorkers who had sided with King George emigrated in mass to settle Shelburne, Nova Scotia, a town on the southeast coast about 140 miles south of Halifax. The town flourished for a while, but shrank considerably thereafter, reportedly (in some histories at least) because there were more merchants than farmers. Nowadays, Shelburne has about 3000 people, but has reelected the same conservative MP for the last twenty years. In recent years, many new elements have leavened this political narrative, including the separatist movement in Quebec, which animated local French communities, the decline of the fisheries, and slipperyness of the Liberal Party, which runs marginally to the left and governs, especially on health care, to the center/right. Nevertheless, in some communities like Shelburne that trace their roots back to the losers of the first American revolution, the tradition of Canadian Toryism persists to this day.
Joel Blau
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
This past summer, Kerry beat Bush in a national Canadian poll, 60-22. Bush's highest share was in that old Tory redoubt of Atlantic Canada, where his share rose to 37%.
Joel Blau
Why is Atlantic Canada a Tory redoubt? Any historical reason? -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Greens for Nader: <http://greensfornader.net/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
