I Already Googled It

Why exactly did you want to move here?

I wanted the economic freedom that the States affords, but now Canada has surpassed the U.S. even in that rubric.

The only attractive thing left about the States for me is the fact that gun ownership is relatively free (note the quantifier) and that the culture is more accepting of libertarian ideas.

I pay attention to American politics when it seems like libertarians might be making some in roads. I didn’t pay attention during 2008, 2004, et cetera because it was just—for the most part—two statists talking about who was statist in the worse manner.

But here you really have the “choice” between the leftists (the New Democratic Party), the centrists (the Liberal Party, which is all but destroyed now through their own ineptitude), and the social conservatives (the Conservative Party). Albeit our brand of “social conservative” is much milder than the American version.

Typical libertarian issues — gun ownership, repealing/rolling back government takeovers (esp. of medical care), etc. — are all third rails here in Canada. Only something like 13 people in the most populous province — Ontario (~13 million people, which means that 0.0000098% of the people have such a permit, for reference) — have a permit to legally carry a concealed weapon (an ATC-3), and if you mention expansion of the issuance of these permits, people dismiss you as a lunatic who’s in favour of school and office shootings. Suggesting that the Canada Health Act should be repealed results in you basically being chased out of town by a bunch of sheeple with pitchforks and torches. Questioning socialized medicine is a no-no in Canada, it’s good, it’s always been good, anyone who opposes it is evil and wants to watch people die horribly, and Tommy Douglas was not a terrible socialist, he was an unquestionable saint:

In a CBC survey on who they considered the greatest Canadian, Canadians voted Douglas first largely in support of his advocacy of universal health care in Canada.

Plus, in addition to having no real choice—sure, we have more than 2 parties (we have 5 parties with seats in Parliament, plus one or two independents if I recall correctly)—there is no heterogeneity within those parties. Votes where members vote according to their individual conscience—rather than the party line—(so called “conscience votes“) are exceptionally rare, the last I remember was either about abortion or same sex marriage.

So basically the government here is a constitutional, benevolent dictatorship, with whoever the PM of the majority party is (Stephen Harper currently) handing down edicts that all his party members faithfully vote on. The Senate is unelected and mostly irrelevant, and the “Executive” is appointed by the legislature and is basically just a figurehead.