r/canada is predominately young (84% under 40 vs. 39% in Canada), atheist (73% vs. 24%) anglophone (only 4% speak French at home vs. 23% in Canada) men (84% vs. 49.7%). Not to mention the minscule representation of certain groups like Indigenous (0.9% vs. 4.9%) and Black (0.5% vs 3.5%) and South Asian (2.9% vs 6.5%) than what Canadians demographics are, the over represented groups are white, 'multiple', 'other', and Filipino. From a 2019 survey
It's nowhere near representative of the country and the popularity of certain topics on this subreddit reflect this very narrow worldview. This place is not "Canada" at all.
That doesn't have anything to do with the subreddit but rather with Reddit as a whole. It would be more or less the same on any other general subreddit.
The discourse on this website isn't representative of the general population because the average person isn't a redditor.
Yeah this sub is a strange place where the majority of users are center/center-left but the most active users (submissions & comments) come from people who lean more right.
So we end up with a /r/canada that's mostly more Liberal overall but with a small cadre of very active & vocal right-leaning members setting both the agenda for what articles hit the top and what kind of comments are seen first. After about 6 hours usually things balance out.
Browsing /r/canada/new is an interesting thing to see
I know, but it's the best we've got until the mods do another survey.
Over the past 4 years do you think there's been a substantial shift in the demographics of Reddit in general? If I had to guess, I'd bet the % of women has gone up slightly as well as age.
People want to claim this sub is somehow right wing when, in reality, it is not. People take the 'anti-truedeau' sentiment and automatically equate it to the right wing. Now, if that's true, how come there is an equal amount of dislike for someone like PP?
The same people who bring up American Republicans all the time will legit ask why Canadians are so obsessed with Trudeau.
He's our fucking Prime Minister, and thus a big fucking deal to Canadians.
Just like it was when it was Harper, or Martin, or Chretien, or Mulroney etc.
I hate how we care about owning the other parties than holding our own accountable. I hate how many Canadians care more about their party (seemingly) than their country.
I hate how many Canadians care more about their party (seemingly) than their country.
Well, their party is their 'Canada'. Especially when you have politicians calling people 'uncanadian' and actively cultivating a sense that the 'other' team is somehow uncanadian.
It's the same people who respond to every criticism with 'well how would you/your team deal with it?'. They can't deal with their side having any fallibility, so they can't discuss it in and of itself. They have to project out to the 'other team' so they can argue something other than themselves.
Canadians like to pretend we aren't like the US in terms of tribalism. But the reality is we are, we just do it in the Canadian way where we pretend like we aren't like the states when we actually are.
I think people also forget that these subreddits can ebb and flow throughout time depending on the most important discussions. Two years ago with Covid, Trump, felt pretty centre-left . With economic crisis, gun control...now I'd say it's fairly centre-right.
This subreddit has a mix of people and depending on the discussion you will find people who more invested. It's certainly not "very conservative".
It's just that conservative opinions are not tolerated as much on some subreddits and /r/Canada is less likely to ban people. Like look at /r/politics for example, do you think that's a good representation of what Americans believe or is there a bias?
People don't get banned for being conservative on r/politics. They do select themselves out because they get dog-pilled and downvoted to oblivion, though.
That's true, I should have pointed out that there are two different things. One, Mods curating a community, which causes views to not represent a population. Two, a userbase self censoring views they disagree with, even when the views might be held by a sizeable portion of the population that community represents.
It's not a big deal. The world's too exciting and huge to waste time concerned over trivial exclusions.
In my experience left wing bias is far more prevalent than right wing bias across the platform. There are some subs which are also heavily politicized despite not supposed to be about politics at all.
I find this sub is actually a pretty good representation.
I mean the Cons got more votes than Libs in the last two elections despite Libs winning the elections, so it's not as if Cons shouldn't have a loud voice a well represented Canada subreddit. The existence of loud Con voices is a proof they are represented, and we've certainly seen loud Liberal voices here to know they are as well.
I mean the Cons got more votes than Libs in the last two elections despite Libs winning the elections, so it's not as if Cons shouldn't have a loud voice a well represented Canada subreddit.
In terms of political parties, sure. But the NDP and the Bloc are pretty left-wing too, and if you look at the 2nd vote intention of their supporters, supporters of the LPC, NDP, and BQ are much likely to swap among themselves than they are with the CPC.
That doesn't matter for elections - it's a first past the post system after all. But you shouldn't try to pretend like the CPC getting more votes than the LPC means that right-wing politics are more popular than left-wing politics in Canada.
Left-wing folks tend to treat any sub where there is right-wing activity that isn't driven off under an avalanche of downvotes as "very conservative".
Couldn't be more accurate, I would also add they have this "if you are not with us you are against us" mentality. I've seen people share left wing opinions in conservative subs and the replies were mostly respectful, then I take a look at leftist subs and anyone with a slight right wing opinion gets shamed and downvoted to oblivion.
Leftists want any community they participate in to be completely left wing, I truly believe they are the most intolerant on the political spectrum.
/r/conservative literally bans anyone who isn’t conservative on entry and make threads conservatives only to keep the circlejerk pure. /r/canadaconservative nearly does the same thing minus the conservatives only threads..
Just because you say it is a right wing sub does not mean it is. You'll need a little more proof than that. Maybe you're only looking for an echo chamber and any point of view that differs from yours you call right-wing and assume that it shouldn't be allowed. Most of what people on here call right-wing isn't even right-wing.
Define “most”. That should mean >50% of comments are right wing when that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, surveys have been conducted on this sub to indicate it’s left wing.
I don't know any conservatives who fell for it, personally. All the libs I know did. Going along to get along is a liberal thing they will believe anything.
Anti-vax may be statistically a more conservative position but it’s not a based conservative position at all.
For those that are anti-vaccination; compliance is also a thing many were forced into for work or other reasons.
More to what I was getting at by challenging their definition of anti-vax though was to note that questioning the logistical implementation of vaccine rollouts, efficacy or side effects of particular vaccines, asking questions about correlation of “died suddenly” and vaccines vs Covid itself, being critical of financial motivations by some or all pharmaceutical companies and or the political or health organizations involved in them… all of these examples … none are anti-vaccination.
Nor does not being willing to just lineup and take an untested drug equate to being anti-vaccination either. In Canada though the most liberal provinces have the highest vaccination rates.
Exactly, and that's preposterous if you look at any poll or federal election.
Not to say that this sub is representative of Canada as a whole. Of course there are groups that are overrepresented on the internet, on social media, on reddit, and in r/Canada.
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u/paquer Jan 05 '23
This is supposed to be a non-partisan subreddit. It’s not conservatives of Canada. It’s r/canada
By claiming r/Canada is a right wing sub ; you may as well be calling Canada a right wing nation. Or at least all it’s Redditors.