What Made You Change Politically?

[Boston Bread]

Opposition to Harper and Bush made me more concerned about politics than I otherwise would have been. Around 2006 I would have been a solid liberal but I think I grew to find their record/promises lacklustre compared to the NDP which made me more open to voting for them. The moment I began to support more ambitious ways to address social problems like inequality was when I became an actual centre-leftist and lost my loyalty to the liberal party. I still vote liberal strategically when I can accept them however. There were times in the recent past when I feel less orange and more social liberal, though I think my views have largely stabilized.

My parents are a lot different from me politically yet I think we've almost always supported the same candidates. We don't talk policy much but maybe their (big-L) Liberalness rubbed off on me as a preteen. After all I do think my first impression of Harper came from my parents who didn't like him. My parents are so-cons on everything but abortion and economically centrist, but are staunch ABC voters (even willing to strategically vote NDP), mostly because they feel conservative parties don't represent the working class, whereas I oppose them more on ideological grounds.

Also, my experience with immigrants, including muslim ones, have overwhelmingly been positive. If anything these experiences have made me less xenophobic, not that I had a reason to be xenophobic in the first place. I understand why one might distrust immigrants but those reasons don't make sense to me for the most part.