[jomamaxx]

You make a good point about that specific issue, and they are similar to Classical Liberals, but really they are not.

They are a centre-left party.

They are pro-union, strong minimum wage supporters, in Ontario they are making massive investments in green energy that are sadly not very effective (I wish they were), they socialized the University system, and fully socialized healthcare to the point wherein it's illegal to pay a doctor to fix you - that's more 'socialist' than any European country on that point.

A 'Liberal' party in Europe would not support any government that barred private citizens from building a hospital or school - that's a pretty fundamental issue.

But I do agree they share some similarities.

But 'free trade' is one of the issues the socialist have pretty much lost/caved on - although we can almost all agree there can be downsides and weird caveats, on the whole most, even leftish economics buy into the idea of free trade.

FYI 'free trade' between two modern states is a very different thing than 'free trade' between a superpower and a small, agrarian, less-developed economy like USA-Chile or something.