the liberals have never been very similar to what you may imagine as "centrist democrats" or something.

the chretien/martin government, a moderate government by canadian standards, made nader look fairly middle of the road. they were closer to bernie sanders than to al gore.

so, for example - the liberals in canada support universal health care, they voted against the war in iraq (and did not officially participate in it) and even for the correct reason that it was in contravention of international law, they were bringing in universal daycare and while they didn't support free tuition they did bring in large numbers of grants and bursaries that were targeted towards low income people. we could go down this road, but i'm making my point; what we called right-wing liberals in canada in 2005 were to the left of essentially all of the most left-wing members of the house of representatives in the united states. at the least, i can't think of anybody that's close.

dennis kucinich would have been a moderate in canada, at the time.

the democrats running at the time would have been more similar to the dying progressive-conservative party, led by joe clark and peter mackay (who appears ready to be the next prime minister, now).

and, dubya has always looked like nothing but a fascist, from canada.