The Liberal Party is liberal in the traditional sense:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

But the Conservative Party probably also qualifies as liberal in this sense.

Some people, particularly many Americans, use the term "liberal" to mean left-wing or progressive. The Liberal Party of Canada is not really liberal in that sense, though they make smallish gestures towards social progressivism when it doesn't impact capital.

Nope, that's what liberalism is. Americans (and Canadians) use "liberal" to refer to anyone left of center, but globally and historically liberalism refers to an ideology that promotes individual liberties, private property rights and free trade (anong other things) and posits that the sole purpose of government is to guarantee those things. This means that on the modern political spectrum, "pure" liberalism would be center-right, with varying amounts of leftwing influence spanning the spectrum from center-right to center-left. Canada's Liberal Party definitely fits.

Yeah, I would agree that the overton window has shifted and the centre in Canada today would be considered the conservatives of the past.

I also agree that many of the policies Carney's implementing could have been put forth under a PP lead Conservative Party, but I think the damage would have been worse. As many others have pointed out, Canada takes cues from US politics and Trump style "leadership" is horribly toxic to our democracy. We have to fight to push away the idea that PP is even a viable candidate, because as soon as we do, if he wins, then that Pandora's box will have been opened.

Right now I feel as if we're peeking inside it. Ford and Smith are both populist weasels and are showing that diluted Trumpian playbooks can be successful here. I fear it's only a matter of time before we fling it open and then there's no going back. Right now we have the choice between the lesser of two conservative governments. Let Trump politics take hold and we'll be choosing between a stable conservative government and a wrecking ball, and then we can kiss any chance of leftist politics goodbye as people scramble to just maintain order.

The whole country chronically elects MAGA premieres.

People quickly forget Doug Ford's ass kissing of Trump, or Smith waiting outside in a cold parking lot waiting to kiss the ring last year.

Yes, that's mostly true. It was before I was born, but it seems like Canada had it's own identity forged after the fighting of WWII, but that has been eroding ever since. Good ideas like CanCon tried to maintain this, but it seems largely futile against the behemoth that is the US media/economy.

We're now in this delayed lock step with the US, but I don't see why that trend has to continue. There were of course people opposed to free trade, offshoring and neoliberalism when the US took that path, but those took decades to show their full effect. The US healthcare and political system, however, are currently recognised as dysfunctional, yet we're trying to adopt them? Why?

We now have access to more data than ever before, instantly at our fingertips that shows these are bad paths to go down, but people are overloaded and don't seem to want to think long term anymore. We got a lot of traction with elbows up, and we need to find a way to keep that Canadian identity alive, otherwise everything that differentiates is from the US will continue to erode.