Canadian politics historically had a similar current, the Social Credit Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_Party_of_Canada http://en.wikipedia.or

Canadian politics historically had a similar current, the Social Credit Party: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_Party_of_Canada http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_Party_of_Canada I think part of it is that farmers were historically socially conservative, but not particularly free-market oriented. Given the miscellaneous catastrophic risks to livelihood that small farmers face from fluctuations in weather and prices, from the perspective of economic politics, farmers have typically been in favor of vaguely socialized systems that share some of the risks and stabilize prices. Even when it wasn't done via the state, the tendency was towards agricultural cooperatives and other kinds of economic pooling schemes.