Give the liberal Canadian media time, they're doing their best to drum their message home to Canadians.
Liberals Good, Conservatives Bad.
Socialism Good, Conservatism Bad.
Tax hikes Good, Tax cuts Bad.
You get the idea.
It is quite surprisingly left-wing when looked from NZ or Australian politics. In Australia the Green Party and Australian Democratic Party are equals to your New Democrats, are both considered to be the lunatic left, and neither has even achieved outright majority in government on any of the state level. In Tasmania, which they have the best performance in all of Australia, they only managed to get to influence the balance of power in parliament (can't remember whether it was that state's upper house or lower house).
Their main party on the Left, the Australian Labor Party, is surprisingly to the right of the Canadian Liberal Party. I think the dormant ALP Left equals to your Liberals but I will ask the Australian FRers to confirm this. For example, Bob Hawke or even Paul Keating are both to the right of Paul Martin on a comparative scale. And their Liberal Party and National Party coalition areseveral degrees to the right of the former Canadian Progressive Conservative Party.
Given that Australia essentially consists of 3 Albertas (Western Australia, Queensland, and South Australia), one greatly diminished BC (Tasmania), one less left-wing version of Ontario (New South Wales), and one Ontario (Victoria), you can see why Australian politics are consistently to the Right of Canada.