Tomato, Tomatoe.
Anything with "Socialist" in the title or description of a party or candidate is absolute anathema to many voters for good reason.
It's so far from "tomato, tomah-to" that it's not even funny. If you think it's merely a case of different words describing the same thing, then you're clearly ignorant of reality and you didn't even bother to read what I wrote (I promise, I'm not lying with what I said - they really are completely different.) Against my better judgement, I'm going to try to clear it up a bit for you.
Unions, Welfare, Childcare (ever heard about Quebec's childcare system?), public schools, Employment Insurance, and our Healthcare System are all products of Social Democratic ideals and principles. In other words - many of the universally accessible things that make our country the envy of many others around the world. It's about the creation of a
society which is democratic. I'd wager that we wouldn't even have things like Public Libraries (obviously the Carnegie Libraries in the US are a different beast) and Community Centers without Social Democracy and/or its principles.
Which isn't to say that capitalism is evil - just that Social Democracies involve a thread of "just because you aren't wealthy it doesn't mean you shouldn't have a basic set of things that are accessible to you, or some kind of fairness that you are treated with". How many of us would have gotten to where we are today without the fact that our laws mandate a minimum wage? Do you think minimum wage was the idea of hard-line capitalists? Isn't it proof that a Socially Democratic principle can actually make things better for everyone without "destroying the economy"? I couldn't have gone to university and become an Architect if I didn't earn what I did as a result of minimum wage requirements and OSAP... I'm skeptical that OSAP would exist without those same Social Democratic principles, but I don't actually know the history of OSAP and which government created it.
How/why do you think societies (ooooh, common origin with Social, we better be careful) broke away from Monarchies? Why do you think we moved to capitalism and Meritocracies/Democracies in the first place? Maybe because there was a senseless divide between the born-lucky and the born-unlucky, and that there should be some level of Social Democracy that would allow for private ownership and freedom? Are you familiar with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
The Social Contract and the influence it had?
You can go on beating your chest that the word "Social" is evil, but you end up looking like a fool. Take the time to consider the nuance that is present in the simple inversion of the terms "Social Democracy" and "Democratic Socialism" -
they really are worlds apart as political ideas, and just because one starts "Social"
it doesn't mean it is socialism. Don't be stupid. Take this as an opportunity to educate yourself about what our various political parties are really about, so that when you get involved in these kinds of conversations you don't resort to simplistic generalizations.