The Future is Coming and Conservatives are losing the Struggle. . . .

Here are a few of the reasons that the Conservative Party is a sad and hopeless relic. Though it managed to secure a small majority, a few years of the Government in this position will be enough to demonstrate why this party will be short lived.

- The Environment. Though the right-wing pundits keep insisting that there is no environmental crisis, time will prove them desperately and hopelessly wrong. The CPC has absolutely no environmental policy except to rape and pillage it as much as possible for fun and profit. A generation from now the people of Canada, if there any left, will look back in shame and amazement that people elected a party with no concern for the future.

- Corporate Tax-Cuts. Since the onset of Globalization, corporations have gained more and more power to control every aspect of our society. This will prove absolutely disastrous in the future. The income gap gets wider every year and Conservative policies are designed to increase this gap even further. The greater the income gap in a country, the worse its democratic (and usually economic) health is. In the next 25 years people will begin to see the real horrors that such policies bring about and they will know exactly who to blame.

- The death penalty. It is no secret that Harper and most of his supporters are avid advocates of the Death Penalty. They have been unwilling in recent years to make an issue of it publicly, but pressure from Harper's evangelical supporters will make it an issue soon. The world is slowly turning its back on the death penalty. It is barbaric and primitive and future generations will look upon it with the kind of shame with which we now look at slavery.

- Democratic reform. The Conservatives oppose any kind of democratic reforms and even seem to oppose an active citizenship involved in the democratic process. Almost every country in the world has abandoned the First-past-the-post system because it is unrepresentative and unfair. Within a generation a vast majority in Canada will be looking to ensure a fairer and more representative system and the Conservatives will continue to oppose it, demonstrating that they are a party of the past.

- Partisanship. Everyone, even his supporters, know that Harper is the most partisan leader this country has ever had. More and more people are looking for a more cooperative kind of politics. Young people everywhere are disengaged from democracy because they are turned off by the partisanship of politics today. The time has come for a new kind of politics and more socially minded political parties such as the NDP and the Greens are learning from this. The Conservatives are obsessively partisan to the point of attempting to destroy anyone in their way. They are not interested in discourse and compromise. This will be central to their downfall, just as it has been for the Liberals.

- Antiquated Social Agenda. The CPC has been trying to take us back to a past in which women and workers had no rights and gay people were criminals. Everywhere people are struggling to push forward a more enlightened social agenda. And we are slowly winning. Whenever the back--benchers in Harper's government finally get fed up and introduce private members bills that reflect their fundamentalist religious agenda, support for the CPC will dry up faster than a disappearing lake.

In every way that matters, the Harper government is a relic that deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of history. Historical progress often consists of one step forward two steps back. But the those who oppose a fairer, more democratic, economically more just, more cooperative world, will slowly be relegated to the past, where they belong. People are slowly waking up and this election is in fact a sign that change is coming. It often at the brink of real change that a certain percentage of people panic with a fear of what will come. In such a period of transition, those who are gripped with fear temporarily join the forces of darkness. But history eventually runs right over such resistance. Conservatives will enjoy their days in the sun just as reactionaries often have in history. But their end is near. Conservatives will always form a part of our political consciousness, but I believe that this is the last hurrah of this particular brand of 20th century neo-right christian fundamentalist conservatism. History has already made its verdict, it is only waiting for the rest of the people to catch up.