Now's not the time ...

 

The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) grew out of the Progressive Conservative Party. Without making too much of this, the fact remains interesting. What we call left wing or liberal (and perhaps, socialist) politics are also called progressive political ideologies. Voters should have learned in school what’s meant by left or liberal politics as well as the difference between it and conservative ideology.

Conservative impulses exist in all of us; we find comfort in conserving what is; change is unsettling. A good example is the CPUs campaign to “Axe the Tax,” a progressive carbon emission tax imposed to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and their contribution to climate change. Progressive ideology recognizes that a changing climate demands new ways of doing things; conservative ideology looks to what worked yesterday and campaigns for the status quo. Progressive policies look forward; conservative thinking focuses on the present as informed by the past.

Tree-hugging environmentalists may be progressives—even socialists—on Employment Insurance, but adamantly conservative on preserving forests as they are. Being “right-wing” is not like being right-handed; we’re all politically ambidextrous depending on the issue. It’s the divisive party systems that label us either “candy-assed liberals” or “red-necked hillbillies,” making every election an us-and-them, win-and-lose proposition.

There’s a time and a place for conservative thinking, and it’s tempting to join the current rush to defying change while the “let’s all hate Trudeau” theme is threatening to displace our national anthem. It’s easy to get swept up in the notion that the time and place is now. It most certainly is not; this is the worst possible time.

The implications in a time of rapidly escalating global warming are clear: to reject progressive measures and deny the need for decisive change is to borrow life from future generations. It’s the refusal to make a small sacrifice now, even if it results in a lifetime of huge sacrifice for our grandchildren.

In times of frustration—inflation, forest fires, dependence on foodbanks, intolerance, medical care crises, “wars and rumours of wars,” etc.—the temptation to kick over the furniture in rage is strong, the blaming of leaders and the dividing into for-and-against camps is predictable. But like wars, depressions, pandemics, famines, hurricanes and such, climate change and economic cycles cannot be gone around, they must be soldiered through. Neither are they the fault of the government in office: the cycles of human social and economic fortune have always been. And because each trial is unique, it’s progressive thinking—innovation—not adamant conservatism and finger-crossing that will help us through.

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