The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

by Scott Feschuk

  We need to win another majority government.

  Whoa! Easy, tiger. Where’s the romance, the sweet talk? As strategies go, this is a bit like getting all dressed up, going out to a nightclub and loudly announcing to the first girl you see at the bar: “I NEED A WIFE!”

  It won’t be easy; the road to 2015 will be difficult. But this isn’t about Stephen Harper or the Conservative Party—it’s about our future.

  You heard him right, people: this fundraising campaign—explicitly devised and executed to directly benefit Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party—is not about Stephen Harper or the Conservative Party. Not at all.

  It’s not like Stephen Harper is doing this “PM thing” for himself. It’s not as though he enjoys it. Why, if he had his way, he’d be livin’ a simpler life down Pincher Creek way, sittin’ on a porch and a-whittlin’ away alongside his old dog Zeke. He wouldn’t have much use for politickin’, nor, evidently, for the letter g.

  But for you—for you, Canada, and for your future—Stephen Harper is willing to selflessly take on the burden of absolute power. Furthermore, he is willing to selflessly exercise that power, to the point of selflessly kind of being a jerk about it at times. For you.

  For you, he is willing to abandon his fundamental principles and stack institutions, agencies and court benches with his loyal supporters and flunkies.

  For you, he is willing to change the Elections Act to make it harder for you to vote and easier for you to give him money.

  For you, he is willing to spend tens of millions of your dollars on ads to tell you what a good job he’s doing managing your money.

  It’s about you. Your family. Your kids. Your grandkids.

  It’s about your nephew. Your nephew’s cat. That cat’s grandkittens. It’s about ensuring that your own futuristic clone does not emerge from its slime pod into a dystopian hellscape wrought by an epidemic of post-Trudeau shirtlessness and doobie-smoking.

  The choices we make today will impact Canada’s future. The global economy remains fragile.

  If you think about it, no one has gotten more domestic political mileage out of the stagnant global economy than Stephen Harper. He should send Europe a fruit basket.

  Canada needs strong, stable leadership—or we risk losing everything we’ve accomplished together.

  Think about that. Think about how traumatic it would be to lose everything we’ve accomplished together over the past many years. Stephen Harper appointed to the Senate a man who went on to become the daytime manager of an Ottawa strip club. And you want to just turn your back on that kind of progress?

  Not convinced? Think of everything else we’ve accomplished together: the public servants we’ve muzzled together. The forced smiles we’ve tolerated together. The unconvincing rhetorical use of “together” we’ve endured together.

  The stakes have never been higher. That’s why I’m asking you to take part in our “Road to 2015” campaign.

  That’s correct—the stakes have never been higher. Never. Not during the Depression. Not during either world war. Not during the free-trade debate or either Quebec referendum. Stephen Harper’s electoral success in 2015 is literally the highest the stakes have ever been. The stakes are so high that we’ve lost sight of them. Please donate now so we can buy new stakes!

  Will you add your name to our list of supporters and join the fight in 2015?

  Andrew Coyne recently described our approach to government as being grounded in “secrecy, deception and brute force.” He left out pettiness, vengeance, patronage, yelling and gazebos, but the point is nevertheless clear: when you donate to the Conservative Party, you get what you pay for.

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  If, after all this, you’re still interested in running for office, I offer you a free gift: a speech you can use on the campaign trail. You’re welcome.

  My fellow Canadians:

  Election day approaches. I have been travelling our vast country to spread the message that we must bring change to Ottawa. But not just any kind of change. It must be bold change. It must be progressive change. It must be crazy change. I’m talking about change for its own sake—wild, flailing change unburdened by rational thinking. The future children of Canada deserve no less.

  My opponents talk about change, but what kind of change will they bring? Will it be unthought-through enough? Will they, like me, replace “O Canada” with “Sign of the Gypsy Queen”? Because I’ll do it. If it makes you vote for me, I swear to God I’ll do it.

  In the twenty-first century, we must move Canada forward, not backward. Upward, not downward. Diagonal, not perpendicular. Also, I heard some egghead on CBC talking about the world maybe becoming more competitive. So we should probably look into that too.

  Now is not the time to retreat to the garrisons of fear or the barracks of prejudice. Now is the time to push ahead toward the huts of progress, the condominiums of hope and that huge castle of unicorns. You see the one I’m talking about? Next to the Arby’s of common purpose? Just hang a left at the forest of metaphor.

  Let me say for the record that my rivals in this election are good people. They are decent Canadians who happen to require medication to combat their ungodly fetishes and chronic narcolepsy. In their defence, there is nothing in our Constitution that disqualifies a Canadian from seeking public office just because he killed a hooker.

  Besides, I want this to be a campaign about the issues. I want my words to serve as eloquent testament to the power and virtue of my ideas. For more on my solemn commitment to elevating our public discourse, please visit my website. Just click on the ostrich that’s taking a leak in my rival’s ear.

  My friends: this is the most important election since Canada was formed, since democracy was birthed, since prehistoric man gathered to focus-group the discovery of fire (consensus: too orange). The differences between my positions and those of my rivals are enormous and critical.

  I would lower your taxes by a negligible amount. My opponents would lower your taxes by a slightly different negligible amount. I would reduce greenhouse gas emissions eventually. My opponents would reduce greenhouse gas emissions ultimately. I believe children are our future. My opponents told me they think your children are ugly and stupid. (You’re not exactly easy on the eyes yourself, they said.)

  People of Canada: I come before you tonight as just a man—a humble, ordinary man wearing a sweater selected for me by a team of stylists and advisers. The sweater is powder blue: feminine enough to appeal to women thirty-five to forty-four, with just enough navy undertones to keep men from actively debating my sexual orientation. Got it at Banana Republic.

  At this point, I would like to mention my family in a forced and obligatory manner.

  I love my family. My family provides me with strength, spiritual nourishment and heartwarming anecdotes for my television commercials. Basically, I’m just a family man. In fact, I’m such a family man that one family is not enough for me. I must travel the country meeting other families, entering their homes and yards trailed by fifty reporters, pretending to find their children adorable. There may even be a family standing awkwardly behind me right now. There usually is. Hello, Wongs. What’s that? But I asked you if you needed to go before the speech, Grandma Wong. Just hold it, okay?

  In conclusion, let me say: Canada is a country whose health care system defines us—as a nation with tremendous patience and a high tolerance for pain. Canada is a country with old people in it, and they must be pandered to, often while using the word dignity. To them I say: you deserve to live with dignity!

  If elected, I will put the needs of the kitchen table ahead of the needs of the boardroom table.

  I also have policies that reflect the needs of your other furniture.

  I will put your ottoman ahead of auto executives. I will put your armchair ahead of arms dealers. And I will put your di
ning-room hutch ahead of Starsky & Hutch—and that doesn’t even make sense.

  From the down-home hospitality and fishing villages of the east to the open spaces and soaring mountains of the west, Canada is a land of bounteous clichéd images used by politicians to crudely evoke patriotic sentiment. Also, there are prairies.

  Canada is a great country. In fact, it’s the greatest country in the world. What I’m saying is: Portugal can suck it. Ditto Japan. Those places are holes and we all know it. Don’t even get me started on Greece.

  I shall now speak French in a manner that suggests I’m merely repeating what I just said in English—when in fact I’m telling Quebecers they’re my favourites and giving away the farm.

  As a nation, we have arrived at a juncture where we stand upon a precipice that is located at a crossroads along the very edge of the potential of a new horizon. So I say to my fellow Canadians: there really ought to be a railing or fence here.

  I am going to get right on that.

  Tough Question: When first contact with aliens is eventually made, where on planet Earth should they land?

  Allow me to make the case for Canada. I know we’ve been shunned in recent years by the international community. We applied for a seat on the United Nations Security Council and lost to Portugal, owing to what our prime minister described as American chicanery, Arab payback, bad luck, bad karma, low biorhythms and Belgium’s dog eating our application form.

  But think about it. Canada has everything an arriving interstellar species could want: oodles of natural resources, ample spaceship parking and a probe-ready population accustomed to taking it in the rear every winter from Mother Nature. It only makes sense that a Canadian should be named the first ambassador to extraterrestrials.

  Let me assure you—we are not naive about the challenges of such a role. We grasp that our emissaries may well be subjected to the occasional diplomatic faux pas, such as being fatally devoured. But we’re strong enough as a nation to endure the minute of silence in memory of Peter MacKay.

  The arrival of an alien species will be a landmark moment in our shared history. It will change us as a people. You know how in Star Trek the citizens of Earth responded to alien contact by coming together in unity and setting aside petty conflict? Well, that’s not actually going to happen.

  In real life, some countries will attempt to destroy the aliens. Others will try to appease them. Thirty percent of Americans will take one look at the giant alien spacecraft and claim that’s where Obama was born.

  Let Canada assume the burden of first contact, and the alien leaders will be more likely to stick around. At least until they find out that it was our Captain Kirk who slept with their sisters.

  The Future and Why We Should Avoid It

  Reason No. 5: Our Health and Bodies

  I took up jogging recently because I had begun to lose sight of certain things in life, such as my genitals. Year upon year of sports viewing—abetted by halftime nachos, intermission chili dogs and anytime beers—had taken a physical toll. I’m not saying I was out of shape, but I still remember my first run in the springtime: the sweat, the laboured breathing, the searing chest pain. And that was just from climbing onto the treadmill.

  Several months later, I am a changed man! Sure, I’m pretty much the same weight and I don’t look any better. And sure, I still consider the stairs to be the Devil’s method of ascent. (Folks, there’s a reason God invented the elevator, the escalator and waiting patiently until the object you want eventually comes downstairs of its own accord.)

  But jogging changed me. For instance, I now hate jogging.

  It’s intimidating to be a rookie on the running trails. First, you constantly get overtaken, which doesn’t bother me unless—as actually happened—it’s by someone pushing a stroller and walking a dog and knitting a sweater and completing a five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle while doing the border last. Show-off.

  Second, pretty much everyone out there is somehow running and engaging in conversations that feature verbs and everything—whereas twenty seconds into my run, I am reduced to communicating exclusively through charades. Fortunately, I’ve learned to cope. If I’m running with my wife, my strategy is to ask a really involved question at the outset. This way, the onus is on her to do the talking while I’m required only to wheeze the occasional “Mmm-hmm.” (Sample conversation starter: “So, tell me chronologically about every time you’ve consumed a dairy product. Go!”)

  My friend Mike is a serious runner. He informs me he gets grumpy if he misses out on his long Sunday run, which is a coincidence because that’s exactly how I feel about taco night. Mike is the one who told me that many newbies incorporate a one-minute stint of walking as respite. This “five-and-one” approach sounded intriguing until I realized the “five” referred to minutes, not steps.

  But it hasn’t been all bad. Here are my five favourite things about jogging:

  Stopping. I highly recommend stopping and doing it as often as possible. In fact, I’m hoping to invent a way to stop jogging without first starting to jog. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but really, neither does waddling up and down a path until I sound like an asthmatic Darth Vader.

  The gadgets. Satellites were deployed into orbit at great cost, pushing the very limits of human ingenuity. They are now used to tell me I’ve shuffled three-tenths of a mile in seven minutes.

  Preparing to jog. The way I see it, if I take long enough to tie my shoes, it’s possible my run will be postponed by a nuclear holocaust or some other lifesaver.

  Getting injured. Early this fall I strained my hip and couldn’t run for a couple of weeks. This turned out to be an ideal scenario because I could still self-identify as a jogger without having to, you know, jog. I’d wake up and think, “Yep, I’d be out there crushing a 10K run right now if I hadn’t hurt myself being SO SUPER ATHLETIC. Hmm, perhaps my recovery will be hastened by multiple Eggos!” By the way, there’s no quicker way to get in tight with runners than to ask them about their injuries. Runners love talking about injuries. “Yes, old man, please continue your mesmerizing tale of the great hamstring pull of 1993 …”

  The sense of satisfaction. I like knowing that I play a positive role out there: other out-of-shape people see me and instantly feel better about themselves. They think, “Sure, my knees are shot and I’m running a thirteen-minute mile, but at least I’m not getting repeatedly concussed by my own man boobs like that guy.”

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  We are the pharmaceutical generation. Whatever problem we have, the drug companies have a pill for it. Unless we have a problem that’s so small it’s really not much of a problem at all, in which case the drug companies have a pill for it.

  There’s a drug out there called Latisse. Maybe you’ve heard of it. Latisse is for people who suffer from the grave medical condition of not having thick, long and full eyelashes. There was a commercial for it starring Brooke Shields. Mostly it was just her huge eyeball on the screen. Brooke Shields’s terrifying retina is commanding me to ask my doctor about Latisse.

  According to the commercial, Latisse is an actual drug manufactured by Allergan Inc. to treat “inadequate or not enough lashes,” a condition apparently known by the scientific term hypotrichosis and by the colloquial term “Bet you ladies didn’t know there was any part of your physical appearance left to feel anxious or depressed about but boy were you wrong ha ha.”

  I mean, sure, you’ve had a nose job and your breasts done. Your tummy is tucked, your face is lifted. Responding to the pressures of our superficial society, you have achieved physical perfection in every way and now it’s time to get out there and enjoy the benefits … whoa, hang on a minute … those eyelashes of yours. SWEET JESUS YOU’RE MONSTROUS!

  Here’s how it works: By forking out just $60 a month for the rest of your life for a steady supply of Latisse, you can grow and ma
intain longer and fuller and darker lashes. And you can see why this is important. What fellow hasn’t come home from a date and thought to himself: great body, terrific personality, really smart—if only her eyelashes were a few microns longer.

  Brooke Shields and her gigantic eyeballs wouldn’t want that to happen. “Ask your doctor if Latisse is right for you,” Brooke urged. After following her advice, be sure to pause and give your doctor time to laugh heartily, wipe tears from eyes and then awkwardly recover, saying, “Oh, you were serious?”

  I recall that Brooke’s ad had a little story in it. A little story always seems to unfold in drug ads. Sometimes it’s the story of a guy who survived a heart attack. Sometimes it’s the story of a woman whose bones were as fragile as Pringles. When an ad for Cialis comes on during a hockey game, the story that unfolds is one in which I come up with the 517th way of distracting my eleven-year-old son from the television set so Daddy won’t have to answer uncomfortable questions like “What’s erectile dysfunction?” and “Can I be like those people and have my bath outside in the middle of a cornfield?”

  The story in the Latisse commercial began with Brooke arriving at an elegant birthday party. Then she sat on a couch, where she talked with a pretty man. Wow, then she danced with the pretty man! To recap: Brooke went out in public, then conversed and danced with a human male, none of which would have been possible without Latisse, except for all of it.

  I scoured the internet a little. One woman using Latisse asked whether it’s normal that a whole lot of her eyelashes suddenly fell out after she began taking Latisse. (Apparently the answer is: nope!) Another lamented: “While I saw significant growth in length, thickness was not part of the deal. Lashes were very unruly, spikey [sic] and were going all over the place … Not to mention my eyes looking bloodshot all the time …”

  So, apparently there are side effects, such as itchy eyes and eye redness. Latisse can also cause the skin of your eyelids to darken. And, in the company’s own words, it holds the “potential for increased brown iris pigmentation, which is likely to be permanent.” The slogan writes itself. Latisse: it may permanently change the colour of your eyeballs but go ahead and use it because maybe it won’t!