I listen to my mother complain about her inability to get a job, at her age. Who wants to employ a senior, no matter how qualified? No matter how hard working? "She'll retire in a year or two and then we have to pay her out." No, no you don't. Who gets retirement these days? Who gets a pension? We work until we're 75, and then live off of food stamps. We won't keep a good worker whose older in case we have to repay them for their work. But a new company won't hire someone because of their age. The corporate world hasn't adjusted for the fact that people live to the age of two or three careers. That men and women go back to school and start again in a new job, at the bottom, working their way up in a company at the age of 50, like the 18 year olds used to do without having dropped a hundred thousand dollars on an education that they'll need to upgrade (thanks to creeping credentials) in ten years anyways.
I listen to my father come in to the office at 5am and leave at 7pm. He takes no lunch. He takes nothing more than a 2 - 3 minute cigarette break once or twice per day. I listen to him grind away at the law, fighting for terminated benefits for a man who has been laid off after thirty years with one company. I listen to him fight for denied life insurance for a woman whose husband dropped dead at the age of 40 leaving her, a housewife, with three children to feed and a mortgage to pay, with no income, no social assistance, and soon no home. I watch him grow tired, I watch him argue, I watch him say yes, he'll call back tomorrow, when the switchboard hours are open again. The big fat insurance men have to be home for dinner, you know. It doesn't matter that Mrs. Dead Husband can't feed HER kids tonight.
I watch Dan's father find projects around the house to keep himself busy. A working man, a hard working man, 60 years old who by Canadian statistics should be retired but for those of us in the real world means he has another decade of work before he can survive. Laid off, nothing to do for the winter. And someone on the phone from India denies him unemployment, the unemployment he has paid for his entire life, as mandated by the government.
Our government is consciously reducing the benefits a Canadian citizen can receive while on unemployment, and is consciously reducing the probability of qualifying for unemployment in the first place. Correlating with this is the staggering conscious notion of reduced Canadian jobs. The statistics to support this are disgusting. Especially pertaining to women.
Our government approves policies that keep Canadians from getting jobs, and the approves policies that keep Canadians from receiving assistance while they are unemployed. Is this not a fundamental flaw in ANY person's idea of government? Leftist, Liberal, Conservative... it's all irrelevant. Is the government, in its fundamental, most primal state, not supposed to provide some sort of incentive and/or support for its citizens welfare (i.e. work), regardless of the name of their party?
Who is benefiting from these policies? Why are they being passed without a fight? Why are Canadians not saying to themselves, "I'm unemployed, and cannot support my family, and have no assistance. My government is responsible for me."
And then these people, these same people who sit across from your dinner table complaining of the rise in the cost of living, complaining of their EI rejection, complaining of their lack of benefit package, the people sitting in the cubicle next to you scrapping against 100 other students for the same menial job just for one more line to add to their resume, hoping it's one line more than any other competitor, the man idling in his truck on his way to a car factory that's about to be closed down, the lawyer in his suit in his office whose at work before dawn...
These are the people that check off "Stephen Harper" in the voting booth. These are the people who don't SEE that one tiny check mark is a wrung in a ladder that starts with our government, and ends in a ballot box. And that ladder descends straight into poverty, and hell.
I listen to my father come in to the office at 5am and leave at 7pm. He takes no lunch. He takes nothing more than a 2 - 3 minute cigarette break once or twice per day. I listen to him grind away at the law, fighting for terminated benefits for a man who has been laid off after thirty years with one company. I listen to him fight for denied life insurance for a woman whose husband dropped dead at the age of 40 leaving her, a housewife, with three children to feed and a mortgage to pay, with no income, no social assistance, and soon no home. I watch him grow tired, I watch him argue, I watch him say yes, he'll call back tomorrow, when the switchboard hours are open again. The big fat insurance men have to be home for dinner, you know. It doesn't matter that Mrs. Dead Husband can't feed HER kids tonight.
I watch Dan's father find projects around the house to keep himself busy. A working man, a hard working man, 60 years old who by Canadian statistics should be retired but for those of us in the real world means he has another decade of work before he can survive. Laid off, nothing to do for the winter. And someone on the phone from India denies him unemployment, the unemployment he has paid for his entire life, as mandated by the government.
Our government is consciously reducing the benefits a Canadian citizen can receive while on unemployment, and is consciously reducing the probability of qualifying for unemployment in the first place. Correlating with this is the staggering conscious notion of reduced Canadian jobs. The statistics to support this are disgusting. Especially pertaining to women.
Our government approves policies that keep Canadians from getting jobs, and the approves policies that keep Canadians from receiving assistance while they are unemployed. Is this not a fundamental flaw in ANY person's idea of government? Leftist, Liberal, Conservative... it's all irrelevant. Is the government, in its fundamental, most primal state, not supposed to provide some sort of incentive and/or support for its citizens welfare (i.e. work), regardless of the name of their party?
Who is benefiting from these policies? Why are they being passed without a fight? Why are Canadians not saying to themselves, "I'm unemployed, and cannot support my family, and have no assistance. My government is responsible for me."
And then these people, these same people who sit across from your dinner table complaining of the rise in the cost of living, complaining of their EI rejection, complaining of their lack of benefit package, the people sitting in the cubicle next to you scrapping against 100 other students for the same menial job just for one more line to add to their resume, hoping it's one line more than any other competitor, the man idling in his truck on his way to a car factory that's about to be closed down, the lawyer in his suit in his office whose at work before dawn...
These are the people that check off "Stephen Harper" in the voting booth. These are the people who don't SEE that one tiny check mark is a wrung in a ladder that starts with our government, and ends in a ballot box. And that ladder descends straight into poverty, and hell.
The government is terrible, yes, but it could be a lot worse. I take solace in the fact that our national debt is "only" $900 billion, and not the 14 TRILLION of America.
ReplyDeleteCanada manages to provide universal health care (although it's slow, at least it exists), with only marginally higher tax rates than the States.
The problem is Canadians on the whole, like you say, are apathetic. We don't really care, because to us it's all the same crap.
We need a real political party, one who actually cares, can implement policies and radically change the system.
I have a feeling the problem is too much bureaucracy. In the US, the President can give an executive order authorizing -- even demanding -- that the CIA assassinate someone. Anyone. Even a US citizen. In Canada, we can't even approve a budget without approval from both houses of Parliament.
Will it get any better? One can only wonder.
Lower taxes are a bad thing, Dustin. More money in your pocket today, but is it really?
ReplyDeleteYou wear glasses. You now have to pay for your eye exams as they are no longer covered by our "universal" health care system. Why do you think it's not covered anymore, despite eyesight being a medical necessity? Because of tax cuts. So a $500 tax refund for you this year, but an $80 eye exam and $600 for frames and lenses. What did you save? Nothing. Tax cuts only benefit corporations, my dear.
Your comparison to America is irrelevent. The fact of the matter is "well we're doing better than the states" isn't a good enough argument anymore.
Lol, I never argued for lower taxes :P
ReplyDeleteOur taxes are fine the way they are. My point was that 40% of America's GDP is spent on health-care, and there's isn't even universal, it's just 65+ with no insurance, and soldiers who they're paying for.
Canada on the other hand manages to (with only a small percentage increase in overall taxes compared to the US) provide universal health care to everyone.
You're right though, 'better than they are' isn't a measure of success. A lot of things DO still need to change.