Getting my ducks in a row

Well things are progressing here. I had my immigration physical and, as advertised, it cost me 700 bucks. Alberta Health Care Insurance Plan? Another mandatory insurance that gives precious little insurance. As far as I have seen it is free, but, oh silly me, nothing is free, is it? I'm sure we pay through taxes for it. And it is now called, (and more accurately), just Alberta Health. Did they cover one cent of the physical examination? Nope. I haven't had a physical exam for years. I'm over 40. It's highly recommended. No coverage. Did Alberta Health cover any of the immunizations? I got Polio, Hep. and DTap whatever that means. I think it's a Tetanus shot. All necessary since the last time I got an immunization was just before going to Korea for my first year. So 96/97. 18 years ago. These shots were highly recommended. Coverage? Nope. Once I get the results of the physical and the blood/urine tests, submit them to Indonesian immigration and get the go-ahead, I will need to return for 4 more exotic shots that are highly recommended for travelers to Indonesia. I think Japanese encephalitis, yellow fever, typhoid and, believe it or not, rabies. Alberta Health Insurance coverage - Zilch. I also got a prescription for diarrhea pills for the inevitable change of country eventualities. In Bali they call it "Bali belly." And two weeks worth of malaria pills for my vacation. In case I go somewhere with a higher risk of malaria infested mozzies. Alberta Health coverage? You guessed it - frig all. Why do we even bother?

At the counter at the lab I went to get blood and urine analysis the nurses noticed that the birth date on my Alberta Health Card was 1976 instead of 1967. They sternly cautioned me about having incorrect information on my health care card, gave me a piece of paper to send in to Alberta Health to have the incorrect information changed and told me to do it as soon as I could. I said, "Why? I'm leaving the country in two weeks." They said, "Yes, we know." I said, "And if I weren't, I'd probably just keep it 1976 because the extra 9 years is about the only thing Alberta Health Insurance has given me and THAT was only given to me by mistake." They chuckled, then got professional again and told me I REALLY SHOULD get the incorrect information changed. Canada!

I don't know if any of you readers remember but back in flu season I wrote a post about how flu shots were really being flogged hard. TV commercials, bus stop, newspaper, magazine, radio, billboard ads all laying on the hard sell without ANY accessible information about what exactly is IN a flu shot. The internet was clogged with the same used car sales approaches. Well, my doctor, Rudy Zimmer, got a call while I was in his office. His room in his office. Zimmer's zimmer, you might say. Ar ar. So he excused himself and then came back fuming. I had heard a few swearwords during the conversation too. Among them "bullshit." He started telling me that he, as a doctor, is really pissed off about how immunizations are being pushed so hard onto the public. Not just flu shots but all kinds of immunizations. And he had called some appropriate government office to suggest some professional, instead of financial standards, only to be rudely told to mind his business. He told me they don't know who they're messing with. He's going to try to do something. I'd suggest that we need more people like this in pretty much EVERY area in this country. I wish him good luck.

The best news of all was even though I had the bollick-fondling, turn your head and cough part of the physical, (BIG SMILE), no finger up the bum!!! And just to be clear, the big smile is not for the bollick fondling, it's for the no finger up the bum. >:( My doctor, Rudy Zimmer, who was excellent, must have known I was dreading that more than anything and the first time I saw him he looked at me and said, "I don't know why they are asking for a rectal exam. Just kidding." I told him it was a good thing they had already taken my blood pressure because it just spiked massively! I know, I know, I really should get a prostate exam at my age. But Rudy and I had no time to go out to dinner or at the very least establish a safe word. I just wasn't ready for it yet.

Rudy Zimmer. I'm going to use that name in a short story some day.

The same day, in the morning I got a call from the unemployment insurance company of Canada. It's not EMployment insurance like it's now called, it's supposed to be insurance against UNemployment. That's why I still call it that. And it's not a government agency like it's called, it's a company. That's why I call it THAT. You'll see what I mean. But is it insurance? Again, it's mandatory. We pay into it whether we want to or not. Nobody voted on this. It's just done for our own good I suppose. If you could see me now my eyes are rolling so bad they've done a complete 360. I get a call, completely unexpectedly, from a guy from the UI office. I so often wish I had a phone with a tape recorder attached to it so I could record such ludicrous calls or at least trace the location of the caller so I could hunt him down and kill him!

I don't know what his job title was, agent maybe, all I know was I asked his name and he told me it was Elliot. Maybe named after a French Canadian hero Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Not sure but his parents were French Canadian or perhaps from France and his first language was very obviously French. I don't give a flying frig what your first language is, we're talking about income here. I'm unemployed, broke and I need money. I am entitled to the money because I have faithfully paid my premiums and I left my job for very good reason. I don't want somebody who has trouble with English reading my report, which I wrote in English, and talking to me on the phone, in broken English, and then making a ruling on my claim based on what he only partially understood. I know when a person understands English and when a person is faking understanding. It is my business to know. This jagoff understood very little. I don't even think he would have passed my class if the course material were my U.I. claim.

And this is how he started out, "I 'ave read your REport and you said you quit your job because you were bored of it?"

Now look, even if this were true, even if there were any conceivable way for a person to somehow get this from what I wrote, it is an unnecessarily inflammatory way to begin a conversation! You have to ask yourself how long Elliot had planned how to start our conversation and what the hell lead him to choose THIS? I'm thinking maybe, for reasons known only to unemployment insurance employees, it is part of their job to piss off the people whose claims they are evaluating. Whatever the reason may have been, it worked. So I spent at least half an hour explaining, re-explaining and re-re-explaining things that were very well explained on my written UI claim report that old Elliot OBVIOUSLY had not read. I don't know how many times I explained things to him and he totally didn't understand so I had to explain them again. Sometimes three times. I kept saying, "Elliot, you're not listening..." and he kept assuring me that he was. If that was the case then he clearly just wasn't understanding. Why the hell he was even hired for the job he has, again, that's Canada!

I said, "Elliot, it says in my report that I didn't actually quit, not immediately. I gave two weeks notice and requested a transfer. It was agreed to by my employer who assured me he would look for an alternate position within the company and failing that find me some hours on a casual basis until he found me a new site. The two weeks passed, I never missed a shift, an hour or a patrol, and he had found not a single hour of work never mind an alternate position for me. Then about ten days after my last day of work I called again and he acted surprised that I wanted him to find me work. There were plenty of positions available at the company, some of which I applied for independently, but he found me nothing. So I was forced to believe that he just wasn't looking. THAT is when and why I quit. This is all in the written report." I am STILL getting letters from Garda thanking me for my applications for positions. NONE of the positions applied for were found for me by my supervisor.

Elliot says, "So you quit before you stopped working?" I just felt like telling him to hang up, read the fucking report I wrote, and call me back. I explained other things to him as well. He said to me at one point that this job was better than the one I left for it because I made more money. He got really rude and interrupty too, something I absolutely hate. "It wasn't actually more money it..." "It was more money. Hi 'ave dee salaries right 'ere before me!" He figured he had me caught in a lie. Clever Elliot! I said, "Let me finish. It wasn't more money even though I thought it..." "What were da salaries den? Tell me your salaries!" "Elliot," I calmly said, "If you would just listen I would tell you. I was making 16.50 the job before and 16.87 this job." He interrupted again with something like HAH in yer face you jobless bum! I am paraphrasing. I said, "BUT, since they were taking almost 30% off my paychecks and the previous job was taking off about 12%, I made considerably less. In fact it worked out to almost exactly 5 dollars an hour they took off my pay. So I was taking home $11.87 an hour. I could not live on that, which is just one of many reasons why I wanted a transfer." He said, "Hif you tink dey are doing illegal ting why did int you call de labour board?" I didn't tell him that talking with the labour board would be almost as much fun as talking with him. I said that I didn't know that taking this much off my checks was illegal but I preferred to assume that it may be an accounting error or some kind of honest mistake so I called my supervisor, the accountant and the second in command at the office. I contacted them in person, via email, text message, phone message and by phone. I got several excuses and promises to look into it but nothing was done. THAT is why I had to request a transfer. Elliot says, "I 'ave dee records 'ere hand dey don't show dat much taken hoff your check." I said, "Well I have my records too and if the ones they sent you are different they are fraudulent." He understood THAT and didn't pursue that angle of argument any further.

What it seemed like was this jerk was trying to justify, in any way he could, a denial of my claim. Who am I Erin Brockovich fighting Pacific Gas & Electric? Am I Nicholas Easter going up against Vicksberg Firearms and Rankin Fitch? "Runaway Jury." Good movie! How is it that the employee seems guilty until proven innocent here? I just see it as yet another symptom of the disease that is deteriorating this country. He left off by asking me the number of my employer. I told him it was on the report right in front of him, (which he hadn't read), and he said he was going to call them. What are the chances that he won't take the word of a company over the word of an employee? What are the chances that he hasn't been trained to do just that? And how the hell did things come to this in Canada? Again, if I were anything but the model employee I was I wouldn't have this problem. If I were late all the time, slept at work, didn't do my patrols, maybe I could have gotten fired. Then for SURE I'd get U.I. In fact I'm starting to think here, I have seen guys at work who did all those things. All from Africa somewhere. All talked to me about how much they hated Canada. Yet I am picturing their immigration agents telling them that they can work 12 hour midnight shifts for a certain amount of time and if they get tired of it they can always just jack around at work, get fired and make almost as much for doing NOTHING! The amount they make on UI would STILL be a great wage when converted to Cameroon Francs, Ethiopian Birr, Nigerian Naira, or Zambian Kwacha. Maybe this happens more than we think. Maybe while on UI, they can go get a second job and further defraud our country. Maybe THAT happens a lot too. And maybe, just maybe, THIS is why old Elliot was such an asshole to me. It's this once bitten - twice shy phenomenon in Canada.

Anyway, Elliot said that either Friday or Monday he'd get back to me with his decision. That means Monday in Canadian government-speak. Two months after my last day of work to the day! Why am I not excited to bolt out of bed and check my bank balance on Monday morning? I have very little hope of Elliot ruling in my favour even though I have a completely legitimate claim. But I guess I am the sacrifice this country has to make to protect the majority against greed and fraud. Another reason to get the heck outta here.

I also got my taxes taken care of. If you are even a casual reader of this blog you know my position on taxes. I won't go over that again here I will just say that I did my taxes under protest. All I did was renew my slavery to my nation for the simple reason that I can't get a job in another country unless I do just that. I will be receiving a little over 3 grand, which is not a refund, it just denotes the fact that I paid too much tax while I was working here. I won't likely receive any of this money because I still owe Revenue Canada from a job I had many years ago in which my employer was taking nothing off my paychecks. Even though I frequently requested, in fact BEGGED them to do so. I ended up owing the government money at the end of a year of working a 7 dollar an hour job. That should just never be the case. And while over in Korea, from whence I tried to pay my taxes and was unable to because of weaknesses in the Revenue Canada collection system that didn't allow me to pay while overseas, interest accrued on that debt. Interest, which represents tax paid on tax, something which some legal document in Canada says can never happen, now probably represents the bulk of my debt to my country. They will take the payment from my recent tax returns. I don't know how much I owe or if I will actually come out ahead on this deal because I have no way of finding out what I owe revenue Canada. I also know that I could have claimed things like rent, moving expenses and other deductions that would have increased my claim a little but I didn't even bother because I just wanted to get my taxes over and done with before leaving for Indonesia. I wonder how often people like me file tax returns for less than Revenue Canada had figured and just settle for that. I am pretty sure Revenue Canada doesn't call people up and say they miscalculated and actually give Canadian citizens larger income tax rebates than they filed for. I'm sure they COUNT on it like gyms counting on people stopping before their memberships run out. But I do know it often happens in the reverse. I can't wait for the day when someone gets audited, challenges the entire tax system and WINS their case in court. They totally could! Harry James Townsend wrote a very detailed, legal defence for this. If you have some spare time check it out.

I also know that the whole process of forcing us to file tax returns is redundant since the government already knows what those returns should be. It is a 4 billion dollar a year industry paying H&R Block or Liberty Tax, (choke, cough), or others to do the returns for us. That may be why we are one of the few remaining countries that doesn't just have employers doing the taxes saving the employee the stress and hassle of tax time every year. In 1867 when the BNA Act was passed, not voted on, PASSED as our undemocratic constitution, it gave certain gangsters who declared themselves government the self-litigated right to tax. In fact if you look closely even THAT is not truly lawful. They don't have the legal right. It's a complicated story. Then in 1917 when PM Borden and the boys instituted a temporary measure to increase government revenue during WW1 and it somehow wasn't temporary it was another screw job perpetrated upon the Canadian people.

It should be noted that in 1916 the government started a corporation tax called the business profit war tax. It was a tax on corporations whose profits exceeded a certain percentage of their invested capital. The 1917, personal tax was 4% of all income of single men over $2000. For others the personal exemption was $3000. Boy how times have changed since then eh? Now most businesses pay nothing in tax and are actually subsidized by government and in order to afford that the average personal tax rate has risen pretty dramatically. The system is grossly unfair and none of us should, nor indeed HAVE TO, pay taxes. We just do. Voluntary slavery. And I hate taxes just as much as the next guy but I just paid my master like the good little Toby I am.

But who knows, maybe I will GET the unemployment insurance I deserve. Maybe Revenue Canada didn't charge me interest on my tax debt while overseas because I tried to pay it. Maybe gold nuggets will start falling out my arse instead of crap. Anything's possible. So I'm going to try to remain Canadianly positive about all this and say that at least it looks like I will have all my ducks in a row before going overseas. So THAT'S good news. heh heh heh heh.