I Hope

As soon as I'm sure I'll be staying in Korea I'm going to give the old blog a new name and maybe a facelift. New colour scheme or whatever. What should the new name be? Korea Threea? It will be my third tour here if this happens. You never know. My luck I'll get everything arranged to start work and immigration will refuse my visa. "You broke Korean law in 2001 by overstaying your visa." It could very well happen.

And then I get an email like I got today. A job offer from Alberta to work camp security at fire fighting camps in Alberta. Every summer there are forest fires in Canada and a lot of people, (mostly students), put themselves in harm's way saving our forests, braving the intense heat and bugs and filthy, grunt work with long hours and short sleeps, keeping our country green and making enough money to pay for another semestre of university so they can get a degree and get a good job so they won't ever have to do this kind of torturous work again. At least that's the theory behind it. And every year there are guys who are making the same pay but just sort of hang around camp not doing much. I had a short gig in northern Ontario on the E.F.F. crew for fire #21 I think it was. E.F.F. is emergency fire fighters and fire number 21 was almost out. Emergency fire fighters are called in when a fire gets out of control. So my job was to hang out at camp, (making the best wage I ever made), playing cards and occasionally moving a barrel or hammering a nail here and there, while smudge crews were doing controlled burns around the perimeter of fire #21 and checking duff moisture levels to make sure a spark didn't jump to a dry, unburnt pile of muskeg and start fire #22. The most productive thing I did that summer was turning a coffee table into a giant Cribbage board with a drill and my trusty pocket knife. Man we played a lot of Crib! I imagine camp security is not much more than bear watch, making sure people aren't sneaking booze into camp, and playing a lot of Crib. I'm sure it pays ridiculously well too.

BUT where does the money come from? I found myself constantly asking that question while I was back in Canada looking for work. It seemed to me the best paying jobs available for me would have been those associated with oil and government. I didn't want any of that ill-gotten money infecting my clear conscience. Also I didn't get offered an oil or government job so it was easy to remain on my morally high horse. But what does a guy do? To be able to afford to live in Canada, you practically HAVE to sell your soul to evil corporations or government. Just to pay the rent you're gonna need a whole lot more than minimum wage. Check this out. THAT house is 1.39 mil? It's not much nicer than a double-wide trailer by the looks of it! Because of condo-flipping foreign investors and a government that shovels the snow off their paths and strews them with rose petals. What the article doesn't tell you is that when a person buys a condo before construction begins the advantages ALREADY start for the foreigners. Some condos aren't available to Canadians at all! And if they are, Canadians pay 10% minimum while foreigners only have to pay 5%. Also, and this is reverse discrimination to a degree that only Canada exhibits, Canadians who flip a condo have to pay a 70% capital gains tax. Foreigners don't. So let's say you "buy" a 200,000 buck condo. If you're Canadian you need 20 grand. Foreigner needs 10 grand. Then let's say many more units get sharked up and the projected value rises to 400,000. Foreigners get an ROE of 200,000 on their 10,000 dollar investment. A Canadian makes 60,000 on an investment of 20,000. Yes, it's a bit over-simplified, but, yes it's Harper winning the hearts of the people who are important to him, (mostly the Chinese), and screwing Canadians.

Why? Because he and his government are super keen to bring into Canada the superior people in foreign countries who manage to figure out all these very clever ways to get rich. Superior people like this bozo. I'd just tell her to act like she's not gay for a while and giver her 60 mil.

My point is, and this was blatantly obvious to me when I was back in Canada living in Victoria and Calgary, when our government is fawning over the rich assholes of the world changing laws in Canada to make everything favourable for them, and they COME to Canada, their influence is felt on more than just housing prices. And it's NOT the influence I, or the regular Joe Canuck, (who is still the majority although we are constantly socialized to believe he isn't), want to be exercised on our country.

When I was in Canada and quit my job for a long, LONG list of good reasons including my employer lying to me and completely breaching my contract, I joined the 58% of all unemployed Canadians who, although we pay for mandatory insurance against unemployment from every paycheck, we do not qualify for it under the Harper government's new omnibus bill C-38's criteria. What are the criteria? You have to be a useless tit to your employer because they have the money and that's who all the new laws of Canada are being made to benefit. So if you sleep on the job, are rude to the customers, are totally inept and get fired, you can collect E.I. But if your employer makes your job hell but you do it well and they want to keep you, you are screwed. You can quit, but you won't get E.I. That's what happened to me. This is something workers should know in Canada. Before long all the regular Canadians who are willing to put up with more and more demands made by their employers because they're too scared to quit will be the only ones who still have jobs. The other jobs will be taken by the workers the companies want: the cheaper ones. And we all know who they are.

I see that has happened in the ESL racket over here in Korea too. Most evidently in the better jobs like colleges and universities. The directors keep adding more and more students to classes, raising job responsibilities, reducing teachers' holidays, requiring more bullshit paperwork like criminal record checks, proof of employment, transcripts, AIDS tests, physicals etc., while showing increased preference to those with doctorate or master's degrees. And they can do this because the job market is flooded due to the crap that's going on in Canada. So people who have jobs here are clinging to them as they get worse and worse too.

I'm encouraged by people I see using the internet and protesting the corporate direction our country is taking. From the people in Vancouver trying to get something done about real estate prices to good old Neil Young taking on Starbucks and Monsanto in his new song. They are the voice of the majority. They ARE the mainstream. It's hilarious what happens when somebody genuine starts getting some attention for speaking out in the voice of the majority. "Authenticity comes across as lunacy." That's what we're trained to hear, folks. That's the Soma the establishment has been forcing down our throats for decades. But we're starting to hide it under our tongue till the establishment leaves the room, then spit it out. And I'm loving watching this revolution happen! I hope when I'm an old man and maybe actually able to retire in a Canada that is truly run by the people for the people, I'll be able to think back to this period of change and sit my great nephews or nieces on my lap and tell stories of our hardships. I hope so. But at least I hope...