Having a Taxing Time of It

 It has been too long. But let me get you caught up: I moved to Calgary and have started a new job with LINC. That stands for language instruction for newcomers to Canada. And in my case FROM newcomers to Canada. Ar ar. I do feel like a newcomer again. In many ways. Today we are off work to honour September 30th's new holiday known as "National Day for Truth and Reconciliation." I had not heard of this before last week. 

Truth and reconciliation eh? How many ways can the Canadian government tell its citizens to just keep forking over the money and smile? There's temporary income tax that's well over 100 years old and getting larger every year that we stupidly pay. I've covered that thoroughly here. There's inflation that we just acquiesce to like the good little chattel we are. There are so many other bullshit taxes! And aside from these taxes, what do we non-native Canadians do for the natives we are being asked to reconcile with? Well they pay no tax on items purchased on reserves; they don't have to get fishing or hunting licenses; there is other funding provided by the Canadian government (That's the tax payers. Governments don't give away their own money.) such as direct payments, grants, revenue sharing for businesses that operate on "their" land (quotation marks because  of the absence of ownership so many tribes have as part of their heritage), treaty payments, access for status card holders to programs (our money) related to education, health care, housing, and social assistance; and it may have changed but flash a status card and taxes are dropped on purchases OFF the reservations as well. Every Canadian knows or knows of a native or two who has received some pretty awesome monetary bonuses from the government - our taxes. 

It's nice to have a day off, hopefully with pay, but I'm not sure this reconciles the Canadian government's unequal treatment of the natives with me. If the government wants us to treat them like everyone else, they should be treated by the government like everyone else, and they aren't. They get 1.75 times what the rest of us get from the government. And that's excluding non-monetary privileges and other payments our government who is so good at finding ways for Canadians to pay for guilt we probably shouldn't feel, has come up with. I'm not saying there was no discrimination, I'm asking how the Canadian tax payers getting shaken down for over 20 bill equates to "proper" or "fair" payment. We're not the ones who underfunded those kids. If this holiday were anything about TRUTH, we'd find out that these sorts of things are just government attempts to create discord, not reconciliation between natives and non-natives in this country. That's Truth and Reconciliation. So it would be nice to see the government working on that instead of just pulling a holiday out of their asses. I'm sure Canadians will agree wi----

This was at the Blue Jays game on Sept. 30th. Lots of orange shirts in the crowd. The broadcasters were all wearing them too. Chalk up another example of the Canadian public bending over and telling the government, "YEAH! Hit me again and this time put some STANK on it!"

But anyhoo, I walked to my bank today because my bank charged me money for not having enough money. Could there possibly have been a more capitalism run amok statement ever made? I have a payment coming out of my account because it's the beginning of the month. I left enough in the account to cover it, but when I checked the account balance yesterday, there wasn't enough in there. Of course! The fee for not having enough in my account. I forgot about that. So I walked to the bank to put in an extra ten bucks or whatever. It was closed For national Truth and Reconciliation Day. 

I sometimes feel like a stranger in a strange land back here in Canada! I still haven't paid a nickel in income tax, that won't be till April of next year, but I already miss the tax-freedom of Korea. Prices are absolutely insane here and with the high prices comes higher taxes (because goods and services (GST) and provincial sales taxes (PST) and do we still have harmonious sales tax? (HST) are all calculated as a percentage of the flimflamorious prices we regularly pay) which works out to 5%, 13%, or 15% depending on the province you're in. How could it depend on the province we're in? It's just some asshole in some province gauging us for more! There is no justification for saying that this bowl of poutine should cost $10.50 here and if I put my foot over the border between Alberta and BC it now costs $11.50 - BUT WE STILL PAY! We're phenomenal creatures us Canadians in our acceptance-after-surfeiture when it comes to tax! We've been past surfeit levels for decades! And you should see some of the hidden taxes our products have on them BEFORE we pay the 5-15% tax! Go to the reservation 7-11 and buy a pack of smokes or a tank of gas and you'll think you've gone back to the 80's. If I buy alcohol I could pay up to 31% tax on it! Not in good old Korea!

As I mentioned, and have written about before, the high prices are unnecessarily high due to nothing more than greed, but then when you go out for a meal with some friends or relatives, or when you order a pizza, or in MORE places than ever now, you HAVE to tip! So if you have a beer at a restaurant you pay 31% extra in tax, whatever percent the restaurant chooses to jack that price up AGAIN (usually they aim for 80%) and if it's wine... you might have to take out another mortgage, and then tip on TOP of that! These food and beverage mavens at your local Pizza Hut or Denny's expect us to then add another 15-18% but that was before Covid. Now it's over 20%!!! And as you know if you've done your homework, that is just the owner of the restaurant, the same person who is already massively overcharging you, making you pay the majority of his servers' salaries too. 

I remember Canada being a fun place where people, even before we had good jobs, went out and socialized. I initially thought, when I got home, that Covid had killed the restaurant and bar industry, but was it that or are we just getting overcharged? 

I kinda feel like just crawling into a bottle right now and sucking up some tax. Sheesh!