I know, I know. I've been away from this blog for such a long time, so my new years resolution, which I don't can't keep, is to make sure I keep it up and running. I've left London, England and have returned to Canada, therefore my blog name was a bit unnecessary at this point. But having returned to Canada, my home country has lost it's dazzle and sparkle and I'm beginning to see things in a grittier sense.
When I tell people I'm from Canada, they always say to me, " Canada is an expensive country" and I always scoffed at it with naive excuses like, "well all the taxes go towards health care and a good social welfare system." Boy, are we stupid to believe that.
There is a tax for every damn thing in this country, I swear even just to flush your toilet, that's not too far from now. According to a June article by the Winnipeg Free Press, "Average Canadian to pay $37,700 in taxes this year," Canadians in 2009, gave 42.6 percent of their income to taxes. When you think of all the types of taxes there are; property, alcohol, goods and services, provincial, social security and the list goes on, it all just seems mind boggling.
I used to listen to my parents moan about the amount that was being deducted from their paycheck after two weeks and I completely ignored it. Everything I wanted was still being paid for. But just the other day, after slaving through the Christmas holidays as a receptionist at a cancer hospital in downtown Toronto, I picked up my pay stub to see the amount and when I saw nearly $200 was deducted for my pay for all sorts of nonsense I could imagine, my blood boiled. Yes, we need a social welfare system, it's what Canada is known for. But when I'm paying for 16 year old girls in deprived areas of Toronto and their babies' accommodations in co-operative, government housing where they live for almost next to no cost, it angers me. Those girls and other strong, healthy-bodied people will often enough, live off of the generous welfare system which is funded by Canadian tax payers that are not too much better off than they are. As I grow older, I realize, everything in Canada is SO DAMN EXPENSIVE.
I love my country, always have, always will. But how can people not live from hand to mouth or from paycheck to paycheck when they are being taxed out of their ears and the cost of living is so high. I go into the grocery store just to look at some basic items. Eight dollars for soap at a drug store? Nine dollars for two meager filets of TILAPIA? And then living in Toronto, I have a bone to pick with the TTC. It seems since the Toronto Transit Commission won't give us Torontonians a break. Every time I return to Toronto, there's a fare increase. Throughout much of 2009, it was $2.75 which seemed already ridiculous to TTC users, but the fare crossed the line into the realm of ludicrousness with the incease to $3.00. That means for me, who lives outside of the city limits and has to pay a double fare to go to work downtown, it costs $12.00 a day for me to commute. Let's not even get into the absurd cost of a monthly pass, because I'd still have to pay extra on it, living outside of the city. Canadians, we're generally docile people, but enough is enough. Every year, prices go up but people's salaries stay relatively the same.
The U.K was expensive but when I am paying $40.00 at a clothing store and then they tell me that the total is $45.00 and I ask why and my response is, "taxes", that little isle across the pond is starting to seem like paradise...
V.K.L
