Wallace is here and that is lucky, considering he gave me the wrong information to meet him at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Mind you, Delta Airlines did not help either. Where Wallace said he would be on flight 1142 from Atlanta, if you look closely at the arrivals screen, there are two 1142’s, from Ontario and Salt Lake City. Well, duh, Delta.
I am aware of the city called Ontario, but Delta does not use that airport. That means they are referring to the entire province of Ontario as one city. The dumbing-down theory requires no further proof.We quickly got out of the airport and were up until 3:00 AM catching up and filling Wallace in on the things that are different here. He has already noticed how people here seem to feel no shame when caught lying. It took me a while to get used to that as well. By late dawn, we walked over to the donut shop and played the first round of Crib. He double skunked me. The cheater.
I had to scoot over to the wig place. It seems our buddy, the lippy new guy, is keeping a check register. Sort of. The point is, the cancelled checks are missing, I want to see them, and he tried to discourage me on that. Bad move. Now I will make a crusade to get those cancelled checks. He also bragged about doing some auditing, but I call the bull on that one. Everyone who does auditing knows that you need two lists, not one, to verify anything. I know it is likely nothing, but I want to see the checks.
Back home by 6:00 PM, I got Wallace to ride over to Panera for coffee and a rematch of Crib. I cannot believe my incredible bad luck. I play a game of discarding carefully to maximize the potential of a good cut. In seven games today, I kept getting the few cards I could not use, while Wallace was regularly getting 14 and 18 hands. There was plenty of bantering about the reasons, but even he had to remark that my play was excellent, my luck was not.
Here is Wallace with coffee nearby, ready to start the game. I regret to learn that he may soon require an artificial hip. It was with great difficulty he was able to pedal the mile. He says he is just out of practice and I hope he is right. He brought me all kind of reading material that I miss, such as the local papers from back west. We stayed at it until after dark and planned to go out to a pub. Wallace is way older than I but is the neatest old guy I ever met. Turns out he was on his best behaviour.
Instead, I made garlic chicken and we sat on the patio watching my air mattress inflate. Exciting, don’t you agree? Actually, we hooked up the tire compressor and talked history, but the air mattress tale is an interesting angle. I assure everyone that it was far more thrilling that anything we could have seen on television.
Pudding is not getting used to Wallace any faster than she did to myself. She has discovered a cool sleeping spot behind the microwave cabinet. Wallace lives on Vancouver Island, one of the largest American colonies on Earth. If you look at a map, it is below the 49th parallel and is a far better choice for retired Americans seeking a free ride under the Canadian socialist system. Whereas I cannot see a Yankee in Buffalo retiring across into the frozen Niagara peninsula, thousands seek the year-round warm weather in Victoria and Sydney.
However, I have said it countless times – nothing is free in Canada. Never has been, and never will be. Medical is not free. You pay for it through taxation, which is actually more expensive overall than the American system, if only because it encourages people to be “sick”. Canadians abandon their grandparents by using the hospitals as an old folk’s home. Drunks can fake back pain to get a few days of clean sheets and three squares. As I said when I was nineteen, “Canadian taxes make food so cheap that a lot of people can barely afford it.”
Where the “free” illusion comes from is that once you retire, your income is likely to fall into a lower tax bracket. Then, moving to Canada will qualify you for many of the social programs that make one Canadian in three dependent (not merely assisted) on some form of welfare. The doctor treats you, but bills the government. Your medical is then “free” because you are passing the cost off to younger Canadian taxpayers. The sad part about such a system is that those getting the free lunch can ever vote themselves a larger share. Rest assured they do so all the time. In Canada, taxation is a growth industry. Combined tax rates for a single man in Canada can reach over 60%.
Later. This Canuck-Yankee theme has proven popular, so allow me to expand. Where we are concerned with moving to Canada, Wallace has brought a ton of literature about moving the other way. Yes, lots of old people with high incomes move out of Canada because of high taxation. Weather is only one factor, for Canada taxes based on deemed residency, not citizenship. You can be deemed a resident years after you have permanently left the country. (“Deemed if you do and deemed if you don’t.) It is most interesting how the Canadian government brochures focus on the “dangers” of traveling from the perspective of contrived laws.
These are laws that serve little purpose but to regulate people’s coming and going. For example, they advise travelers to register with Foreign Affairs Canada and “the information you provide is protected” through the Privacy Act. Does anyone fall for that sucker punch? (The Canadian government demonstrates an incredible “Disney-mindedness” about what people do when they travel.)
The description of what the Canadian Consular can do for you reads like “Traveling for Dummies”. If you are enough of an idiot to require any of these “services” you should not be traveling to summer camp by yourself. Example, “contact relatives and ask them to send you money or airline tickets”. Duh. And remember, Consular jobs are some of the highest paid jobs around, there is a stop at nothing demand to get them.
There is a long list of things the Canadian Consular will not do, such as help you if you get arrested. Well, then, what good are they? Therefore, should you be giving any information which needs privacy protection to an outfit like the Canadian government in the first place? To let the Canadian police (RCMP) know that you were arrested? To keep your Canadian criminal record right up to date so you don’t accidentally vote, miss a black mark before your trial or leave it off a job resume?
Did you know you could be re-arrested for the same crime once you return? That is correct. Canadian law can arrest you for what you do in a foreign country if it is also illegal in Canada. (http://laws.justice.gc.ca , aptly named because they don’t seem to have any idea what either of those terms mean.) There is a principle among civilized man that the law should never punish anyone twice for the same crime. Canadians don’t bother with such notions.
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