Death and Taxes—the government is here to help you

Whatever Chrystia Freeland is smoking, I need some. 

To steal a line from an old movie, I’ll have what she’s having.

Like a kid on a Bouncy Castle, our effervescent finance minister delivered her third federal budget and proclaimed that she is “really, really optimistic” about our future.

Good for her but it’s really, really confusing.

As a mere taxpayer without Chrystia’s credentials or hands on the nation’s purse strings, my mundane life involves cuts, cracks and creaks that make me believe she and I live in very different places.

While she’s hobnobbing with the world’s grandees, my daily experiences bring me in touch with people like parents and grandparents worried sick about their kids’ futures, family businesses facing bankruptcy because they can’t find employees and health care workers who have lost hope they will ever see our  ragged health care system repaired.

It has become traditional during the U.S. President’s annual State of the Union address to pack the public gallery with true heroes and examples of the type of Americans who benefit from the current administration’s policies and programs. These special guests are introduced by the president and applauded by a grateful Congress.  

As is often the case, this practice has caught on here and during the visit of President Biden to the House of Commons recently the “two Michaels,” who were held captive in China for more than 1,000 days, were present in the public gallery, introduced and enthusiastically and duly honoured by the audience. 

Using that technique, therefore, let me introduce you to the kind of people I rub shoulders with and who lack Minister Freeland’s bubbly optimism about the state of affairs in our neck of the woods. I have given them different names to respect their privacy.

Jennifer’s cancer progressed to stage 4 as she struggled without a family doctor to requisition tests and obtain a timely diagnosis. She lost more valuable time when her records were lost in the shuffle of an overworked bureaucracy. She’s a fighter but the fight needn’t to have been this hard.

Several friends and family are among the 8,000 to 10,000 local people who will soon be added to the millions of Canadians who don’t have direct access to a family doctor. It‘s no exaggeration to say this will cause great suffering and probable death. As widely reported, six doctors in one practice here are all retiring and no one wants their jobs.  

Health care funding will be increased, more workers will be trained and retrained but it will take years, wisdom and political will to dig us out of this current quagmire of shortages, turf wars. inefficiencies, backlogs and suffering. 

Where was the wisdom that should have foreseen and avoided this mess as our population aged, needs became increasingly complex, and immigration rose? 

My friend Christine worries about her own health working long shifts at the local hospital but answers the call for help on her days off because she is so committed to her patients and can’t bear to see them and her co-workers suffer.

Mac, a retired public servant, is on the outs with his teenage grandson who is angry because his Dad won’t keep giving him money. Mac suggested the kid get a part-time job. “A job? he scoffed, like I was suggesting he rob a bank or give up his cell phone,” Mac told me. Apparently, it’s no longer cool for kids to work.   

Eric is a distinguished, retired professional who used a recent family gathering to test his grandkids on their knowledge of Canadian history. “Who knows who Sir John A. Macdonald is?” Eric asked of the five offspring around the dinner table. Only one replied. “He’s the old guy that killed all the Indian kids.” 

Toronto friends who for generations have ridden the buses, streetcars and subways, are now scared for themselves and their children after a series of violent incidents on the TTC. Everywhere, crime is not only rising, it’s becoming more violent and brazen, especially among young people. Mental health issues, a staggering opioid death rate and the use of guns threaten communities across the spectrum.

Several of the high-profile murders now before the courts involve accused young men with a long record of major crimes and who were out on bail at the time the murders were committed.

Truth to tell, our justice system is as badly in need of reform as is our health care. The only difference is that so many of us personally experience health care tragedies while our interest in courts and justice is relegated to what we learn from the media. 

Meanwhile, our military struggles to attract recruits and our RCMP has lost its once great reputation. 

Even small pleasures are challenging these days. My day begins with a pot of coffee and three newspapers. Delivery of one of these was suddenly cancelled this week—apparently for lack of a delivery person and/or dropping circulation in my area. 

My friends Veronica and James live comfortably on pensions and  used to treat themselves to a meal out once a week. 

“So many restaurants can afford to open only a few days a week and can’t get the staff they need. Staff they do have are overworked and often untrained and inexperienced. Think cold, soggy fries when they finally arrive… we’re just staying home,” they told me. 

Staff shortages mean some rest stops on Highway 401 have resorted to using machines where customers order and pay while a skeletal kitchen staff struggles to fill orders for a waiting lineup of frustrated customers.  

Doesn’t anyone want to work anymore?   

Is it, as some have suggested, a case where more people are taking resources out of our economy through government payouts while fewer people are working and paying the taxes needed to fund our social services and infrastructure?

You can shoot a cannon down the main streets of once safe and vital small towns.

Many shops, including those operated by the same families for generations,  closed during the pandemic and never re-opened.  It looks like there’s only a real market for dollar stores, nail salons and food banks.

So many communities like our own struggle with a shortage of affordable housing, homelessness, unsafe and unlawful encampments and people who live and beg on the streets.

This is in addition to other threats and challenges Canadians face such a fiscal storm brewing, inflation, high interest rates, and increasing energy and grocery prices not to mention distant wars and foreign interference in our governments and other facets of our lives.

I haven’t even mentioned our staggering debt levels that most people would rather just forget and leave to their grandkids to pay off.

Tony, our accountant, called this morning with a question to complete my income tax return: “Are you willing to give permission for use of your organs after your death?”

“First, they came for my money. Now they’re after my body parts,” I quip and it’s obvious I’m not his first client to use that line.

Tony says that, unlike myself, more than 90 per cent of his clients decline to participate in this new tool to promote the important cause of organ donorship.

“Another example of people who have become cynical and angry—not good, “I mumble.

It’s obvious that Minister Freeland has a real selling job on her hands and it will be a frosty Friday before respect and confidence in our democratic institutions is restored and we can all clutch our pearls and be “really, really optimistic.” 

Right now we’re just all holding onto our hats—and apparently our body parts as well.