In my mail today was a brown envelope from the Government of Ontario. Ontario? WTF? So I open it, and it's my first HST transitional rebate cheque, for $100.
That just pisses me off.
It isn't the tax that pisses me off. It isn't the fact of the rebate that pisses me off. It's the fact that they never corrected the major inequity in the rebate:
Single individuals get $300, but couples without dependent children get $1000.That is, quite simply, wrong. Living as a couple is not
more expensive than living as two single individuals. The rebate for a couple with no dependents should not under any circumstances exceed the rebate for two single individuals.
Of course, I pointed this out right away, as soon as the March 2009 budget came out. I blogged it and emailed it to my MPP and the Minister of Finance and Dalton McGuinty. I talked to people about it, and all the married and cohabiting couples in my life agreed with me that it's unfair, so I encouraged them to write to their MPPs. Basically I spotted a flaw in the plan and did everything I'm supposed to under those circumstances. But they didn't correct it.
I am incredibly frustrated because lately it seems like this is happening with everything.
- Transit City has been defunded, and none of the candidates are proposing solutions that will solve the part of the problem that affects me personally.
- Abortion is being excluded from international development maternal health programs.
- No one is working to correct the
flaw in the ORTA that allows landlords to increase rent as much as they want if the building happens to have been built after 1998.
- The new copyright bill makes it illegal to break digital locks.
- The City of Toronto is encouraging buildings to
close their garbage chutes rather than encouraging them to use them for recycling or
organics.
- They're requiring stores to charge people 5 cents for plastic bags and eventually
banning the use of biodegradable bags rather than simply requiring stores to
use biodegradable bags in the first place.
- They introduced age-specific (rather than experience-specific) restrictions for young drivers.
- They seem to be seriously considering forcing a rape victim to testify in court with
more of her body exposed than she is comfortable with.
And there are at least two other things too. I know I had at least 10 things, but I'm so upset I can't think of them.
All of these are things that I wrote my elected officials about. I wrote sensible, reasonable, coherent letters (much more sensible, reasonable and coherent than this blog post) identifying the crux of the problem and proposing specific solutions. In at least half the cases (garbage chutes, plastic bags, rent increases, driving restrictions, HST rebate) my solutions were objectively better for all involved. (They might in fact be better for all of these issues, but I can't objectively assess my solutions in all of them.) I did exactly what I was supposed to and was helpful and productive, but none of this stuff got fixed.
But when they came up with the excellent of idea of making O Canada inclusive, people wrote in and complained so they chickened out. And when they came up with the excellent idea of updating sex ed for the 21st century, people wrote in and complained and they stopped. But they never stop when I write in and complain.
I am drained and frustrated and exhausted. I'm being a good and diligent citizen, and no one is listening. But they are listening to the people who want to hurt me.
Our standard of living has been
stagnating or declining since 1980. I was born in 1980. Things have been getting worse
my whole life!My parents were about the same age I am now when they had me. They had been married for seven years, so the choice to have a child was deliberate and mindful. And this choice must have been informed by the context in which they grew up: be good, and life will get better. My parents were good. They did well in school and went to university and got good sensible jobs, and were therefore able to achieve a much higher quality of life than the one that they grew up with. So they tried hard to make us smart, insofar as parenting can influence that sort of thing, so that we could achieve the same.
I was also good. I did well in school, got a good sensible job, never hurt anyone, and turned out vaguely smart as well. And I'm being a good girl politically too, always writing my elected representatives with good, logical, sensible, coherent letters that propose helpful solutions whenever I have something useful to contribute. But it isn't working! And, in a number of cases, they're actually hindering my quality of life!
This all feels so depressing and hopeless.