Elizabeth May on her pogie past
- Thread starter Locutus
- Start date
Here's a great take on May:
I Was A Teenage Moocher!
Elizabeth May stories are like gifts from the mint for Right-wing bloggers. Up early in the morning, racking your brain trying to come up with an interesting post. Voila! The Green Party leader drops some of her patented insight on an unsuspecting electorate. Blogging gold! You really can't make stuff like this up. It wouldn't be believable.
Take the narrative that Ms May is trying to spin. Working as a waitress in her family's restaurant in Cape Breton. Tugs at the heartstrings doesn't? You can almost smell the salt air and feel the cool breeze. Just a working class family trying to get by in one of the poorest regions of the country. Life's tough out there. EI helps rural folks get through the winter months.
Except Elizabeth May isn't from Cape Breton. She was born in Connecticut and attended a prestigious private school in Farmington. At the tender age of 18 she and her family moved to Cape Breton so that her parents could set up a restaurant and gift shop in a landlocked schooner. Farley Mowat was a family friend. Her American mother was an anti-nuclear activist and her British father a senior insurance executive. May's godfather was the Oscar winning American actor Cliff Robertson. Not exactly your typical hardscrabble Maritime upbringing.
So a family of rich foreign Leftists comes to Canada, starts up a business in a remote though beautiful part of the country, struggles for several years and is aided by the Canadian taxpayer. Just makes you tear right up, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want to move to a lovely stretch of the Maritimes and get the government to subsidize our lifestyle choices?
Like May I too am a child of immigrants. Though my parents didn't believe that taking six months off work every year was either a wise or ethical choice. There was an old joke on College Street years ago: There is no Portuguese word for welfare. For Ms May there are several euphemisms for welfare, one of them is what used to be called unemployment insurance.
The term "insurance" was always a misnomer. Neither EI or UI ever meet stringent actuarial standards. Nor is it really insurance if you plan to use it. Try telling your car insurance company that you planned to get into that accident and see how they respond. The line that she paid into the system is also incredibly flimsy. Millions pay into EI for decades without ever collecting a cent back. The chances are fairly slim that, given May's grueling six month-a-year work ethic, she ever paid her own way.
Now Ms May does defend her actions by saying she could not find alternate work in the town. Not too surprising that. Small towns in disco era Cape Breton were not known for their economic vibrancy. This begs the obvious question, indeed so obvious no journalist that I'm aware of has asked it: Why didn't she move all the way down to, say, Halifax? About a five hour drive.
I'm not saying trek all the way out to Fort McMurray, one of the largest magnets for workers from the Maritimes. Nope just stay in her own province. It wasn't as if May had deep personal roots in Cape Breton. Her family fell in love with the place during a summer vacation in the early 1970s.
Elizabeth May doesn't simply advocate Big and Unlimited Government, she lives it. A youth spent in taxpayer (what is EI but but an employment tax?) subsidized idyll while enjoying one of the world's great beauty spots. No doubt moving to Halifax in the winter months might have imposed some hardship on the young May, though not much more than thousands of born and breed Maritimers have experienced when they moved to the oil patch. Nothing really when compared to most immigrants who come to Canada.
Whatever the pleasant sounding theory, this is the reality of the welfare state. It was setup to help the poor and marginalized. In practice it aids the unscrupulous and the skillful. Elizabeth May was a rich white liberal who had ordinary working class stiffs subsidizing her youthful lifestyle choice. Then she went off to law school and had many of those same stiffs subsidize her education. Because Lizzy is a special girl who knew how to milk the system.
What of the thrifty, the diligent and responsible? In modern Canada we call those people suckers.
I Was A Teenage Moocher! - The Gods of the Copybook Headings
I Was A Teenage Moocher!
Elizabeth May stories are like gifts from the mint for Right-wing bloggers. Up early in the morning, racking your brain trying to come up with an interesting post. Voila! The Green Party leader drops some of her patented insight on an unsuspecting electorate. Blogging gold! You really can't make stuff like this up. It wouldn't be believable.
Take the narrative that Ms May is trying to spin. Working as a waitress in her family's restaurant in Cape Breton. Tugs at the heartstrings doesn't? You can almost smell the salt air and feel the cool breeze. Just a working class family trying to get by in one of the poorest regions of the country. Life's tough out there. EI helps rural folks get through the winter months.
Except Elizabeth May isn't from Cape Breton. She was born in Connecticut and attended a prestigious private school in Farmington. At the tender age of 18 she and her family moved to Cape Breton so that her parents could set up a restaurant and gift shop in a landlocked schooner. Farley Mowat was a family friend. Her American mother was an anti-nuclear activist and her British father a senior insurance executive. May's godfather was the Oscar winning American actor Cliff Robertson. Not exactly your typical hardscrabble Maritime upbringing.
So a family of rich foreign Leftists comes to Canada, starts up a business in a remote though beautiful part of the country, struggles for several years and is aided by the Canadian taxpayer. Just makes you tear right up, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want to move to a lovely stretch of the Maritimes and get the government to subsidize our lifestyle choices?
Like May I too am a child of immigrants. Though my parents didn't believe that taking six months off work every year was either a wise or ethical choice. There was an old joke on College Street years ago: There is no Portuguese word for welfare. For Ms May there are several euphemisms for welfare, one of them is what used to be called unemployment insurance.
The term "insurance" was always a misnomer. Neither EI or UI ever meet stringent actuarial standards. Nor is it really insurance if you plan to use it. Try telling your car insurance company that you planned to get into that accident and see how they respond. The line that she paid into the system is also incredibly flimsy. Millions pay into EI for decades without ever collecting a cent back. The chances are fairly slim that, given May's grueling six month-a-year work ethic, she ever paid her own way.
Now Ms May does defend her actions by saying she could not find alternate work in the town. Not too surprising that. Small towns in disco era Cape Breton were not known for their economic vibrancy. This begs the obvious question, indeed so obvious no journalist that I'm aware of has asked it: Why didn't she move all the way down to, say, Halifax? About a five hour drive.
I'm not saying trek all the way out to Fort McMurray, one of the largest magnets for workers from the Maritimes. Nope just stay in her own province. It wasn't as if May had deep personal roots in Cape Breton. Her family fell in love with the place during a summer vacation in the early 1970s.
Elizabeth May doesn't simply advocate Big and Unlimited Government, she lives it. A youth spent in taxpayer (what is EI but but an employment tax?) subsidized idyll while enjoying one of the world's great beauty spots. No doubt moving to Halifax in the winter months might have imposed some hardship on the young May, though not much more than thousands of born and breed Maritimers have experienced when they moved to the oil patch. Nothing really when compared to most immigrants who come to Canada.
Whatever the pleasant sounding theory, this is the reality of the welfare state. It was setup to help the poor and marginalized. In practice it aids the unscrupulous and the skillful. Elizabeth May was a rich white liberal who had ordinary working class stiffs subsidizing her youthful lifestyle choice. Then she went off to law school and had many of those same stiffs subsidize her education. Because Lizzy is a special girl who knew how to milk the system.
What of the thrifty, the diligent and responsible? In modern Canada we call those people suckers.
I Was A Teenage Moocher! - The Gods of the Copybook Headings
To me it's more of a play on words when they call it "Insurance"
When I put money into real insurance, I'm usually covered by a crap load of money in case something happens, even when I haven't put that amount of money in yet...... with EI (I've used it only twice in my lifetime) there was no increase in money coming my way compared to what I put in. I had a report showing how much I accumulated so far while working, then they dictated how much I would get every pay period for however long that money I put in would last (Usually it was barely enough to survive, like $250 every two weeks & lasted for about a month & a half to two months)..... after that, even if I still never found a job by the time it ran out and even if I did everything they demanded I do towards looking for work.... I got no extra money and I was out on my ass.
The amount they gave back to me amounted to basically the amount I originally put in. Actually I think it was less than what I originally put in due to them needing to cover their own expenses of offering the service in the first place.... so it's not really insurance at all.... it's a crooked banking system where your money suddenly becomes their money.... with no interest.... and you have to bend over backwards to get any of your money back.
If EI actually worked like other types of Insurance, then I'd agree with you.... but it doesn't. At least it didn't work that way the last time I used the system.
And if EI actually worked like other types of Insurance, they most likely wouldn't be having a Surplus right now due to all the so-called, moochers and freeloaders who abuse the system..... they don't give you any more money that you already put in.... if they do, than I got screwed.
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