Poor people will work, I know that for a fact and I also almost certainly know more about it than you do. I was raised dirt poor, a latch key kid raised by a working grandmother who couldn’t even afford a babysitter. I worked hard all my life, in grade school I worked at a newspaper stand, once I got old enough, I had a paper route, as soon as I was old enough I worked in fast food. I worked myself up into the middle class and a comfortable retirement after nearly sixty years of continuous work. But I also recognize that there are people who won’t work.
You have a government that has always given you stuff, we have a government that takes far less in taxes and expects people to earn their own stuff. It’s a difference that you will never understand. We are, at least in theory nowadays, free and independent people not beholden to our government. Our biggest problem today is the liberals trying to turn us into Canada South.
Your assumption that my life growing up was any different than yours shows how arrogant and condescending you've become since your humble beginnings. You haven't cornered the market on humble beginnings.
My father died when I was 11. My mother had to take out a loan to put a tombstone on his grave. I started delivering newspapers for spending money at age 11. When I was 14, I lied about my age to get a job as a waitress. My parents had owned a restaurant so I had experience. Through school, I suckered tobacco in the summer, babysat, mowed lawns, and worked in a dry cleaning store on weekends. I bought all of my books and clothes for school, or sewed them, from the time my father died. I started working at age 11, and was rarely without at least one job thereafter, for the next 55 years.
The government "gave" my mother a widow's pension of $150 a month to live on and raise two children. She worked as a housekeeper babysitter for a neighbour who was a nurse, to supplement that income, and grew most of what we ate in the backyard. She couldn't do the physical digging and weeding. I did all that.
My government gave me a good education and a lot of opportunity. When I had children, my government gave me the opportunity to stay home with my kids when they needed me most. When I was working, I was guaranteed a minimum of two weeks paid vacation to spend with my family, and refresh myself for another year. When I wanted to start my own business, the government gave me access to a mentoring program and a business incubator, and that is the business I still have today. When my husband's job went south with NAFTA, the government gave him a free retraining program, and $1000 a month while he was in school, and he earned a good living thereafter as a cabinet maker.
When I get sick, I go to the hospital and get treated without paying a dime out of my pocket. When I turned 65, I became eligible for Old Age Pension, currently $626 per month. Everyone gets that regardless of income or wealth. Even a billionaire gets OAS. That's in addition to my Canada Pension Plan - similar to your Social Security, and a guaranteed income of about $19,00 per yr.
Republicans have convinced you that providing a "hand up" to people in difficult circumstances is somehow discouraging them for achieving all they could if they only had to fight against long odds to achieve it. The rest was up to me.
Canada is the best place in the world to live. We have the highest quality of life, better income, less wage and wealthy disparity, and the fastest growing middle class in the world. We live longer than you and we're healthier too.
My idea of freedom, is knowing I will get care if I'm sick, and I won't end up bankrupt as a result. That I'll have an income even if my business goes under or my investments fail. The USA has built an economy that separates working people from their money and makes them apply for welfare to feed their families.
