Well, There Goes the Plan for Tomorrow. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako




This time of winter, the anger lurks very close to the surface. There's still a bit of winter left, and the first half of spring isn't all that nice either.

#winter

I was planning to go to work tomorrow morning, (that's because I desperately need the money) and then make it to the Salivation Army food bank in the afternoon. (That's because I don't have any fucking food in the house, and ODSP payday isn't until next week.) 

Unfortunately, my brother wants to drop his car off at the high school auto class so that they can work on it. (For free, right.) And he will need a ride home, and then a ride back later. My car acted up yesterday, but it worked well enough today. This is no guarantee for tomorrow. 

As I mentioned in a recent blog post, I have my own fucking priorities.

I go to work in the morning. I go to work in the morning, not the afternoon, not the fucking evening, not in the middle of the fucking night. That’s so that I can get done, get paid, and get the fuck to the nearest God-damned grocery store, and yes, the smoke-shack, and yes, maybe even the liquor store, or, sometimes, maybe even just a good, old-fashioned, God-damned fucking food bank.

Hey, maybe I just want to go to the dentist sometimes. Right…???

The Salivation Army food bank is open four days a week here in Sarnia, Ontario, from one o’clock to three o’clock in the afternoon. I guess maybe that’s what I was thinking—I could go to work in the morning and then go there in the afternoon.

Having gone to the dentist’s office this morning to get a cavity filled, only to discover that the tooth was cracked lengthwise, and had to be extracted, I've had nothing to eat but soup today. 

He ain't exactly the world's greatest communicator. An even worse listener—

And now, if you don't mind, I will proceed to punch THE UNIVERSE right in the mouth, however symbolically.

#fuck

I had money a few days ago, (that’s because I worked), and while at Walmart, I noticed Swanson frozen dinners on for $1.77. Right next to that, they had Stouffer’s frozen entrees on for the same price. I asked the lady at the checkout if that was right, and scanning them, it seems that it was. I bought four of them, for $7.08.

I’ve been sort of rationing them out, mostly because I don’t always feel up to making some big, set-piece dinner. One measly fucking Salisbury steak dinner, 345-grams, will be the only solid food I get today. Yes, I know exactly how lucky I am to have that—after all, I’m the one who has to arrange all of these little secular miracles. Just to illustrate, I’m a grown man of 58 years of age, six-foot-five-and-three-quarters, and I weigh about 206 lbs.—a bit on the skinny side for my height, maybe, but after twenty-two years on the Ontario Disability Support Program, what in the hell else would you expect.

That’s the funny thing about plans, ladies and gentlemen. No matter how good, or even how simple it might be, there’s always somebody out there all ready and waiting to fuck it up for you.

END

Fuck. Anyways, I have some books and stories available from Kobo. Have a look if you like, there’s always something there for free.

Click the author’s name, and you’ll see quite a number of titles.

Images. Top: NASA, the UNIVERSE, about to get a symbolic punch in the mouth. Bottom. Self-explanatory, pic by Louis.

Thank you for reading my fucking shitty little rants.

The Difference Between the Elderly and the Disabled.

Louis Shalako

My journey began May 4, 1989, when a plank in a scaffolding broke beneath me and I fell to my death.

Unfortunately, in some opinions, I survived. I have three compression fractures, at the T-6, L-3 and L-4 vertebrae. I saw a doctor the next day and he didn’t even bother to order an X-ray, although he did write a scrip for Tylenol-3s, 30-milligrams of codeine per tablet.

I’ve learned a lot, since then.

***

“You can earn up to a certain amount without telling us and without losing your benefits. For 2018, this amount is $5,500.00 (before taxes). This amount may increase in future years.”

At one time, a person on the Canada Pension Plan (Disability) benefit could earn as little as ten dollars and, because they were capable of doing some work, they would lose the benefits. 

That has since changed. Looking at the website, you can now earn up to $5,500.00 annually. 

What is really interesting is that you don’t even have to report it.

On the Ontario Disability Support Program, clients can only earn $200.00 per month, $2,400.00 a year.

In terms of operating a business, the paperwork takes me a couple of hours a month, including income, mileage and expense reports. People who are working for scab employers fill out a different form and for the most part, are too fucking dumb to claim expenses. It would be good if the Province of Ontario were to bring its policies more in line with the federal disability pension system. Note that the rates might be different in the two cases, my impression from years ago was that the federal system actually paid less than ODSP.

“For 2016, the average monthly CPP disability benefit is $933.82 and the maximum monthly amount is $1,290.81. You will receive the basic monthly amount fixed for all recipients ($471.43), plus an amount based on how much you contributed to the CPP during your entire working career. If you are receiving a CPP disability benefit, your dependent children may also be eligible for a children's benefit. In 2016, the flat monthly rate your child can receive is $237.69. Read more about the CPP benefits amounts.”

So, that part's not very good. 

I did apply for CPP(D) but did not qualify, this was in 1994 or 1995. A recent news story indicates that fewer Canadians are qualifying for benefits. According to this story, there are serious problems at or with CPP(D) and that’s certainly credible based on my experiences with this whole industry—and an industry it is, one that employs thousands in relatively good-paying government jobs. At the provincial level, it takes up a good chunk of the budget.

As we can see, the elderly, (who can be equally vulnerable) are sort of favoured over the disabled, who may, admittedly, be younger. That is the only distinction that I can see—other than the fact that old age pensions are paid into by those who are employed. The disabled may never have been employed, and therefore, there is no public fund for their maintenance. I was employed for about twelve years—all my other work experience has been an entrepreneurial, hand-to-mouth sort of subsistence. I didn’t make contributions, and I didn’t qualify for unemployment insurance. Let’s just say I didn’t starve to death and leave it at that—

Anyways, the statute of limitations has run out and perhaps that is a good thing.

Disabled persons on CPP(D) have to have recently paid into the system. How much, and for how long, would appear to be closely-guarded secrets.

Such programs are notoriously underfunded. It is a hallmark of all such systems.

Retirees of sixty-five or seventy years of age can work while receiving regular Canada Pension Plan benefits with no penalty. There is no limit—you can earn a million bucks and still get this pension benefit. This is why scab employers such as Walmart, Tim Horton’s, McDonalds, Burger King, and a thousand grocery stores across the province and the nation love to hire retirees. Walmart greeters are famous for their average and collective age. But they don’t have to live on the money, whether it is full, or more likely part-time employment. 

They are using the additional earnings for luxuries, Christmas presents, travel, spoiling the grand-kids, (and rightly so), or simply attaining some quality of life not offered by a base government pension and no savings, no private pension in many cases.

Retail isn’t the only industry that relies on subsidized labour. When I worked as a security guard, it was surprising, just how many people were retired from the military, ex-cops, and ex-firemen. But they had their pension already, they were bondable, they had some relevant experience, and they didn’t have to live on the money. It is also true some had been bankrupted by divorce (sometimes multiple divorces), and genuinely needed the money. 

There was some poverty there, as anyone drinking home percolator coffee from a Thermos and eating stale, single-slice bologna sandwiches with a thin scrape of butter and mustard on a long midnight shift can attest. I saw many of those along the way, guys without much education but also no criminal record. If nothing else, they were bondable, although they might have rolled up their own smokes on the kitchen table in a kind of quiet, genteel, Canadian desperation.

A bunch of people must have had their applications in. A bunch of us were called in one day…there was a strike on, and the money was good.

I went from $14.00 per hour on strike duty (where we crossed the picket lines twice a day), to $5.35 per hour when the strike ended and we were lucky enough for the company to take at least some of us on. That company is still in existence today, and I have no doubt that their basic practices haven’t changed. One of the company principals was also involved with a temporary placement company—an employment company.

They’d get you a minimum-wage job somewhere and then take a percentage of your cheque for the first six months. Since it was a temporary job, one has to wonder how many folks ever got out from under that. These guys will exploit the vulnerable, the desperate, or even just the stupid. They’re not all that picky.

What’s interesting is that on polling day, election day, the place is crawling with senior citizens. While 12.6 % of Canadians suffer from some form of disability, it’s like they just don’t vote or something.

Or maybe it’s just that no one cares—unless they’re running a food bank for forty-five thousand a year and bucking for sainthood on the front page of some crummy little Canadian newspaper somewhere with all kinds of feel-good, bullshit glorification of Canadian food banks.

END

Louis has all these books and stories on Smashwords. ( - ed.) 

Thank you for reading.

Some Respectful Suggestions for the Province of Ontario. Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako




Okay. I just sent this email to incomesecurity@ontario.ca 


Hey, guys.


May I respectfully suggest.

This government would do a very great service to Ontario’s 750,000 clients of the ODSP if they were to raise the allowable earnings from business and employment.

This might be to raise the rate for a single person from $200.00 up to $500.00 per month, and something on the order of $1,000.00 to $1,500.00 per month for single adults with a family of four, i.e., three dependents. A second spouse might qualify for another $350.00 in this scheme.

This government might also consider reducing the rate of clawback, say going from fifty cents on the dollar to something more like twenty-five percent.

The mileage rate for business, employment or medical travel should be raised one cent per year for the next fifteen years, reflecting relatively high fuel and transportation costs and the aging of the population, with a view to preventative medicine and quality of life.

This government should consider a Special Housing Benefit for clients of the Ontario Disability Support Program. This would be over and above proposed and pending provincial and federal housing benefits. This is because clients on the base pension are still at thirty-five or forty percent below the poverty line, this at a time when rents are easily running at 70 % of the pension, in this writer’s experience. Clients are still lining up at food banks, scrambling for odd jobs, and trying to avoid making the smallest mistake, which is stressful to say the least.

Certain disincentives to employment should be addressed, not the least of which is certain bogus mathematical processes of the ODSP and Ontario Works.

Consider the following problem, (and I know you will laugh when you read it. Yet you also know it is true.)

A client makes exactly $200.00 over the allowable limit in any given year. Let’s call it 2017. 

This entitles the ODSP to a fifty percent clawback, of $100.00, off of the total yearly pension and an overpayment is assessed.

The next year, the client works exactly the same hours at the same rate of pay. They’re $200.00 over the allowable earnings limit. Again, the ODSP has the right to assess an overpayment of fifty percent. And so, therefore, ergo, they take another $100.00 off of the yearly pension benefit. As we can easily see, a pension, (using nice, simple, round figures), that once stood at $13,500.00 per year is being eroded, at a rate of $100.00 per year, and yet the client is no better off—in fact, in this scenario, the fact that they are working, no more and no less hours, at the same rate of pay, chips away at their eligible benefit.

They’re losing a hundred bucks a year, for the privilege of saying that they’re working.

Of course, most of us aren’t really capable of doing the math, are we?

And we never think to ask the question.

Louis

Hey, before you go, please check out my books and stories on iTunes.

Thank you for reading.