My Canadian Experience

As we come to the end of June I felt it was time to get caught up on the goings on in Canada.

First the pandemic. Got of to a very slow start but of late Canada has now received more of the vaccines for release to all Canadians and have to say the roll our has been very fast indeed and things are looking very good to have at least 70% of Canadian with second doses of the vaccine by end of August.

I am now due to receive my own second dose this coming Friday 2nd July 2021. This means that by 16th July I should be ok to stop wearing a mask and can meet with many more people. They say to allow 2 weeks after receiving your second dose to be properly protected.

Various Provinces are announcing the easing of restrictions later this month as more and more of the population receive the first dose of the vaccine.

Updates on the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)

Now the next big talking point is about the discovery of mass burials on Residential school lands that were run by the Catholic church. They were first found in BC and this setup the desire to check other residential school lands across Canada with 700 or so burials then found in Saskatchewan.

First Nations people in Canada have a long history of seeking compensation for various so called acts against them and to be frank Canada has a very poor track record of addressing these issues. Like the RCMP is heavily critised for not doing better at discovering why so many indigenous woman are missing with many later being found dead in suspicious circumstances. Also many of the individual tribes do not have safe water and still waiting years to have the problems fixed.

I will say that in my opinion the history of the First Nations people do have a very savage history with inter-tribal warfare going on where many women and children were slaughtered. I believe the idea of residential schools was a good one but oversight was by no means good enough to oversee the proper running of them. The more recent truth and reconciliation findings went some way to resolving this issue but no real action seems to have been taken as a result.

I have documented a residential school in America (Chilocco) where pupils at the school say how much they enjoyed their time there. This goes to show how things could have turned out if they'd been properly supervised and run in Canada.

I think most Canadians are rather fed up with the whole process but the very recent discovery oof these mass burials has been a bit of a revelation to many. In my pinion this seems to be down to how the Catholic Church deal with this and to date they have refused to reveal their records and the Pope has not offered an apology.

Given the problems with pedophile priests in the church I'm not sure the Catholic Church has much credibility left now.

Then the third topic of concern is the sexist way the high officers and others in the Canadian Armed Forces are treating women. This also applies to the RCMP as well. The current Liberal Government, which is a minority government, is under fire through their current Defence Minister who clearly knew about this but failed to deal with it.

So these are the three top things concerning Canadians at this time.

On a personal note I got my guttering fixed along with my garage and back gate and also the back porch. Essentially some wood rot was to blame for some of these issues. So I ended up spending around $1,000 to fix these issues.

I also found out I'm entitled to a second government pension so now get around another $280 a month which all helps. When I received the notification I phoned them to check that this was correct and they conformed it was as I'd reached 70. It looks like the advice I got to join the pension plan was correct as they said at the time that I would get 10 years of contributions which then entitled me to a pension.

I have been doing most of my grocery shopping online through either of Walmart, Canadian Superstore or M & M. Delighted to see this available. Mind you why others don't offer this service is puzzling. All three of these stores use Instacart as their provider.

As to weather, Canada is breaking heat records with some of the hottest days on record. It's estimated that many deaths are being recorded especially by the elderly due to the heat. B.C. has recorded the hottest day in Canadian history in a town called Lytton which has also just been destroyed by a wild fire at time of writing this. I've also just read that some 212 wild fires are now burning in B.C.

I'm rather disappointed with the service industry in Chatham. People don't call you back or they say they'll come by at a certain time and don't turn up or let you know they have an issue. In fact I'm making sure I don't try to use these people at any point in the future as if they don't keep their word then they're obviously not to be trusted.

The other thing I've noticed in Chatham is that house prices have shot up. I paid $90,000 for my home in Chatham some 16 years ago now and I've just been told it's now worth around $450,000. Also rents have shot up in price. My neighbour across the road was paying some $600 a month for a 3 bedroom apartment and was there for some 30 years. His landlord has now sold the house and he's now paying some $1800 a month for a similar property elsewhere in Chatham.

Mary Simon becomes Canada's 30th governor general 26/07/21

Mary Simon installed as Canada's 30th Governor General
CBC News Special