I usually cringe and avoid the people who (primarily out of ignorance) talk about how bad communism was, how crazy governments in south america are, how terrible it must be to live in China. I don’t engage in those conversations because I’m the only one who’s actually experienced what they’re complaining about, and it’s pointless to try and explain to the loudmouths that it’s the same shit here too.

Today I went to Service Ontario, expecting to pay about 70$ for a used trailer I bought. This was the third Service Ontario I visited, trying to avoid a 2-hour wait. After a lot of waiting with the lineup out the door in the rain I took out the 90 dollars and 23 cents to pay what I thought the clerk asked. But “no” he says, it’s nine hundred and twenty three dollars. Which of course I had to pay because my other option is… nonexistant.

It would have been okay if I expected it. I bought used cars before and I knew in advance I’ll have to pay HST. But in this case, the Service Ontario website states reasonable clearly that you don’t need to pay tax on a used and previously registered trailer:

After checking the website again I called them afterwards and explained that they must have charged me by mistake, look at your own website. I’ve got to give credit the lady I spoke to – she read the section, and put me on hold to go check, and apologized afterwards, and said she’ll tell her manager about it (she tried really hard to avoid the word “mistake”). But at the end of the day – I had to pay 900$ to the government that they told me I don’t have to pay.

Blame me if you like, but what you should really do is consider that our governments are just as shitty as any of the other ones you like to piss on. We just have more disposable income so we don’t notice as much.

I thought about complaining about it and trying to get my money back, but you know as well as I do that would have gone nowhere. They want to take my money and they will take it. Even if I literally don’t have it because I was not planning and saving for such a large expense. Despicable.