I Wanna Complain

So here I am living in the nation's capital. It's a lovely town of about 800,000 so getting around is much easier than when I lived in Toronto, which is about 3+ million and geographically about five times the size of Ottawa.

Before moving up here, we figured we could pick up a house about the same size and type we had in TO, for about $100,000 less than our TO place.

WRONG!

We ended up having to spend more for our house in Ottawa than what we sold our place in Toronto for. If that isn't annoying enough, I'm also paying $1,800 a year more in property taxes, than I paid in Toronto for a similar size house in a similar 'hood. That really galls me. Particularly because the roads in Ottawa outside the 'tourist' areas are in absolutely appalling condition. I've thought this a bit, but with me commuting to work on the bike recently, I see and 'feel' the bumps and potholes way more than when in my car. There's one street that bisects the western end of town called Carling Ave., and driving/riding on it is like driving through Niagara Falls, New York... i.e., you'd have a smoother ride driving offroad on frozen tundra than here.

So where the hell are all my property taxes going? Certainly not into infrastructure. The city itself is made up of city counsellors naturally, but then there's also the national capital commission that looks after some of the city lands. Why do we need a two tiered municipal government? Double the elected doofus politicians and double the staff. Oh, we also have a municipal police service, lots of OPP (provincial police) that patrol the fringe of the city and the highways and of course the RCMP who have some double-jourisdiction with our city cops. WTF???

And the cost of living is not less than Toronto. In fact, it's higher. There's no No Frills type grocery stores in Ottawa, it's all Lowblaws with is premium priced. And the variety of goods isn't as good as toronto, so if you want something specific, you're either driving to TO or Montreal or paying extra to have something special shipped in.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ottawa because I have a lot more free time that used to be spent commuting in the big bad city... but for a world capital, the place seems pretty backwards. I just want to see some value from the added property taxes I pay.

Rant over.