Eighteen years ago, Elena and I found ourselves on a wide boulevard in Kyiv, Ukraine wondering what in hell we were going to do next. We’d just been attacked, beaten, robbed, arrested and then, shaken down by bent coppers for a not unsubstantial backhander. I know, it’s Ukraine: the wild East. This shite happens. Get over it… Easy to say, but majorly hard to do when what was stolen was Elena’s right to movement: Her travel documents, AKA her passport.
No problem. What’s a smug Canadian to do when real-world problems befall a member of a free-world contrivance? Two things, actually. One reaches for their wallet, and then avails oneself to the Canadian government for help. Dog knows, the taxes sucked into that black hole have to count for something other than the how-great-we-are propaganda. News flash, Dog knows nothing! Which is pretty much what Canada provides in way of services to its citizens and other indentured taxpayers.
I didn’t know that at the time.
Not only was I told by well paid Canadian officials in Ukraine to ditch the Russian (Elena) and fly back to Canada, and they would give me a lift to the airport. But I was told the same thing, over and over again all the way from Kyiv to my home (which I have since lost), on our own in under our own power, in western Canada.
In Canada, Elena was asked to spy for some creepy RCMP spook in exchange for immigration favours. She refused. IRCC (Immigration, Refugees, Citizenship Canada) bloody misplaced her application for a UN-HRC refugee determination hearing. It took countless dollars, lawyers and even our member of parliament’s intervention to find it on some wank’s desk in a dogforsaken, Alberta town. Fun fact: This town possesses the world’s largest Ukrainian easter egg.
The process of deigning to allow Elena, my partner of many years by then, and I to be together in my illustrious Potemkin-village of a country, had finally started. So had a mountain of papers, and forms, and fees… Oh. My. Dog!!! The fees. And the hoops we were jumping though, like trained circus poodles!
If there was even a glimmer of hope, the bureaucratic contempt would result in anything at all, it might have been worth the years of waiting. The hundreds of thousands of dollars, the loss of our home, our savings, our dreams, our heartbeats. It wasn’t. It was all for naught. IRCC even had the audacity to inform Elena she was denied glorious Canadian citizenship in a letter to her lawyer; long dead, after all the years of stalling. The lawyer’s daughter, tying up his estate found the unopened letter from IRCC and sent it on to Elena, long past the deadline to file an appeal. Coincidence? You tell me.
Okay, life goes on and Canada had taken far too much from us. You could say, we stupidly let it hack away at us instead of getting the hell while we still had something left to get out with. We finally did run for our lives.
You think we ran for our lives from Russians, or Ukraine, or tropical storms, or bent cops, or pirates… nooooo, those were easy: real-world stuff. We ran from Canada!
We have been bouncing between various countries that allow both Canadians and Russians in as tourists, on the very boat we fled upon 18 years ago, to stay together. We have had one heck of an adventure and lived ten lifetimes, at least, in the process. We’re essentially penniless, homeless, stateless, on a wrecked boat in the tropical Atlantic (yup, it’s another hurricane season and we’re in the kill zone), but the kicker, and the prize for all this: we are still together!
Thelma and Louise become murderous criminals, and even they didn’t have this much fun!
Why am I writing about this horrible litany of victimization? Because, despite all the crap we’ve allowed Canada to crap on us and our love, we need another, stupid, piece of paper from the bastards just so we can go on and stay just this side of legal, immigration and border hopping wise.
I wonder, what’s it gonna take? When will we finally give up and just become outlaws? When is it enough?
The talismanic piece of paper Elena needs is a sticker in her unbelievably hard won, Russian passport that says she can attempt to enter Canada if the need were to arise. We need it to convince Bermuda or the Azores Islands to let us take on food and fuel on an Atlantic crossing. Yeah,
We’re planning to go right back to where this all started from. Back to the East Blok. Back behind the iron curtain. Back in the USSR, baby!
We can’t run forever and we want to be free, and together… and it ain’t gonna happen here in the free world.
Should be easy to get a sticker that says the bearer has asked for permission to approach the Canadian border. Nope! First Elena spent 2 days filling out forms online. Then another day doing it again when something was wrong. Then she is told to send her passport to Kingston, Jamaica with yet another fee (and absolutely no indication of how to pay said fee). But wait, hurricane Beryl just pretty near took Jamaica off the map. So, the place she has to send a bunch of hoop jumping and fee receipts gets hit by a major hurricane! Not Canada’s problem. So, we’re scrambling again. There’s the hoops. Up high. Jump poodles! Jump!
I think this came about because of a hindsight question Elena asked me, “If you knew in Kyiv, what you do now, about Canada and what would happen to us, would you have done what you did?”
The answer: Nope. Not a snowflake’s chance in hell.
We would still be together. We would still live free and as it is right for us. We would find adventure no matter what. But we sure as shite, wouldn’t have let Canada’s highly paid minions kick us more than once.
So, a sticker… Oh Canada, we’re dropping our drawers for thee, grabbing our ankles, and asking for a right proper kicking.