Make this boy shout, make this boy scream

Like a million fellow Canadians I am in my twenties and unemployed. I've managed to have, in the past year, several small jobs that didn't pay more than minimum wage, last more than four months or hire me for more than twenty hours a week. At this point in time the job market is swimming in university and high school students who will fight like demons for the few positions open.

Come September I am hoping to have a job. Any job: I've long since abandoned hope of finding a job that I can live off of, especially given the nature of the Toronto real estate market. It has been two years almost since I lost my last regular job, the one that allowed me to live if not luxuriously at least comfortably---and that was at Canadian Tire.

I cannot travel. I would like to have a Masters degree, and probably a doctorate, but cannot pursue that until I get the courses to elevate my GPA. I cannot look at an ATM without fighting the urge to vomit. And I'm among the lucky ones: I have no outstanding debt to pay off. A piddly credit card bill, but I never let that exceed two hundred dollars.

I'm tired of being considered entitled or lazy. I'm sorry that a decade ago I didn't think of going into the trades, for you see I lacked the precognition to foresee the rise of the Alberta oil industry and the collapse of the white collar industries. At the rate we're going the Harper regime is going to decide to throw EI away and legalize slavery, and Albertan slavers will go door to door kidnapping the idle.

So why don't you move from Toronto to Alberta?

Easy for you to say. Sure, leave behind my friends, my favourite places and activities, and move to a part of the country where I know next to no one and start from scratch? Not easy. I won't adapt to the more conservative political nature of Alberta, and, frankly, I've had enough of conservative dolts from living in Toronto.

There are a million young people like me. One million. Population of Edmonton numbers.

So why isn't the government doing anything about it? Especially given that the youth unemployment rate isn't changing one bit...oh, right, Harper canned Katimavik, closed youth job centres---fiscal reality. To me, nobody in Ottawa, Queen's Park or City Hall has any idea how deep the problem is unless it is forced upon them, as in Quebec.

That will come to the rest of Canada. Mark my words.

When the hell will things get better?