Archives for 2025/01 (Lifestream)

I have spent most of my life in Montreal but there was a decent sized chunk in the middle, spanning high school and university, when I lived in Toronto.

I still visit Toronto not infrequently. I have a soft spot for it; at the very least, I don't harbour quite the same level visceral hatred a lot of people seem to lob at the city.

But I haven't lived there for over 20 years. Obviously, a lot has changed in that time. I'm not sure I could live there now. I mean, I guess I could but my life would look very different. The place is so huge, and the housing so expensive, that I'm not sure it would be a good trade.

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I never thought that the law applied equally to rich people and poor people. I never considered myself that naive. I had always understood that rich people could break the law in ways that poor people simply couldn't.

But I had always assumed that the way this worked in practice was that being rich just came with a heightened ability to cover your tracks. I had always assumed that, rich or poor, it was of supreme importance not to get caught, and that being rich simply bought you more options in that regard. Maybe you could bribe a police officer, or a judge, and make the charges go away. Maybe you could afford to hire someone to do the dirty work for you, or take the fall for you if it came to that.

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