Expat - Canada Relationship

An expat is someone living in a foreign country who maintains his/her citizenship of their mother country. In my case I am a Canadian citizen living in Thailand but receiving income and paying taxes to Canada.

Another towel animal magically appeared! Ling (monkey)

I receive my teacher's pension from Canada and pay the income tax that I would normally pay in Canada. I question what I receive of value for my taxes paid but apparently I pay taxes because the money I put into my pension while working was tax free. All in all, I consider it a benefit to Canada because I use none of the services except for the Embassy here in Bangkok which is excellent!

However, I have a beef to pick with Canada! You Canadians are not pulling your own weight in the relationship. When I first started visiting Thailand, 1 Canadian dollar purchase 30 Bahts. Now 1 Canadian dollar purchases about 25 Baht. If you Canadian keep this up I will have to move back to Canada full-time and start drawing on the resources that my taxes pay for.

Here is a four year chart of the Canadian dollar trading with the Thai Baht.

and the US dollar

Now, one may argue that the Canadian dollar has not really done badly and it is just the upstart US dollar is doing very well and since most of the world's currency are rated against the dollar then down we go.

However, given that Thailand is under a military junta and that tourism is down I really do not understand how the Canadian dollar has fallen in relationship to the Thai Baht. Perhaps it is because Thailand has essentially 0% unemployment. However, that is not a great feat when the minimum wage is $10 a day for a 12 hour day.

Perhaps Canada's socialist programs are hurting its productivity. 

Perhaps someone out there can enlighten this poor grasshopper :-)