Blogger, Artist, Social Media, Web Designer, Photographer- I blog about nouns-people, places and things, even when it's negative I try to put a positive spin on it. @tinawinterlikfb https://tinawinterlik.blogspot.com
⚖️ The Forgotten Scandal: Why Money Laundering and Tax Evasion Still Matter
By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
Another headline passed by recently — the kind many people shrug at, maybe scroll past:
“A court in Madrid has sentenced Carlo Ancelotti, who now coaches Brazil’s national soccer team, to a one-year suspended prison term and fined him 386,362 euros ($451,652) for tax fraud while he was manager of Real Madrid in 2014.”
You might think, “Well, that was years ago,” or “That’s just soccer.” But this isn’t just a sports story. It’s part of a much bigger, ongoing problem that affects every one of us: tax evasion, money laundering, and the way the rich dodge responsibility while the rest of us pay the price.
🏦 Pandora Papers — and the Billionaire Shell Game
This case is linked to a larger pattern exposed by the Pandora Papers — a massive investigation by journalists into how world leaders, celebrities, CEOs, and corporations hide money offshore, evade taxes, and protect their wealth in secret.
While everyday people get chased for a missed welfare report, a late tax return, or a tiny CERB overpayment, the super-wealthy use teams of accountants and lawyers to create fake companies, shuffle money around the globe, and avoid paying their fair share. And often — they get away with it.
🌍 Why Should We Care?
Because this missing tax money could pay for affordable housing, public healthcare, addiction services, and education.
Because while the rich hide their money, governments cut services and raise taxes on the rest of us.
Because it sends the message that rules only apply to the poor.
How is it fair that someone can steal hundreds of thousands in taxes — and just get a suspended sentence and a fine — while people who steal food or survive off social assistance are demonized, surveilled, and punished?
🔍 Not Just in Spain
This isn’t just about Europe. Here in Canada, money laundering has distorted our housing market, especially in British Columbia. Billions of dollars in laundered funds have flowed through casinos, luxury real estate, and shell companies — contributing to the housing crisis we live with today.
In 2019, B.C.'s own Cullen Commission investigated the scope of money laundering in the province. What they found was shocking — and yet, few meaningful consequences followed. The system is still wide open for abuse.
✊ Time to Remember. Time to Demand Change.
This is not just about Ancelotti. It’s about a broken system. When the wealthy cheat the system, they cheat all of us. And when they get away with it — quietly, with a fine or suspended sentence — it normalizes corruption.
We can't let these stories just slip away. We have to keep asking:
Where is the justice?
Why do we punish the poor and excuse the rich?
How can we close these loopholes and hold the elite accountable?
💭 Reflective Questions:
How would your life be different if governments collected and used those billions in lost taxes to support public services?
Have you ever been penalized or scrutinized for a small financial mistake — while stories like these go ignored?
Surviving on $26.74 in Vancouver: Stories from the Edge
By Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita
This morning I saw a job posting: $26.74 an hour — part-time — years of experience and education required.
And it hit me. Again.
How broken this system is.
Let’s break this down:
Rent in Vancouver for a 1-bedroom averages $2,500+.
On $26.74/hour part-time? You’re lucky to make $2,100/month — before taxes.
What happens when you’re a parent, or a senior, or someone drowning in student debt?
What happens when you’re just trying to survive in a city built for the rich, supported by a system designed to profit off the rest of us?
Let me introduce you to some imaginary—yet painfully real—voices from Vancouver’s underbelly:
Maria, 38, Social Worker
“I did everything right. I got my degree, then my master’s. I just wanted to help people. Now I’m $80K in debt, working part-time for less than a living wage. My teenage son works evenings to help with groceries. That’s not okay.”
Raymond, 67, Retired Construction Worker
“I built condos I could never afford. Now I rent a moldy suite from someone who wasn’t born when I started pouring concrete. My pension’s a joke. I spent a lifetime working and still ended up poor.”
Ayesha, 24, Immigrant Caregiver
“They needed caregivers, so I came. I clean toilets, change diapers, and sleep in a shared room. My degree doesn’t count here. I send money back home and eat rice every day.”
Lena, 52, Admin Assistant & Caregiver
“My daughter has a disability. I work two jobs. One’s just to keep the extended health plan. They want a degree for $26/hour part-time. Meanwhile, I skip meals to afford my daughter’s medicine.”
Jasmine, 17, High School Student
“My mom couldn’t afford rent anymore. I live on friends’ couches. I want to graduate, maybe be a writer. But how do you focus on homework when your stomach’s growling?”
This is Vancouver.
This is Canada.
And this is why we need to talk.
Our city is being polished and sold to the highest bidder while the people who actually make it run are being priced out, worn down, and erased from the narrative.
The industrial system demands productivity.
The education system promises mobility.
The bureaucracy wraps it all in red tape and polite language.
But who holds it all up? Women. Children. Seniors. The poor. The invisible. The silenced.
It’s time we listened.
It’s time we questioned every job ad, every budget, every salary cap for CEOs of “non-profits” that do nothing for the people they claim to serve.
It’s time we told real stories.
If you see yourself in these voices, know that you are not alone.
And if you don’t — listen harder.
I heard that Clark is going to raise the welfare rates..what a joke...lie... and John Horgan ...a big $100 a month is nothing and WILL NOT HELP!! So many poor are not on welfare, can't get it, refuse it and if they need disability or IE they are not eligible SO GET WITH THE PROGRAM!! Many would rather live on the streets, and horrible often dangerous situations than be screwed over and over and over by the welfare system.
No Clark or MASS HYSTERIA in the streets!!
Let me tell you how really F*K'D things are here in Vancouver. There is a lovely Filipino lady who has just returned to her job after taking a year off to look after her newborn child. Guess what!! She has no day care, she can only work when her husband isn't working.
Now let's look a little closer. She has looked around but she can't find anyone she trusts or will work for a wage that even makes it worthwhile to work.
I mean think about it, you have a child ...so you can ACTUALLY raise it yourself, NOT some lovely Filipino nanny, which by the way is how this lovely woman came to Canada. She looked after another poor woman's child, that couldn't do it herself...because she had to WORK to support herself and child and possibly with the help of a husband.
So now we've come FULL CIRCLE. The Filipino nanny immigrated, married, had a child but she can't afford to stay at home and raise the child herself, as is, it's 1. 5 hour commute to the job she is returning to.. and so you need someone to work 8 hours + another 3 or more for traveling time.
People must charge $15 an hour to survive, Daycares were outrages in the early 2000's, I can't imagine now... I remember it being $700 a month if they were potty trained, $900 for babies...something insane.
So even at ...minumum wage is $10.45 (I think it is) but that's not going to happen.
Any they wonder why women and children are having a problem with POVERTY & HOMELESSNESS.
The irony of the whole thing is if people get helped out now, with daycare and housing and stuff. AGAIN I fall through the loophole. I was born and raised and worked my whole life here, in BC and had and raised my child here. When I needed, whether is was WCB, Welfare, EI ( I had to cash my RSVP's to take a course) , banks (Student loans ) they have SCREWED me over and over.
So when people come here and get the benefits and they buy homes and they go to nice schools it pisses me off a bit.
Then I look at the abuse First Nations, their land- unceded territories, the treaties, the DTES, the Opoid Crisis and I get really pissed. I guess they figure if they can't force us into poverty and /or jail then they will build a pipeline and poison us and the land and take are the rights and money.
I think about my Gr. Gr. Grandma who was actually from here and her family the last 13,000 + years and how she felt when she saw what was happening.. What did my grandparents think... what damage was done by my immigrant grandparents...
But let's fast forward to 2001 and onwards....
I have ALWAYS believed that all of us women who were victimized by Gordon Campbell's cuts and continued with Christy Clark's antics WE DESERVE COMPENSATION!!
We deserve compensation for undo stress, suffering, pain, anguish, harassment (I was harassed by bill collectors ) and our children, they have paid with their mental and physical health. I believe that Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark should pay. I think politicians should pay for their #CrimesAgainstHumanity
They should be charged and made to pay and made to do some hard labour. Like clean people homes and toilets, vacuum, wash floors on hands and knees and really see how the other side lives because if she ever understood it, she forgot...and if not then she needs to experience it.
Oh I as an extra give her a nice dose of bed bugs.(not really- I wouldn't wish them on my worse enemy...but then again she may be my worst enemy...) I remember that someone said that of poor Jagrup...as they said "you truly haven't lived until you've experienced that. "
Well I am really glad people went out to protest about the insanity of housing in Vancouver.
It's funny, well not really funny, but odd how people outside Vancouver sort of blow it off and go well that's why I'd never live in the city, it's too expensive...
But things are really getting cRaZy and it's been that way about 15 years now.
My grandparents had a home here, my aunt and uncle moved here from the prairies, I remember having sleep overs at my grandmas and going to the 5 & dime to get things. 5 & dime was like a $dollar store today only it had washer machines..I think. I have a vague memory of my grandma looking for a washer for my mom...and then she bought me pink socks...and then me crying on the bus all the way home because I wanted my mom. That was about 50 years ago...
My how things have changed. My dad built a house here but sold it and moved to Surrey and then up to Dogwood Valley.
It took me along time to get back to Vancouver and it was never my intention to stay. Cities do that to you. They suck you in and won't let you go.
There's a lot of things I love and a lot that I hate. I hate the poverty, the lack of housing, the ridiculous rents, that people treat housing as a commodity, that every thing is so warped and we forget that this land was not supposed to be owned.
It's UNCEDED COAST SALISH TERRITORY. It's not yours or mine, it was stolen through disease and greed and then just people coming here to escape their own persecutions in Europe.
You have to wonder if it's all a very evil plan to wipe out First Nations, so that all the land can be stolen and sold to foreigners.
WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!! I SHOUT!!
But no one hears...well maybe a few but the rest are asleep, just living day to day, working, surviving, caught up in trying to find an F_____G place to live.
We are homeless. We are what you call relative homeless. We must live with someone else because we can NOT afford our own home. My stuff has been in storage 4 years. It makes me really sad.
On the bright side, we are blessed. We live in a nice area and while we are cramped in the space we live, we are for the most part happy and SO GRATEFUL because SO MANY others DO NOT have homes.
HALT- https://haltvancouver.org/
Who We Are:
Housing Action for Local Taxpayers (HALT) is a non-partisan community action group demanding that all levels of Canadian government address our current foreign money-fuelled housing crisis.
Our Mission:
We believe that if you work hard, contribute to your community and pay
your fair share of local income taxes, that you deserve to have an
affordable home. It’s that simple. We are looking to level the playing
field for local citizens. We want to be your voice to ensure that all
levels of government take our concerns seriously.
Here
is a wonderful speech by Judy Williams. This was today at the
#yvrSleepOver . Sadly not to many people came but it was a great day to
connect and 2 people were invited in to speak with someone from City
Hall Housing, so that was something. Right now we are just a mosquito
in the room but hopefully we can motivate others and next time create a
bigger buzz!
THANK YOU JUSTIN TRUDEAU!!
Your dad must be so proud. He is smiling down at you and your mom must be SUPER PROUD!! and you wife and kids. This is a really big thing. Maybe Christy Clark will take a lesson from you. Maybe all politicians, and people of wealth will wake up and realize it's important to help us, help parents and kids because it's f____g hard to survive in this world. Anyways THANK YOU AGAIN! VERY GRATEFUL!!
THANK YOU also to Jean-Yves Duclos- YOU ROCK TOO!!!
"The poverty rate for children in Canada will fall from about 11.2 per
cent to 6.7 per cent," says Jean-Yves Duclos, the federal minister of
Families, Children and Social Development, which is responsible for the
program.
HEY JUSTIN, if anyone tries to give you any flack you just show them this clip!! Ha! Ha!
"Doesn't make the better citizens, doesn't it make them better customers?"
It's a beautiful day! I am so grateful!
The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There's no room No space to rent in this town
You're out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you're not moving anywhere
You thought you'd found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace
It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
You're on the road
But you've got no destination
You're in the mud
In the maze of her imagination
You're lovin' this town
Even if that doesn't ring true
You've been all over
And it's been all over you
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day
Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me I know I'm not a hopeless case
See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out
It was a beautiful day Don't let it get away Beautiful day
Touch me
Take me to that other place Reach me I know I'm not a hopeless case
What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
Don't need it now
Was a beautiful day
Thank you again!! Big Hugs of Gratitude coming your way!!
Just listened a little to Christy Clark about the shadow flipping and homes. She is so off base- so many people are.
She talks about how these people bought homes and hung on to them 40
years and now they should be allowed to sell and make profits. This is
where EVERYONE is going wrong.
Before people passed the land on
to their children. Now there's nothing to pass, just a condo and there's
lots of rules with condos...so they sell and split the money and then
there is nothing left because it's not enough to buy any LAND.
NOT ONLY THAT why does everyone claim a right to that land when it's
Unceded Salish Territory...so no one here really owns the land
technically.
Why are people allowed to be so wealthy but not the
First Nations that were born and raised here or anywhere in BC. and
many places in Canada. It is a very complex problem.
Especially when people inherited land from family, when they look down on others who were not fortunate to receive that same.
This poverty issue can not be solved easily. But it's everyone human
right to have food and shelter - UN Declaration- article 25. and something has got to
give.
People need to stop being so selfish and actually share.
Unfortunately the last generation, most of the boomers were taught it's
all about them and they are "spending their kids inheritance" but that
is so so wrong and goes against everything. And they have taught it to
their kids and that's why we have kids valuing $4000 purses and $100,000
cars.
The values are lost, mixed up. She was saying people in
the stock market and google - if they made a lot of money you wouldn't
take that away...well, yes I would, because it's not right for some to
be super rich and others to be super poor. It's wrong.
You are not supposed to own land...we only supposed to use it ...and share...
Here's hoping the next generation wises up and sets things straight.
------------------------------------------------------------- But I need to add a bit. How did I come to my conclusions?
I have seen it happen and felt it personally and I try to warn others.
I saw and experienced in Bucerias, when I was first pregnant was Angel. We left Zipolite because it was just after 9/11 and it was a ghost town, it always is in Sept & October and no tourists.
So I went to Bucerias to do web design. While living there, the only place I could afford was on the OTHER side of the highway. All the wealthy Canadians and Americans own the beachfront homes.
How do I know, well I knew Bucerias when it really was a sleepy little village back in 1988 or so.
And at that time a man from the states (moved there because his wife had passed) and started a new life building and selling real estate. Boy did that town change!!!!!!
It was while living on that side of the highway I experienced many issues of poverty and it brought enlightenment and it humbled me.
Imagine my surprise upon returning to Canada, pregnant and alone (by choice and because of finances) that I would be plunged into poverty.
No one will hire a pregnant woman in CANADA. And the welfare system would only give me $525 a month.
And I am sure this is true today, nothing has changed.
I had tons of debt from years of education that I took on because WCB would not fund retraining for me because they didn't recognize tendonitis at that time as a life long chronic condition that would limit my work capabilities and I was also downsized by an evil corporation that actually in time dismantled the entire company. (I had been making $45,000 year- mostly o.t. and very long hours) but silly me I paid most of it to Student Loans, rent, commuting and food.
Anyways Fast Forward to now...I saw what has been happening hear for the last 15 years and I started warning people ...saying we need policies to stop people from selling all the land to rich people- let alone rich foreigners.
When I was living in Nelson I found out the true Nelsonites sold out and moved when the housing market skyrocketed and they because a tourist vacation town, that struggles with poverty because there is only business when the tourists come and many of them are Vancouverites and Calgarians that sold their homes and moved there...and vacation half the year there and half in Mexico.
And that is lovely and all but it wreaks havoc with the housing situation.
I had heard that Singapore had rules that you couldn't buy land or cars, you can only rent. I thought that was crazy but then I realized that most islands have rules like this. Rarotonga when I visited has a rule if you stay more than a month you pay. This is to protect the original people born and raised there.
In BC, do you know how people got the land?
Through disease. Smallpox wiped out most of the First Nations and they got it from the Europeans that came here. Whether on purpose or unwittingly they killed off most of the people and then forced them to reservations by withholding food and medicine. They also gave them alcohol, so they used addiction to get what they needed.
Once that happened they stole their children and forced them into Residential schools where horrific abuses happened to them. Many of their families turned to alcholism to cope with loosing their children, their language and spiritual rights. They were not allowed Potlatches. This was a vital part of their lives.
The First Nations believe you shared the land, you didn't own it. Anyways they got pummeled and now people think they are entitled to their lands because their parents and grandparents somehow recieved it. Or they have come here from somewhere else and invested.
There is huge inequality here.
In my sweet little Zipolite I was very very afraid this would happen to their land. That developers would come in and somehow break up the Ejido and it can be done, people are very sneaky.
Anyways, once it happens, that is it and if you look at Punta de Mita near Bucerias, that's exactly what happened. They bought everyone and moved them out of a gorgeous prime property so that they could put in resorts and golf courses.
Vancouver is like that on a grand scale. We've been bought and are being sold and people are caught in the middle and we have this huge poverty issue GROWING AND GROWING. And the rich are saying "Well isn't that too bad" "We are Canadians we should help" isn't that what Christie Clark said. But she is truly clueless on what it is to be homeless.
Until you actually experience poverty, joblessness, homelessness, hopelessness you will never truly get it. And I wouldn't wish that on anyone but you walk under the bridge and see the homeless people living there for the last 6 months...maybe a year...and HOW DO YOU PEOPLE working in the downtown WALK BY all the hungry homeless people EVERYDAY as you go to your jobs...how do you do that, day in and day out...as you buy your fancy suits, shoes, cars....
Don't you realize SOME THING IS WRONG!! VERY VERY WRONG!
Anyways when you begin to try and buy that house and you realize that you don't have enough because you have to pay off the $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ of student load debt and the $$$$$ rent and the $$$$$ groceries and you wonder how you will ever have enough to have a home and a family...and perhaps you find yourself 32, 34, 37 and no baby and suddenly it's a baby or ??? and you go for it and are blessed, does anyone help you and find you a home and help you with food. NO!!!
And they wonder why women put off having kids and why these men are on the internet all the times searching for something....because we are lost.
We are lost souls trying to find our way back to the land.
It's definitely not an easy issue to fix. I could be if we stopped being fixated on status and wealth and mass production of food, energy and pollution.
Well that's my 2 cents worth.
I know I am not alone. I didn't do anything bad. Life keeps kicking me in the ass, I keep getting back up, sometimes people actually reach out and pull me up...but I often fall back into the poverty pit because as Bernie says it's "rigged system"
It's true, the banks have rigged it all, with everything, the land, the education, the politicians. We are all f___d up.
And when you have cities that care more about bike lanes and a street car, than food and gardens to feed people, when you have cities and governments and corporations that care more about flooding our "Bread basket" than going green and listening to the people, when you have governments and corporations that want to kill Canada's second largest salmon run...and there is no affordable housing, that women and children live in unhealthy situations due to not being able to support themselves...LOOK,LOOK into the FUTURE....
what do you see....LOOK TEN YEARS AHEAD....
Will Vancouver wake up and share the wealth and take care of the people, treat everyone equally, give us food and shelter...
or will we have a very dark scary MAD MAXX thing happening.
IT WILL HAPPEN IF YOU DON'T MAKE CHANGES.
Change begins with you and me....please start today!
This is a prototype I created at Emily Carr, it's for a app/game that I was hoping to enlighten this generation to the changes that are necessary if human life is to continue on this planet. It's based on a vision I had. This is extremely simplistic but the message is simple but not easy. Great choices must be made. It will come down to good vs evil. It always does...please let good win. Share! Share the wealth. Change your ways....get others to change too. http://thechangerzz.blogspot.ca/
I just hope the Americans see the opportuinity they have and vote for Bernie. Elizabeth May speaks about similar ideas. Please share this video. Wouldn't that be wonderful is Elizabeth May was PM and Bernie was President!!
Did you hear how Christie Clark and Richard Branson had an issue this week.
He suggested that she come kite surfing with him, naked, on his back.... EWWWW! and then he apologized on Twitter.
There is everything soooooo sooooooooooooo wrong with all of it.
Now I don't even like Christie Clark- as a politician...but that's besides the point .... the main thing I want to point out is that Why! Why would he think that the Kitesurfing thing was okay. Boggles my mind.
I used to think Richard Branson was this super cool intelligent guy...oops, my mistake...or maybe just his mistake but he has the money, he could fix it.
I have no issues with nudity, but there's a time and place and taking a photo of a woman in that way is so degrading and really disrespectful to all women. And to flaunt it and tweet it...What was he thinking??
Maybe your not well Richard?
Why are women being Miss Represented in the Media like this? You would never see a man like that?
And why did that women do that and why would she/they have a photo taken and let it be released for everyone to see. (Obviously money and misguided)
I'm not perfect and I've made mistakes.
Richard sort of apologized.
Richard have you seen this video? I think you should watch it and if you were a very "WISE" man, and if you love women, children, people, mankind you will put some of those big bucks into Stopping the Miss Representation of Women.
I'm not going to post that photo or any links to it. If you didn't see it, I'm sure you can google it. But I won't be a part of exploiting the miss representation of women in the media.
Paul McCartney just got married again. Wow! Let's hope it's much happier than last time. That was a nightmare.
I like the sound of this lady, she sounds very low key.
Wow, is he ever frigging rich though. Shocking that some people can
be so rich. Can't wrap my head around it.
In this article(below) it states that he has $770 million, truthfully it sort of makes me want to throw up.
What a weird distorted world we live in.
People starving and yet someone has this incredible wealth. I just hope he is sharing it, or he does when he dies...but will we be here,
Mother Earth is pretty sick and who knows how long she will hold up.
How will our children fair?Paul if your listening, I hope you start
a bunch of Edible Schoolyards and Survival schools because our kids are going to need them if the rich just keep wasting all the money
on silly things and the poor get poorer.
Something has got to give and that's just logical.
I love the Beatles, don't get me wrong, I grew up with them, my older sister listened to them and went to there concerts so it was ingrained
in me.
Their music shaped me. I just hope that what was reaped from all that love and devotion to the music and be returned and shared with
the world...the children of the world.
