Do you know why we Canarians have a lower life expectancy than almost all of Spain? No, it's not the climate, or the sea salt, or that we eat too many wrinkled potatoes. It's because they are killing us alive. Little by little, with the cynical patience of someone who steals your house, leaves you without a doctor and then tells you with a smile how lucky you are to live in paradise.
We used to be the place where people lived the longest, and now we are becoming a second-class statistic. The Canary Islands has the second lowest life expectancy in the country. And no, it's no coincidence. It has to do with the fact that young people here can't stay. Because there is no housing. Because what little there is costs more than a mortgage in Madrid, but with miserable salaries and contracts that last less than a candle in Fuerteventura on a day of haze.
The Canary Islands is today the backyard playground of half of Europe. Everything for the tourist, nothing for the Canarian. They build hotels, resorts, vacation homes, but they tell you that there is no land to build public housing. And on top of that, they have the nerve to blame bureaucracy! The same one that disappears when it comes to licenses for a golf course or a beach club.
And in the meantime, those from Coalición Canaria take photos in Fitur, as if they were ministers of a country that does not exist. And the PP, with its usual (non-existent) social sensitivity, is limited to defending the interests of those who have the most. They are the same ones who have been managing urban planning, health, the economy... for years, and the result is obvious: an exiled youth, a collapsed health system and a population that, literally, lives less.
But yes, the Canary Islands brand continues to be sold as exotic, healthy and peaceful. For those who come from outside, of course. For the average Canarian, what there is is anxiety, salaries that don't even cover a shared rent, eternal waiting lists and a future that is bought on Ryanair if you want to survive.
We don't die sooner for no reason. They kill us every day that a young person is forced to emigrate. They kill us when a mother sleeps in the living room because her thirty-year-old son cannot become independent. They kill us when they prioritize hotels over hospitals, tourists over neighbors, and cement over dignity.
The Canary Islands does not have a life expectancy problem. It has a problem of shameless politicians, conflicting interests and a people that is beginning to wake up. Because either we wake up, or they continue selling us as a postcard decoration while they bury us before the rest of the country.
Enough is enough. We don't want to live longer to serve better. We want to live better, so we don't have to leave. Because this land is ours, even if they want to rent it to us for nights.
