A Universal Basic Income Is Being Considered by Canada's Government

As an fella from that country right beneath Canada, I hope something like this works, would love to watch our neighbors in the north do something awesome while we fail to do it for decades and decades.

Small nuance compared to the title

The Senate’s national finance committee will study a bill on October 17 which would create a national framework for—but not actually implement—UBI, according to a press release

Canada doesn't even give people on disability enough to afford rent, let alone groceries, power bills, car insurance, etc.

Maybe start there. Help the disabled survive.

If you're a fellow Canuck, here's a petition to get this realised. It's not much, but it's something.

How will I know now if Im better than someone else if they aren't homeless or begging? /s

The hexbears would be very upset about this if they could read.

This needs to happen and make it so some Conservative government can't come in and undo it willy nilly. These current Conservative fucks want to attack the CPP and aren't having much luck federally so they're using Alberta to do it. Fuck Conservatives, never vote for them. We need electoral reform ASAP as well so we can stop having our Conservatives get radicalized like the shit political system south of us.

I keep seeing small scale UBI experiments 'proving' that recipients thrive more. But as I see it that's not the part that needs proving.

I'm very curious to see how they roll this out. I'm a big advocate for UBI, so this is super uplifting news. I really think this will benefit a lot of people!

Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it?

Because otherwise this is basically corporate welfare at best, and inflationary at worst.

I know this is just first small step but still excited to see it happening. Every wildfire needs a first spark, let's just hope it spreads,

I am on ssi, which is as close as America has to a program like this, and I honestly don't understand how people survive without the guarantee that there's going to be money in the bank next month. I mean even if you have a job, job security is getting rare these days with all the jobs that get created being those with high turnover rates.

Walmart and Amazon are going to have to start taking people off of their hire Blacklist because they basically gone through the entire Workforce at this point.

Or at the very least drop the no felons policy, there are more legal crackdowns on those kinds of things anyway, and pretty much every human's rights advocate worth their salt is eager to point out how punishing ex-convicts by denying the access to food, medicine, and a steady paycheck, is only going to encourage them to become better criminals, when the option ultimately boils down to rob a gas station or don't eat.

Okay I am literally a published author, and that being a single sentence hurt me to write.

Can someone explain to me how exactly doesn't every corporation raise prices pretty much immediately? Like, they know that everyone has some cash extra every month, so they just raise their prices to get it into their pockets.

This is the one part of basic income I never quite understood.

Let's go! To the future!

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I'm an idiot, so please jump in here if I'm getting this wrong.

Per the article, predicted program cost is $88 billion per year. Divide by Canada's adult population of ~33 million, so, ~$2700 per person per year, minus administrative costs and bloat, so, say $2k per year.

Well, I definitely wouldn't turn down a cheque if I qualified for it, and I don't want to come off as complaining about a program that doesn't even exist yet. But, $2k doesn't sound like an amount that any person could function on. That's less than one month's rent almost everywhere in this country. It's like, a 6" subway sandwich per day. Something something middle class, I seem to remember a certain federal party saying during election time. Why not simply lower taxes in a targeted way?

In what way is this amount 'basic'? What's the point of embarking on this whole investigative song & dance over a few extra bucks per day? What actually is the minimum amount necessary to function as an individual in this country? I think I know why the government isn't investigating that question.

I'm not against UBI as a concept. This $88b program, if that number is correct, seems like it's not even worth investigating. Am I crazy?

"Hmm... No."

Why not just cap the prices of essential goods and services

I've always been a big proponent of UBI. But after speaking with my communist brother recently he opened my eyes to something. If UBI get's implemented, big corporations will just increase prices and completely/partially negate it.

What we need is a NEEDS income. We establish what are basic needs, housing, healthcare, food, etc.. and make sure that all of these needs are met.

Isnt this just going to lower the value of the currency aka inflation?

How do they plan to finance this?

I really, really, really hope they try it out. Maybe then when the economy is destroyed with inflation, those plebs will shut up and stop asking for it.

Though there's always the fear that they make excuses to justify that it wasn't "done right". Who knows... where have I seen that before? 🤔