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.
- If Universal Basic Income becomes commonplace the United States will probably be the last country on earth to adapt.
  
  nah there's always the Congo
  
  I was going to say Cuba, but then I remembered the healthcare is better than America already.
- As is tradition.
- Your neighbors in the north have something like that already. Alaska redistributes income from oil companies to their people. IIRC it's only ~150$ per month, but that's pretty good nonetheless!
  
  $150 a month would cover several bills for us. Does each individual get it or is it per household? Because if it's per individual (presuming adults only), that's $300, which would cover some debt too. So yeah, pretty good!
- We legalized weed, which is cool af, but we made living otherwise impossibly prohibitively expensive.
  
  Oh just you watch out we're one Republican presidency away from oxygen and fresh water being a limited resource.
- Yeah I would love to see them do it. I mean hopefully it works and we can use it as a reference. If it fails, well that's their program.
  Unfortunately they will bungle this shit the same way the fucked up their healthcare and it will just be a disaster.
- Because their taxes aren't high enough, right? You think they print separate money to give away? Elementary school level math here dude. Like their awesome "free" health care that they come across the border daily and pay cash to avoid? You must not be in a border state.
  
  I lived in the north my whole life. Never came across this situation. Is there a statistic for this?

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
- They’re considering thinking about talking about it.
  
  Hey, any progress is progress. I'm not a fan of the liberal government right now but just the fact that they are talking about this and (hopefully) implementing some sort of structure for it is a big deal imo. I think UBI is a good idea but I would imagine implementing it successfully is going to be a very difficult task.
  
  And its looking like conservicrooks are gong to get back in soon which means all talk of this plan will die the second that happens
  
  The Senate is actually doing something interesting for once, but the Senate doesn't usually put forward legislation, and they're completely unable to put forward spending bills. And on top of that, they're not The Government.
  
  Just Canadian government things.
- Don’t we already have that framework with EI, AISH, and the more recent CERB payments?
  If everyone gets it we can streamline a ton of stuff by removing all the positions that we current use to scrutinize whether or not people deserve EI, AISH, CERB, whatever.
  No bi-weekly reporting would also decrease the demand on the servers. Once you’re signed up, you get it and you only need to log in to change your bank info.
  
  Yep that’s the gist of it. That’s where it becomes cheaper than what we currently do.

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.
- And God forbid you're under 65 and disabled. Big load of "fuck you" from the government.
- This is actually a big reason why there are so many opponents of the MAID law.
  Too many people with disabilities are taking the euthanasia option simply because, they don't have any way to live.
  
  Which is simply despicable euthanasia has to be chosen, a sign of a broken system all the way around.
- UBI is supposed to replace other need-based social programs such as disability, welfare programs, government housing, etc. The entire point is that the money from those programs, which collectively have quite a lot of waste, goes into UBI so everyone can participate in society on a more fair level.
  Also read the reply to that comment for an example of the waste: https://lemmy.world/comment/4589897
  There's basically an entire industry dedicated to denying and minimizing payouts. With UBI, that entire industry becomes obsolete.
  If UBI is done properly, it replaces those other social programs. The payouts are bigger and for more people, and the program administration costs are smaller.
- My friend is on disability and bring home the equivalent of $20 dollars an hour in a province with a minimum of $15. From my understanding he is on one of the lowest tiers of the benefit. There are a huge variety of levels of disability benefits depending on the type of disability.
  My aunt is on disability from the military and brings home over 6000 a month. We definitely need to cut the military budget.
  LPC is at least forcing grocery stores to have fair pricing.
  
  There's a difference between disability paid as income assistance from government services, and disability from private insurance.
  Even at the maximum disability allowance, you get about $15.50 a DAY.
  
  In Ontario, disability gets you $1200 per month if you are lucky and max out everything. Most people get $800-900.
  For one person on disability, you get $497 for rent. You wont even find a ROOM for $497.
  Tell me where you can even rent and pay utilities for less, let alone groceries, clothes, etc.

If you're a fellow Canuck, here's a petition to get this realised. It's not much, but it's something.
- I'm not sure I want this to happen. I'll read the bill, but I'm not convinced they'll do it right. For example, UBI is supposed to replace other need-based social programs such as disability, welfare programs, government housing, etc. The entire point is that the money from those programs, which collectively have quite a lot of waste, goes into UBI so everyone can participate in society on a more fair level.
  For example, I have a neighbour who is on some kind of government assistance. He gets very little money, and his rent for an entire house is $105/mo. With UBI, he'd get a full basic income, but his housing would no longer be subsidized, removing the need for a public housing corporation known for being awful and wasting money.
  
  Yes.
  This is the thing people don't understand about a ubi.
  I had a coworker who's wife was a... Case manager? For welfare. Her whole job was determining whether or not people were lying/exaggerating about various elements of their claim.
  First of all, government union paper pushers make decent money. There was an entire office full of people that covered cases in their region only.
  Second, it's a soul sucking job. Her primary assumption was that everyone was cheating and lying and she needed to minimize everyone's payout.
  UBI solves both of those things and by plugging it directly into the tax system people can be free to try to earn a better living, which studies have shown most people want when they are given a UBI.
  Increased productivity, increased employment, increased entrepreneurship, increased mental health outcomes, there is literally no downside except for needing to tax the rich.
  
  The housing crisis needs to be addressed separately. There is 7 times the amount of housing needed to house the homeless
  There shouldn’t be homeless in Canada at all regardless the income. This Airbnb bullshit breaking cities needs to stop.
  
  UBI is supposed to replace other need-based social programs such as disability, welfare programs, government housing, etc.
  Not necessarily, or, better put, some programs should be replaced, others not, and the general dividing line is "do people need approximately the same amount of money for this, or not". Blind people, for example, are always going to pay more for a basic computer setup with Braille readers and whatnot than sighted people, so such programmes shouldn't be axed. Housing and transportation costs might differ between cities, thus the amount you get paid out in UBI for it should probably differ by residence -- the difference doesn't need to fill the whole e.g. rural/city divide, but it should take the edge off. When it comes to e.g. food though prices are probably approximately the same pretty much everywhere (at least in places with supermarkets), and everyone's eating approximately the same amount, so everyone should get the same.
  No, an UBI isn't going to slash administrative effort to zero, ever. But it doesn't have to. If you ask me all the people doing penny-pinching right now should be retained in the fist place, it doesn't harm to have an excess of social workers, and those that don't fancy that kind of work can move to the tax office and go after billionaires instead.
  
  He gets very little money, and his rent for an entire house is $105/mo. With UBI, he'd get a full basic income, but his housing would no longer be subsidized, removing the need for a public housing corporation known for being awful and wasting money.
  It sounds like there's some good and some bad that would come from that in his particular case. I don't live in Canada and haven't read the bill, but is the income he'd receive close to enough to afford housing? If not his current housing, then at least not slums or whatever?
- It doesn't ask you any ID, even non-Canadians could sign this petition lmao.
  
  There isn’t a person on the planet who will input their personal ID to sign an online petition. The number of non-Canadians who care enough to tilt the petition is probably relatively low. It’d be a huge barrier to participation.
  
  If you have a link to a more official one, please post it, thanks.
  
  I never sign petitions like this unless it is directly submitted to the government through it's own petition system. Everything else is just a way to hoover up information on the pretext of helping.
- Is that a real petition that the government will actually look at or a meme one like all the others?
  
  Depends on how many people sign it, I would imagine.

How will I know now if Im better than someone else if they aren't homeless or begging? /s
- I think the real problem will be, “how do we stop landlords from jacking up rent simply because everyone has some extra money now?”
  
  The same way we do with minimum wage: competition among landlords.
  
  Along with companies raising prices of items. As a non Canadian, I'll be curious to watch this play out.
- I wonder how UBI would affect homelessness and addiction. I imagine the mental health and housing crises would continue, but differently?
  
  In all of the studies of UBI homelessness decreased. I don't know about addiction, but drug abuse is generally reduced with increased economic stability since a lot of people use to escape their stressful living situatuon.
  
  Capitalism will find a way to fuck it up
  
  In practice during covid, it made it worse. People came to BC, Canada explicitly because it had the best covid benefits, and on TV said that they were collecting the benefits for the purpose of doing drugs with zero intent on helping society.
- Human beings will always find a way to show they are better than everyone else.

Please do this, and do it right, Canada, so your neighbors to the South can use you as an example in trying to push for the same.
- This won't work in the US because we NEED some sort of national health care system first.
  We'll be shoveling money into medical debt even with UBI.
  
  While I agree with you overall, it's not like it would be a bad thing if a whole bunch of folks who currently choose between healthcare and eating could start choosing both.
  
  The health care system in Canada isn’t that great right now. There is a huge shortage of doctors. You have to get prescriptions diagnosed and filled from the pharmacist and they are moving people into urgent care (you don’t see a doctor you see a nurse) as there is no doctors. the best you can hope for is you’re not in a situation where where you’re looked at by spiteful nursing staff who determine if you’re allowed to live. Or that you’re not in a hole between antibiotics where you’re hoping you can live long enough that someone will see you before the sepsis takes you.
- Lol I wish. I genuinely do. But as long as we stay stubbornly opposed to basic shit that the rest of the world is doing like providing everyone with healthcare and maternity leave and stuff, there's no way.
- The US isn't exactly known for imitating the best aspects of other countries...
  We're much better at creating giant problems, and spending decades pointing fingers over whose fault they are.

The hexbears would be very upset about this if they could read.
- Holy shoehorn, Batman.
- Why?
  
  Because liberals can't beat Leninists to sustainable socialism
- Apparently any dumb post trying to dunk on hexbear will amass upvotes, no matter how nonsensical and sloppy.

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.
- Good job making this about labels and blame!

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.
- what's the part that needs proving?
  
  That it can scale up to an entire society. That it can be sustained indefinitely, or can be made self-sustaining.

Are we going to tax the wealthy to pay for it?
Because otherwise this is basically corporate welfare at best, and inflationary at worst.
- How would this be corporate welfare? It's been shown that a UBI is less expensive than what is wasted on the overhead of need-based welfare systems, and eliminates the poverty trap where making more money (such as from overtime or a small raise) disqualifies your household from a higher value of welfare benefits that you would otherwise qualify for.
  
  Because it allows companies extracting extreme profit from labour, paying their upper management exorbitantly and their labourers starvation wages to just keep doing that.
  Edit:
  There seems to be a significant misunderstanding of my post.
  The question posed was "How could one understand this to be corporate welfare", in conjunction with the previous qualifier of "If the rich aren't subsidizing the program"
  I'm not against UBI.
  I AM against record profits. Profits are the extraction of surplus value from labour. Profits are unpaid wages.
  The fact that we have an environment where a working person can not meet their basic needs while their employers take in record profits is a massive problem.
  If the wealth transfer happens by way of increased wages, fine. If it happens by way of government transfers via UBI paid for by those same corporations, fine.
  The premise to which I was responding was one where the wealthy were NOT the ones footing the bill.
- if the capitalist class isn't up in arms about all this then there's a very good, very profitable, reason.
  
  They probably just don't take it seriously. And they're probably right.
  
  This is just another way to keep up the mythical "infinite" growth. Just a little bump as things are starting to stagnate. More money to people = more business = growth.
  I think this is the reason why capitalism will keep working properly. Can't keep growing if you can't find more people who can pay for your goods or services.
  Or maybe I'm just too naive.
- How on earth is this corporate welfare?
  The only possible way I can see someone interpreting this as corporate welfare is if you're already so corpo pilled that you think a corporation should be required to pay for an employee's social services instead of thinking that a human's basic needs shouldn't be tied to their employment.
  
  I'll try to explain my concern with UBI, because I'm genuinely curious:
  It seems like it lets employers off the hook for paying a living wage; in this sense, it's like food stamps in the US: we're socializing the costs of underpaying people
  If it isn't paid for by increasing taxes on the top earners, this would be even more the case, since everyone but the wealthy is pooling the cost?
  I'm also confused as to how it isn't inflationary: without either price controls on necessary goods and/or public options for housing, wouldn't this result in companies raising the floor on prices and eating up the benefits of UBI?
  And this is the part that worries me, as someone who knows people on ODSP (Ontario, Canada's disability-payments system): what's to stop some jackass right-wing politician from freezing, means-testing or cutting UBI when they want to "balance the budget"?
  I like the idea of UBI in principle, but my concern is that it--especially without curbing runaway inequality on the top-end and a pivot away from neoliberal "the market does everything" policies--it doesn't really solve much at best, and at worst it's yet another way to transfer money to the wealthy and absolve government of actually providing services.
- Probably not.
  It would be the solution, though. Redistribute excess to those who have less because there is no egregious excess without egregious poverty.
  
  If they're not planning on taxing the wealthy, where is the money supposed to come from?

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!
- Well this is just the very first little baby step and would outline how we'd approach UBI. It isn't necessarily going to lead to a usable widespread solution anytime soon... but hey, positive motion!
  
  Positive motion indeed. Just having the government acknowledge UBI as a potential positive thing is good imo. We still don't even have universal dental care so realistically UBI is a long way off, but I like that it's being talked about.
  
  Oh absolutely, I'm just super jazzed that this is a serious conversation that we are having, and that there is real movement on it (however small)
  
  There's the thing though - you know how drug trials get killed because they're having too many bad effects? Experimental UBI projects have literally gotten killed off because they were so wildly effective across the board that certain groups lobbied to stop them
  Once a "white", "wealthy", Western country (that can't have an "accidental regime change") actually tries out the idea at scale, the winds are likely to change pretty quick

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,
- Every wildfire needs a first spark, let's just hope it spreads
  Still kinda too soon, didn't have a different analogy?
  
  Damn, sorry. It was the first thing that poped up in my head. We don't really have wildfires here so didn't really realize it might be sensitive phrase.
- Maybe they will be able to afford it with their economy. In other parts of the world where the situation isn't that bright, similar measures are being canceled due to lack of financial sustainability. And this is not entirely bad for the economy either. Each country is choosing and only time will tell who is making a sensible choice.
  
  UBI should have the best impact invocations with instability caused by wealth inequality and lack of job security. It is likely that includes the places where they are canceling it due to lack of financial sustainability that would most likely be more sustainable with economic stability for all.

- You underestimate the need the liberals have to show they're Doing Something^TM Since the only thing they really know how to do is sign checks, they're going to do that.
  Personally, I'm not looking forward to the day I get a check I didn't ask for and then a year and a half later they ask for it all back.
  
  You should read about it.
  I know you neeeeeeeeed to hate the non-conservative in power doing nothing for a 1% you may one day be, but get some details on it. So at least so you can rebut it point by point, and remember that you probably make way too much to get a cheque.
  
  Oh boy I love labels, blame, and bitterness with no clear purpose!

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.
- If you didn't mention the lack of periods I wouldn't have noticed.

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.
- Because of competition. Let's say Company A makes widgets and, owing to people having more money, tries to raise prices. Along comes Company B, which also makes widgets, who recognizes that they can out-compete Company A on price. So, they either don't raise their prices as much or they keep them the same. Company A is now stuck either accepting lower sales, or lowering prices to compete. Once Company A reduces prices (because they want to survive), they put Company B in the same situation until prices stabilize at some smaller profit margin.
  So basically, the exact same supply and demand curves which keep prices stable now. It's not like businesses aren't already doing everything they can to separate you from your money.
  In the end, it such a system would likely lead to some inflation. With more money in the economy, there is likely to be more demand for goods. If supply doesn't expand to match the new demand, prices will go up. At the same time, increased consumer spending is often a good thing, so long as it doesn't expand so fast that it creates shortages. It may also push up wages for unskilled workers, and those positions may now be harder to fill, commanding higher wages. It may also drive even more automation of unskilled jobs, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Those jobs are almost certainly headed for automation anyways; so, it's better for society if we get out in front of that trend and avoid having a large pool of young, unemployed and disgruntled people running amok in society. Much better to have higher taxes which are used to keep the unemployed youth at least mostly gruntled instead. But, that's bad for rich, greedy assholes who would rather walk a tight-rope of just enough bread and circuses and full on civil unrest.
  
  Because of competition
  We don’t do that well in Canada
  
  Or company A buys company B and raises prices.
  
  Ah, the famous invisible hand of the market. Doesn't work now, I'm doubtful anything will change with basic income.
- Competition.

Let's go! To the future!

"Hmm... No."
- I think the comment above is saying what the government would say... which is honestly fairly realistic.

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?
- I'm also a UBI layperson, but this is my understanding:
  Basic incomes don't need to match or exceed the cost of living to provide some of their purported benefits. One of those benefits is replacing difficult to administer welfare services (of which there are some discussions in this thread). In that way the $2700 per person per year can be more efficiently allocated (towards an ideal national gross prosperity) by the individual.
  This might solve issues like the infamous "welfare cliff" that have arisen from difficulties in administration.
  
  This is interesting, and I didn't think of it this way.
  But, if the only way welfare administration can be streamlined is to give everyone money, I'd feel guilty about taking it. Wouldn't be hard to find a way to spend $2k, sure, but knowing I didn't truly need it to make ends meet, while other people did, & maybe would have been helped even more if they had some of my share? Ach, it wouldn't feel right. It would be cool if the program was opt-out, and people who chose to opt out got a break in some other way, maybe on taxes that go to retirement savings. Maybe that's a horrible idea, I don't know.
  Anyway cheers, thanks for explaining, I appreciate it.
- The major problem is we need to nationalize a bunch of companies, take groceries for example. Were paying more than ever for the same stuff, workers wages are bare minimum and over working the staff as well so 1 person can get a multi million dollar wage? Let's put that money back into the system instead of one assholes savings account in the Bahamas where it screws over the rest of Canadians
- Watch how it eventually replaces welfare and unemployment and workman's comp.
  Now recalculate.
  
  As someone permanently disabled and on CPP this scares the shit out of me. I can not physically work due to a debilitating injury but I am still quite young and have a young family. We barely get by with my spouse working and my CPP payments. I went from making over $100k/year to $14/k a year disability just for being injured. I am not poor enough to qualify for any other assistance and I am also not sick enough to qualify for any other assistance. If my income drops again we are fucked. Seriously fucked and we are fortunate because we own our own home and our own 15 year old vehicle outright. I can't imagine what will happen if this occurs.

Why not just cap the prices of essential goods and services
- Nationalize utilities and that problem solves itself.

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.
- That's what they say about increasing minimum wage, and there's actually research proving it's not true in that case.
  
  Yep, his communist brother is full of shit. Corps aren't going to raise prices to negate it as it would just kill people's purchasing power who work. You'd effectively neuter your company pulling a stunt like that. What companies do see is a new area to pull money from.
- Agreed. And start regulating and capping the prices of the needs like housing and healthcare
  
  The fact that there are still no caps on medicine costs in America baffles me. And I am an american, do you have any idea how much a single bag of saline cost to produce? I'm not even sure it's $5, but that won't stop them from charging you thousands on the bill when you leave the hospital.
- Canada's LPC recently issued grocery stores to price their goods fairly otherwise they are going to step in and regulate.
  The same could be the same with other companies.
- The government would also need to put restrictions on how much companies can charge for basic needs . Food , power , rent etc.
- I'm so glad people are starting to see this.
  In 2008 there was a first time home buyer credit announced, and suddenly overnight every house on the market went up by about 10 grand.
  The market is only a measure of how much wealth can be squeezed out of the working class, and the market always goes up. If UBI became a thing, suddenly everyone has another 2 grand to spend, and everyone will want their cut.
  
  Those prices were going to go up anyway. They've been doing so for years before and after that credit.
- But after speaking with my communist brother recently he opened my eyes to something.
  I was certain this comment was satire at first, but now I'm not so sure.

How do they plan to finance this?
- The only way I can see this working is maybe with some sort of robo-tax (The more robots/AI a company uses, the higher their taxes). But right now it feels like chasing cars.
- How do we pay for anything?
  
  ooooh, debt

Isnt this just going to lower the value of the currency aka inflation?
- No. More people spending money doesn't cause inflation.
- No, when everyone gets a certain amount of money that money is valued the same as it was earned by only some individuals producing goods/service. /s

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? 🤔
- Imagine saying this when there was literally just a news story on Lemmy in the past day or two, about Oregon trialling a UBI dealio, with positive results. Oh and the like... piles of people who have disproven what you say a dozen times over.
  
  Oh, yes. Go ahead and do it, you short-sighted child who believes every random link online that proves his ideology. Please go ahead, I'm begging you! Implement UBI and make my dream come true! I'm really tired of having these discussions with idiots who can't do basic math.
  When you can't afford bread due to inflation, just remember that I'm on the other side of the world laughing my butt off.
- Still waiting for the evidence that CERB caused the inflation and not global supply and demand issues. Considering most nations didn't do their own version of CERB but still suffered inflation I think I'm going to be waiting forever.
  
  I mean, you're ignorant enough to fail to understand that most world debt is denominated in US dollars. You really think you understand shit about the world economy to make that statement? Do you even understand why the US dollar is called the "world reserve currency" and what the implications are? Probably not, yet you think you're qualified to open your mouth and have a dumb opinion. Go read a book.