That is nothing short of bizarre since legislation to examine this policy was announced last October and virtually ignored by the mainstream media.
Are the Liberals generating interest in UBI as a last resort to staying in power? Of course they are. Is this a trial balloon? You bet it is.
The legislation is jointly sponsored by members of the Senate and House of Commons. In the Senate, a private members bill sponsored by Ontario Sen. Kim Pate, is now under debate. Pate caucuses with something called the Independent Senators Group an ad hoc club that is less independent than it is aligned with the Liberal Party. Identical legislation is also making its way through the legislative process in the House of Commons. That bill is sponsored by MP Leah Gazan (NDP-Winnipeg Centre). The bills were announced at a news conference in Ottawa on Oct. 17 and can be seen here.
But the fall and early winter session of Parliament was nothing short of disaster for Trudeau and the Liberals as they steadfastly refused to give farmers any relief from the increasingly despised carbon tax and every challenge to the government seemed to inevitably result in a flood of talking points about the glorious war in Ukraine and the existential threat of climate change.
In his year-end interviews, Trudeau provided not a hint of repentance for his performance over 2023 and no indication that he was prepared to change course on any policy directives. Instead, he literally promised to “double down” on everything.
Trudeau never talks in anything but generalities as he pledges to continue to “deliver for Canadians.” Of course that delivery can literally mean anything. The prime minister hopes Canadians will believe the Liberal government has been delivering something of worth and not the inflationary spending, high mortgage rates, onerous taxation, grievous euthanasia and economic malaise that he has laddled out in large measure since coming to office in 2015.
The Liberals are well behind the Conservative Party of Canada in popular support and the animus of Canadians is firmly focused on Trudeau. Even worse for Trudeau, fundraising for the party has cratered. That suggests a widespread loss of faith in the party, a political hemorrhaging that Trudeau cannot contain except possibly by resigning.
But even that wouldn’t be enough to reverse the downwards trend.
So does a desperate Trudeau think “free” money for all will placate the disgruntled masses and stem the Tory tide?
Undoubtedly: Trudeau is that politically crass and will resort to any maneuver to maintain his grip on power. Bribery is job one.
The problem for Trudeau is that he is grossly underestimating the intelligence of voters and the marketability of UBI.
Like all social programs in Canada, UBI will be “universal” as the title suggests, meaning it will be applied to everyone over the age of 18. The monthly income under review is $2000 a month.
Yes, you’re reading that correctly. Every adult would be getting a $2,000 stipend, whether he or she works or remains in bed all week. Yes, that’s insane and calling this more inflationary spending does not begin to describe how catastrophic effect a “basic income” will have on the Canadian economy. It won’t just raise the price of everything in the marketplace, it will undoubtedly devalue the Canadian dollar.
Think about this for a moment: if everyone gets $2,000 a month from the government then $2,000 no longer has any of the inherent worth that only working for that sum of money can generate. It would be like receiving a salary from 1924 and living in 2024. None of the sanguine predictions from woke economists who envision a society free from poverty and violence can refute that reality.
This is an idea from hell, a policy of pure Marxism that will push Canada over the fiscal cliff with a price tag that could easily reach trillions and quite possibly double the national debt within a year.
Will Canadians buy it? Trudeau sold them legal marijuana in 2015 but that hasn’t proven to be a panacea of societal peace either.
It is increasingly clear that Canadians are sick of the government intervening in their lives, offering largesse with one hand and taxing them to death with the other. They are weary of the Liberal government and its “delivery” system.
In a year-end interview with columnist Rex Murphy, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre expressed what many Canadians are feeling when he said he wants to head a “mind your own business” party that allows individuals and families to manage their own lives without the obsessive arm of government constantly interfering. At his 1981 inauguration, President Ronald Reagan famously told Americans that “government is the problem.” In 2024, Poilievre is telling Canadians the same thing.
If anyone thinks that dispensing an unearned paycheck to every Canadian is somehow going to solve any problems instead of creating a vast range of new ones, let them look at the nation’s medicare system, the “free” socialized medicine that costs an average family well over $12,000 a year in taxes and provides healthcare that is so feeble and inadequate that massive wait times from the simplest medical procedures to the most serious operations, that over 65,000 Canadians go to the United States for relief.
Universal Basic Income will just be an extension of the same self-destructive mentality. And if you think a lot of Canadians are traveling to seek efficacious healthcare, those numbers would pale in comparison to the numbers who would emigrate from Canada because their country had been transformed into a socialist dystopia.
