The idea of a Basic Income has been a hobby-horse of parliamentarians for a while, and yesterday the Parliamentary Budget Officer came out with a report that purported to cost one out in a couple of different scenarios. But it’s a bit of a horror show of a report because what it’s actually describing is a cash transfer and not an actual Basic Income scheme, and more than that, some of the things it purports to strip in order to pay for its high price tag are a number of disability supports. Remember that while a Basic Income may sound like a left-wing idea, there is plenty of right-wing support for it if it dismantles the welfare state, where replacing tailored disability programmes with a one-size-fits-all cash transfer is a feature and not a bug. (More from economist Mike Moffatt here).

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280537746881212422

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1280630991661535238

Suffice to say, this report got some senators all hot and bothered, including Senator Yuen Pau Woo, who put out a press release on the topic, calling for a pilot project, so here’s Lindsay Tedds, who worked on BC’s Basic Income project for the last two years, and who knows a thing or two about Basic Income.

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280562781142388736

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280643403349291008

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280623432766353408

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280623434410496003

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280624155994361856

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1280628328622219265

Good reads:

• It’s federal fiscal “snapshot” day, so expect more ritual demands from opposition parties, followed by a load of pabulum from Morneau that says nothing at all.
• We have our first look at the letter the Rideau Hall intruder left with his truck, in which he worries that Canada has become a “communist dictatorship.” Seriously?
• The federal government has signed an agreement with First Nations leaders around the next steps to devolving child welfare to First Nations control.
• More stories from former WE employees are leaking out, from one of their motivational speakers, and their former brand manager.
• Crown prosecutors say that the pandemic is slowing their ability to release disclosures to the defence in the RCMP spy case.
• China’s ambassador to Canada is threatening yet more retaliation, this time for protesting the security crackdown in Hong Kong.
• Two different Commons committees will look into the WE Charity contract. It only took MPs a week to do their actual jobs.
• Andrew Scheer and Brian Pallister were spotted maskless in the Toronto airport in spite of mandatory mask rules. Pallister called it a lapse in judgment.
• Maverick Conservative MP Scott Reid is backing Leslyn Lewis in the leadership (which shouldn’t really be unexpected).
• Doug Ford has tabled a bill to grant himself more emergency powers, but he insists it’s totally not a power grab. Really! He hates big government!
• Because one war room wasn’t enough, Jason Kenney plans to create an investment agency for the province. That will surely fix what ails the province!
• Heather Scoffield walks through the balancing act that will be inherent in today’s “fiscal snapshot.”
• My column looks at why the Conservatives are so frightened of the emergence of the Wexit Party, currently led by one of their old colleagues.

Odds and Ends:

Here’s a longread about Alberta looking to revive open-pit mining in sensitive environmental areas out of a sense of desperation for jobs.

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