Ever since the creation of CERB at the beginning of the pandemic, the Basic Income crowd has believed that this is their chance to finally get what they’ve been asking for. Most of it remains in the realm of lollipops and unicorns, with a lot of handwaving away the difficulties associated with a basic income, but here we are. To that end, it seems that the Liberal caucus has made this their top priority for the party’s upcoming policy convention, which means that it has a fairly good chance of getting adopted as party policy. Of course, in the current day and age, a party’s policy book isn’t really worth the paper that it’s printed on because the leader’s office now controls everything, most especially the campaign platform (you know, what the party’s policies are supposed to inform), so I wouldn’t put too much stock in this, but it’s certainly an indication of where their heads are at.

To that end, economist Lindsay Tedds, who has been studying the implementation of Basic Income programmes, is unimpressed with this turn of events. Why? Because there are a lot of things in the federal government’s wheelhouse when it comes to better implementing current social supports programmes that they’re simply not doing, because of the ways in which they rely on the current tax system – which is a problem when a significant portion of marginalized people can’t access those benefits because they don’t file taxes. And if you’re going to implement a Basic Income, you would think you’d want to get these kinds of things sorted first so that it becomes easier to do any kind of BI.

Economist Mike Moffatt also makes the point that there are far more effective things that the federal government could spend money on that would get better outcomes than spending it on basic income, because of the supply side problems that adding more money into the system won’t fix, but will simply drive up things like rental costs.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1304769768961048577

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1304770683881299969

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1304772615752617986

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1304782580466712577

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1304784277041709056

Good reads:

• The rising number of COVID-19 cases is going to play a bigger role in the Cabinet retreat than initially planned.
• Here is an attempt to ascertain which ministers are more fiscally hawkish around the Cabinet table.
• The federal public health surveillance system built after SARS isn’t being used effectively in the current pandemic because of provincial IT challenges.
• Many immigrants fear their citizenship processes are going to be backlogged indefinitely because of delays caused by the pandemic.
• It’s been a year since the alleged RCMP spy came to light, and the Force still hasn’t acted on its internal security review.
• Jean Chrétien’s wife Aline passed away at age 84.
• Mike Moffatt and John McNally lay out the five necessary keys to making the economic recovery green and inclusive.
• Paul Wells tackles election speculation, the prime minister making snake oil sales pitches, and why Erin O’Toole needs to beware about where he’s messaging.
• My weekend column looks at Erin O’Toole’s Labour Day video and how full of NDP talking points it was, signalling the death of economic conservatism in his party.

Odds and ends:

In the CBA’s National Magazine, I look at Thursday’s Supreme Court of Canada decision on Ontario’s anti-SLAPP legislation and how courts can apply it.

Also in the CBA’s National Magazine is my look at the book Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19, speaking to some of its contributors.

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