You can bet that, as an election looms, that certain parties will start talking up Basic Income again (and this includes the Liberals, given recent party policy votes around it). We’re also hearing from a group of senators who want to push this in spite of evidence that it’s not the best way to go (and they have been vocally dismissing any dissent, no matter how expert). And a bill in the US about Basic Income pilots will add fuel to this particular tire fire. So with that, I turn it over to Dr. Lindsay Tedds, who was on the BC panel that examined the feasibility of Basic Income to break it down:

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689592722051072

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689597105049603

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422689601018372096

https://twitter.com/LindsayTedds/status/1422691518230433793

But there’s a reason why these kinds of pilot proposals are popular, and that is politics. Alas.

https://twitter.com/MikePMoffatt/status/1422692966142029826

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau and Joe Biden had a call on Monday, and differing readouts of what was discussed were published by each office.
• This is your reminder that even if you’re fully vaccinated, you may still be able to catch COVID, though you are likely to be spared severe symptoms or hospitalization.
• The Canadian Medical Association and the Canadian Nurses Association are pushing for mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers.
• Mary Ng says that Canada is prepared to push back against the Buy American provisions in Biden’s latest infrastructure bill.
• There are calls to speed up the resettlement of Afghan interpreters, as well as to expand the programme to accommodate more family members.
• The Ethics Commissioner says there’s nothing to investigate around the contract between the Liberals and the company hired for database services.
• The Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the PMPRB can’t order a drug company to reimburse health care providers for excessively charging for a rare, expensive drug.
• Here is a look at how the different parties are planning to reach first-time voters with digital tools in the (likely) coming election.
• As the Conservative party continues to splinter internally, there are many who are hoping that O’Toole will lose the election.
• Nearly a month later, Brian Pallister offered an apology for his comments whitewashing the harms of residential schools, and it was not accepted.
• Paul Wells reads into the readouts of the latest Trudeau-Biden phone call, and starts to wonder about the state of the Canada-US relationship post-Trump.

In case you missed them:

• My Loonie Politics Quick Take on expectations of activism from Mary Simon (and watch for the meme insert!)
• My column on why we should focus on economic growth if we’re no longer prioritizing a balanced budget in the next election.
• My Xtra column previews what the election is likely to look like for the LGBT+ communities, with impossible-to-keep promises and bare-minimum pandering.
• My weekend column called out Jagmeet Singh for publicly undermining Mary Simon in her first week on the job (because he’s taking lessons from the Trump era).

Odds and ends:

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