What? The Toronto Star threw a grenade at the idea of a guaranteed basic income the other day. The paper had me choking over my morning coffee. It had to be one of their senior female writers.
Toronto Star writer Heather Scoffield thinks the silver bullet needed today is more emphasis on high quality day care. Her premise seems to be that since, she thinks, we cannot look after all the needs of society, we should not.
I would not only question her judgement on the matter. I would challenge her mathematics. When discussing a guaranteed basic income, we need to stop adding on supplements for this and that. We need to understand that one size does not fit all and have a flexible management system that accommodates the needs of individuals.
And I have a hard time understanding why Scoffield thinks it would be legally difficult to replace the multiplicity of programs we have today with one basic program. There is highly likely to be some serious push back from the provinces when they see hundreds of their programs being wiped out.
But if this is a program that can really define this country for years to come—then it is worth the time and effort to implement it.
It is not that I disagree with the obvious need for good quality before and after school day care as well as affordable and high-quality day care. We can have those as well.
The liberals opened the door with the Canada emergency response benefit (CERB). It was a guaranteed income in all but name. It made the mistake though of pointing out how many Canadians were left out. It is when you realize how many are left out by all the previous programs that you realize the need to finally make this step into the future. We can do it.
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Copyright 2020 © Peter Lowry
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