But while UBI is desirable in principle, it’s not a magic solution to the intricate and perennial problems of poverty and income inequality. Furthermore, its implementation in Canada is not financially, administratively, politically or constitutionally feasible.
Within emerging literature on the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on employment and earning levels, UBI has been elevated to the status of a panacea that could ease all the social and economic ills that societies are encountering during the crisis.
Ardent advocates of UBI have argued that it has the potential to reduce poverty, narrow income inequality gaps, address automation, eradicate the stigma associated with collecting government assistance, enhance the social well-being of citizens, diminish dependency and streamline existing complex and fragmented social transfer programs and public services.
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Ottawa’s about-face to allow self-employed Canadians keep up to $14,000 in wrongly claimed emergency income support payments runs contrary to firmly established legal principles that say an honest mistake, even one based on the government’s own errors, doesn’t erase a tax debt.
Last Tuesday, the federal government said self-employed individuals who had received Canada Emergency Response Benefit payments, but who did not meet the requirement to have at least $5,000 in net income, would no longer be expected to repay their benefits. Those who had made a repayment are to receive refunds. (However, as is the case with all CERB recipients, the funds received are still considered to be taxable income.)
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Of all the measures introduced by the federal government to blunt the social impact of the pandemic, none was as popular as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit.
CERB, as it became known, offered Canadians thrown out of work a $2,000 cheque every four weeks. In September, the program transitioned to an enhanced employment insurance scheme.
But it was CERB that re-ignited calls from social welfare organizations, as well as from politicians representing three of our federal parties, for a guaranteed basic income (GBI) that ensures no one in Canada is trapped living below the poverty line.