OTTAWA, Ontario (LifeSiteNews) — Canada is taking steps toward passing legislation to establish “a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income.”
On October 17, the Canadian Senate’s national finance committee began examining Bill S-233, which would require the Minister of Finance to develop a national system to provide “guaranteed livable basic income” to everyone in Canada over the age of 17.
“The provision of a guaranteed livable basic income would go a long way toward eradicating poverty and improving income equality, health conditions and educational outcomes,” the bill claims.
“In developing the framework, the Minister must consult with the Minister of Health, the ministers responsible for employment, social development and disability, representatives of the provincial governments responsible for health, disability, education and social development, Indigenous elders, Indigenous governing bodies and other relevant stakeholders, including policy developers and political decision-makers, as well as experts in other guaranteed livable basic income programs,” the bill adds.
The national framework for a universal basic income program was proposed by Independent Senator Kim Pate, who was appointed on the advice of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Pate suggested that the income should be given to anyone in Canada over age 17, including temporary workers, permanent residents and refugee claimants.
Jack Fonseca of Campaign Life Coalition told LifeSiteNews, “This is yet another move by our two socialist parties, the Liberals and NDP, to try to gradually transform Canada into a communist country by making most of the population dependent on government handouts and eliminating the middle class.”
“The truth is that a universal basic income would result in huge numbers of Canadians never wanting to work again,” he warned. “Many, especially young men, will pass their time smoking dope, taking drugs, playing video games and watching porn, which is all that the universal basic income will allow them to afford.”
“Private sector employers and job-creating businesses will be taxed into oblivion, causing many to shut down or move out of Canada,” Fonseca continued. “The rest will no longer have an incentive to invest in new job creation, or in business expansion that create new jobs. In the end, everyone will have a lower standard of living than they had before, including those receiving the universal basic income. “
“UBI will have made their lives measurably worse,” he predicted, pointing to “other socialist countries, like Argentina, for instance, whose economy has been devastated by socialist economic policies, where you now have to bring a suitcase full of bills to buy basic groceries.”
“The poverty and economic devastation this program would bring is not some unforeseen consequence of the Liberals/NDP socialists, blinded by compassion,” Fonseca continued. “It’s a desired feature of the universal basic income. Trudeau and Singh know this policy will impoverish Canadians, but they do not care, because their goal is to bring about a socialist/communist dictatorship, very much like what we see in Cuba and Venezuela.”
“This is something that would also adversely affect the pro-life and pro-family movement in Canada, potentially destroying it,” he declared. “The more power this Liberal regime acquires, the greater the attacks on life, family, and even the ability of pro-life organizations to speak or exist.”
Introduced in December 2021, Bill S-233 has gone through two readings in the Senate and is now under investigation by the Senate’s national finance committee. The bill is still in the early stages, and for it to pass, it would need to be approved by the Senate, and then go on to the House of Commons to be approved there as well.
In April 2021, Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux claimed that poverty rates would be cut in half if a guaranteed basic income program of nearly $17,000 per year was implemented for low-income households. However, he pointed out that it would cost the federal government $85 billion.
While this would be the first universal basic income to be implemented, the Canadian government implemented CERB, which gave monthly payments of $2000 to Canadians who were unable to work because of COVID-19 regulations.
While inflation and high cost of living is seen as a problem within Canada and the Western world more broadly, many are skeptical of such an approach because it would result in massive government intervention and control over personal finances.
In fact, the bill seeks to employ the Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland as the head of the project, who in 2022 took the unprecedented step of demanding that banks freeze the accounts of anyone involved in the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa, without a court order.
Freeland is also a member of the Board of Trustees for the World Economic Forum (WEF), the group behind the now-infamous “Great Reset,” an agenda that critics say seeks to install a global system similar to that of China’s Social Credit System.
According to prominent retired American politician Ron Paul, implementing a universal basic income is one of the major goals of the WEF’s Great Reset global socialist plan.
The Great Reset involves a huge expansion of the welfare state via a universal basic income program. This can help ensure compliance with the Great Reset’s authoritarian measures,” Paul wrote last year, adding that the “authoritarian” measures outlined in the Great Reset include a dramatically expanded “surveillance state via real-time tracking,” the “use of brain scans and nanotechnology to predict, and if necessary, prevent” non-government approved behavior, and “digital certificates” in order to travel.
“[The WEF] envisions an authoritarian system where big business acts as a partner with government. Big business would exercise its government-granted monopoly powers to maximize value for ‘stakeholders,’ instead of shareholders. Stakeholders include the government, international organizations, the business itself, and ‘civil society,’” explained Paul.
He added that the “disastrous response to Covid is just the latest example of how those who give up liberty for safety or health will end up unfree, unsafe, and unhealthy.”
The retired congressman concluded, “Instead of a Great Reset of authoritarianism, we need a great rebirth of liberty!”