For every dollar a participant earns through employment they lose 50 cents from their basic income payment. This means the basic income proposal would only apply to individuals earning less than 34,000 CAD ($24,380) a year, or couples earning less than 48,000 CAD ($34,420).

This is not UBI.

UNIVERSAL basic income is UNIVERSAL: It doesn't matter how much you earn.

Oh, you pulled in a billion dollars last year? Here's your check for $12,000. To save us postage, we're including it in the same envelope as your $450,000,000 tax bill.

The universality of the system is the single most important component. We convey to our government(s) our political authority. They use our political authority to provide essential services, such as roads and courts and rule of law. They charge the taxpayer for those services. UBI is how they compensate us, the shareholders of our government(s) for the use of the political authority we grant them.

UBI is not a social program. It is not charity. It is the government finally paying out dividends to its citizen-shareholders.