Universal basic income
this post was submitted on 01 May 2026
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Every other goal becomes significantly more achievable if we do that.
Next immediate goal after that is UBI.
My next immediate goal would be tax reform to target the 1%; then UBI
(not because I think we lack the funds for UBI, but just because I think that if the 1% paid their share properly, other things should start falling into place as well)
My argument for UBI as one of the most important policy choices we can possibly make is that it not only achieves a huge amount of harm reduction, but it also opens up a huge amount of political power. With UBI, losing your job becomes much less scary. If that threat diminishes, people become far more willing to engage in activities like protests, unionizing, and general strikes.
My overall priorities would be;
- Voting reform
- UBI
- Wealth tax
- Free post-secondary education
- Head to toe healthcare
- End private home renting
- Crown corp telecoms
- Public transit
(In no particular order)
But of those I consider voting reform and UBI to be the ones that unlock the most political power among regular working people, which makes it easier to make everything else happen.
You're not wrong, and maybe I'm splitting hairs here... But I'm from Brazil and we while had very good results with Bolsa FamΓlia - really really good results, made history lifting millions of people out of poverty - we learned in practice that while the effects of inequality are most tragic among the poor, the real inequality happens between between the 99% and the 1%; and then again between the 1% and the 0.1%. While the wealth transfer has been successful, just like gas tax cuts the political capital generated is very feeble and easily coopted by following administrations.
I know that Bolsa FamΓlia it's not the same as UBI, but it turns out that the political power unlocked lasted less than two decades. The elites will find ways to erode it eventually, if allowed to amass power to do so.
But anyway, yes I love your list, and would vote for anyone that got any permutation shuffle of this agenda.
Proportional representation without question
I wish I could rank one of the more popular/less controversial ones above this, but for me what has to come first is putting the primary focus on taxing income that comes from excess wealth instead of focusing so much on income that comes from work. The purpose is to stop the push to privatize everything and properly fund fully complete health care, infrastructure, education, and other needed services (transportation, Canada Post, etc.).
I realize many people either think things are fine or that Carney's Liberals will fix things, but as I see it we're following closely behind the UK in terms of our political progression. The Liberals are shaping up like Starmer's Labour, who promised to end the Conservatives' austerity but instead doubled down on it. They became hugely unpopular as the consequences of austerity unfolded (well before the Epstein/Mandelson scandal) and now their country is at risk of falling to Reform fascism because people are weary, desperate for a change, and don't know who to trust.
- The banning of all future fossil fuel expansion.
- Criminal charges for any Canadian fighting in the IDF or involved in sending arms to Israel.
- Require that all vehicles in excess of 2 tonnes require a commercial license to operate. The idea would be that this limit would gradually be reduced to a sensible number over time.
- Vehicle speed limiters, ideally tied to the region you're in (city/highway).
I know, you asked for one, but there's a lot of stuff to be done.
Ban age verification laws.
Ive been thinking of these laws myself for the longest time as well. Glad im not the only one
Nationalize all natural resources in Canada. Oil, minerals, water, electricity, you name it.
Immediately end all subsidies and preferential tax treatment of the fossil fuel sector.
Canada is one of, if not thee richest resource filled countries on Earth
Oil and gas. Forestry, mining, fisheries. Agriculture, tourism... Canada literally has all of this in abundance
Each and every Canadian should own these resources and we should literally be the wealthiest population on the planet.
The fact we are not should anger you and legislation should be created to ensure that we become that
How does that answer the thread question? You're passing a law saying what?
I'd rather have Canada nationalize most of these but without doubling down on oil pipelines and more mining projects... -- Nationalizing agriculture and fisheries and tourism doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
We're not, basically because none (?) of our resources are Persian Gulf-style money printers. Like, we have oil, but it needs a whole lot of work to get from tar sand to gas tank. Down there it gets close to just sticking a straw in the ground.
The end result is that we're still one of the richest countries per capita, we just spend a lot of man hours on farming. mining and drilling, instead of on manufacturing like they do in Germany or Japan.
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Collectivization of all industry. Or if that's too pie in the sky, strengthen and actually enforce local ownership requirements over Canadian news orgs.
Worker cooperatives.
Also, housing cooperatives and other types of cooperatives everywhere.
Sounds like communism, I like it!
A good start would be for the federal government to stop funding news orgs that have more than 0% foreign ownership or funding.
Basic Income.
I was about to write this. Universal basic income.
But how are we going to fund this exclusively from taxpayer money? I think it's important we secure a solid revenue to fund this first. Through nationalized resources, or a tax on the wealthy, etc.
About the funding:
Many years ago there was a Conservative politician named Hugh Segal who lead a study about UBI. The calculations showed that if the 60 over-lapping government handouts were elimated, Canada would save millions (or billions idk it's been a while since I read it) of dollars every year.
Sounds too good to be true until you realize that just for UI each city across Canada has a least one office with multiple employees. These office all pay rent, insurance, power, etc. Most cities likely have 10 or more UI offices.
Multiple that by all the other programs and it adds up to quite a bit on money.
Edit: I found this from CBC https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sunday/the-sunday-edition-for-march-29-2020-1.5509908/amidst-a-global-pandemic-hugh-segal-s-call-for-a-guaranteed-annual-income-is-even-more-timely-1.5509938
From the article:
"The Parliamentary Budget Officer said it would probably cost about $60 billion without counting those federal and provincial programs. It would replace those and produce substantial savings for the taxpayer. That would bring the number down to about $25 billion nationally. That's less than 10 per cent of Canada's total economic cost in terms of running the store. That would be a very efficient investment, not only in reducing poverty, but also in reducing all the negative pathologies of poverty, like bad healthcare, health status, education outcomes and family difficulties, difficulty with the law β all of which cost taxpayers a tremendous amount of money."
A UBI is intended to be inexpensive to administer, this is why everyone gets it unconditionally, but income taxes need to be increased so that the wealthy end up paying back what they got and more, such that it balances the cost of giving it to everyone.
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Ban online gambling.
Ban algorithmic timelines for all social media, news, and entertainment.
Ban real-time algorithmic pricing.
Enforce a higher standard of driving, tailgating, extreme speed, distracted driving is insane.
All timelines are algorithmic except for AI generated timelines, which are heuristic. You're gonna force them to put AI in the timeline
Obviously Iβm referring to ranked predictive timelines vs chronological. A basic heuristic chronological feed (eg. most recent) has little in common with modern machine learning powered social media timelines designed to be βmost relevantβ.
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National priorities: 1. PR, 2+3. UBI paid by wealth tax, 4. healthcare, 5. nationalization of resource and infrastructure assets. If you can fit all of that in one bill then that counts.
My priority: A new railway bill. Mandate passenger trains having right-of-way over freight, and create a new infrastructure manager tasked to buy/seize, develop and improve railways for passenger or passenger-freight dual use (or +military for triple use) and create a usable national network.
The "tithe" law. Profit capped at 10% to keep costs and chicanery down. People and corps taxed at 10% across the board. GST/PST 10% total. Capitalism, but non-aggressive, loaded with social programs. I guess I might as well throw in flying pigs. Yes, pigs should fly, and it oughta be a law.
A flat tax+consumption tax is very regressive. Poor people would be taxed almost 20% and rich people would be taxed almost 0%. Most of their income is capital gains, against which they occasionally take out loans for consumption. Their consumption is much less than their wealth increase. Their wealth increase is much higher than their income.
Hmm. Most of the basic industries would probably pass that margin no problem. I think production vehicles even fall under 10%.
Anything bespoke, from machine tools to Etsy stores, is going to implode overnight, though.
There's too many that would benefit Canada immensely.
Since most of my first thoughts were already said, maybe criminalising corporate involvement in politics? Or price fixing. Hell, even nationalising necessities would be good (food, housing, utilities - including phone/internet).
Another thought would be requiring a total compensation disparity of no more than 7x - as in, if any employee is being paid $17.85 (current BC minimum), the total compensation for the highest can be, at most $124.95, including stocks and other benefits that can be considered compensation. Its still a fucking insane difference, but much more sane than not having a cap at all.
To allow booking MAID in the future based on developing conditions such as dementia. I definitely want to do this.
peanut gallery here but man would I love this. its like if I have demetia and can't chew and swallow whol foods and can't use the bathroom myself. Yeah. Im done.
The price of food cannot increase.
On the first sunrise after your 50th birthday, you must walk magnetic north until sundown. You then build a house at your location.
Just remember it's proportional representation that is allowing Netanyahu to keep power. A far right small religious group is giving him the balance of power. So it's not always so simple.
Fuck! You got me. Nice job.
I was about to explain electorate system, how he would need fewer votes here to be elected, and how bad is picking a mechanism just because your candidate has better chances to win rather than give more voice to the people. But then I read the nickname.
You might be one of the best troll accounts we had in .ca in a while. Thank you for the chuckle.
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I think the new sovereign wealth fund might do this but if not its heading the right way:
When the government funds a company like a startup or bails out an existing company it should get shares in those companies.
This would allow us to increase the amount of money in our public market which will increase the amount of companies being started in Canada. And the conservatives will be less able to bitch about it because its an investment and running the government like a business. Not that any of them know how to do that.
Truly, I don't understand how this isn't a thing already, it's so basic. In any other context, a large investor in a private company acquires a share of it. In Canada, if the large investor is the government, its a gift?? Wtf??? I'd even be okay to, say, build on some clauses that the government buys shares at a higher price, or needs to divest at X time, first right to buy back, etc., if people are afraid of the government literally taking over everything.
Or even simple clauses, like CEO take a pay cut, no bonuses, etc. But this business of privatizing gains and socializing losses only helps the ultra wealthy hoard wealth at the expense of everyone else. It's incredibly immoral to take bailouts, then give bonuses and even fire workers.
Eliminate limited liability for holders of voting shares in corporations. Charges and lawsuits can go after any and all assets of every holder of voting shares in a corporation.
In most corporations, the only thing that shareholders really do is vote in relation to who the directors are. The directors and officers are generally the ones who actually do things.
The directors are often also in charge of share sales and transfers. In corporations not in the stock market, you often can't sell, redeem, gift, or otherwise get rid of you shares whenever you feel like it.
Officers are also appointed by directors, not by shareholders, so that could be another step removed from having agency over what's happening.
Many CEOs have shares as part of their compensation package, as do many other members of the C-suite. Regardless, by making voting shareholders liable for all cause penalties, their selection of leadership roles would necessarily change. That would include lawsuits, fines, environmental penalties, HR violations, civic wear and tear, back taxes, etc.
Most shareholders has no control over the actions of the President or CEO, or even have any power to decide on who any of the officers of the corporation even are.
In your hypothetical senario, you should consider the board of directors or maybe even the ISC.
Technically, you do need the provinces to agree if it's a constitutional issue.
But sure, getting rid of the NWC and bringing in fixed terms+proportional rep would make our long-term stability a lot more guaranteed. Maybe a different federal model where the 8 or 9 Anglo provinces don't all get equal power to Quebec, as well.
Failing that, basic income.
Labd value tax
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