Three related facts about the COVID-19 economic recession are becoming clearer. The most affected sectors are public facing sectors – largely the service sector; the most affected income group is the poor; and the most affected demographic is women. This makes the current…

Canada’s social safety net has evolved slowly and carefully in an overlapping federal system of transfers and benefits. Ottawa has responsibility for the tax system and Employment Insurance (EI). The provinces have primary responsibility for most social assistance and disability…

Ken Boessenkool and Dan Robertson have spent their lives advising Canadian political leaders. The economic impact of financial crisis of 2008-2009 still reverberates. The most consequential result of the financial crisis, however, was not economic but political. People blamed the elites for…

To respond to the economic challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, I have proposed a crisis basic income that would proactively send a direct deposit or cheque to the 28.5 million Canadians who filed income taxes last year. There are 30.5 million Canadians over the…

Sometimes bad policy in good times is good policy in bad times. A Universal Basic Income (UBI) is one such policy. The idea of providing every individual (Universal) a low and unconditional common (Basic) level of cash (Income) is an…