Government of Ontario faces class action lawsuit from scrapped UBI pilot

March 21, 2024 8:29 AM

"When you make a promise like that, you have to keep it. It's a contract." More about the positive impact the project had on struggling Ontarians.

Excitingly, two Basic Income bills were tabled federally in 2021; Bill S-233 is further ahead, having reached second reading last April.

posted by Kitteh (11 comments total)

UBI causes business-minded people to experience moderate-to-severe cognitive dissonance. The resultant loss of bladder and bowel control can lead to amusement.
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 8:43 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]

Excitingly, two Basic Income bills were tabled federally in 2021

(In the British and apparently Canadian sense of putting something on the table for consideration, not the US sense of doing the exact opposite)
posted by trig at 9:00 AM on March 21 [25 favorites]

Good.
posted by Alex404 at 9:15 AM on March 21

Thank you, trig, I would have completely misunderstood that.
posted by humbug at 9:40 AM on March 21 [2 favorites]

The problem in this instance is that the participants were promised 3 years of UBI during the pilot and shutting it down early will undo a lot of actions they had underway to improve their situations. They were promised stability and encouraged to use it to improve their life, pulling the rug out from under their feet is a rotten.

Not sold on the actual feasibility/effectiveness of UBI as proposed but this was a pilot program they should see it through and respect their commitment.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 10:12 AM on March 21 [10 favorites]

It was a Liberal thing, so Doug had to tear it down. The only people he keeps promises to are property developers. He doesn't know any people (sorry, "folks") on low income: they probably wouldn't vote for him anyway.

I'd normally wish that Ford would get his arse handed to him over this, but given that his glutes have already been expertly plated to the tune of several billion dollars over Bill 124, all I want for him is to lose.
posted by scruss at 11:16 AM on March 21 [6 favorites]

Excitingly, two Basic Income bills were tabled federally in 2021

(In the British and apparently Canadian sense of putting something on the table for consideration, not the US sense of doing the exact opposite)

Yes, Canadians enjoy our Westminster parliamentary system, and looking south we see no reason to change it any time soon unless it's for a clearly better system (don't get me started on broken LPC promises).
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:48 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]

Winston Churchill’s 6 Volume history of Ww2 recorded an identical misunderstanding that happened 80+ years ago LOL
posted by torokunai at 3:58 PM on March 21

Mod note: Comment removed - please don't do "ironic racism" commenting here
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:37 AM on March 22 [1 favorite]

So I do think the pilot was cancelled prematurely and for largely partisan reasons.

But I don't know if I agree with the premise of this suit. How is a pilot program or any other govt program a 'contract'?

If this becomes legal precedent, how could a govt shut down or reduce programs that are no longer affordable?
posted by sid at 10:36 AM on March 22

→ How is … any other govt program a 'contract'?

I used to build wind farms. Construction finance was 100% dependent on getting the government's agreement to buy the power at a preferential rate for the next 20 years. If any government pulled funding early, they'd likely be looking at a WTO appeal and their credit rating tanking.

(Doug Ford did that with a wind farm in SW Ontario. It didn't just cause a blip in the province's trade, it also caused a WTO challenge. Clever Doug knew that WTO challenges were always at the Federal level, so Ottawa would have to pay for his bad decisions.)
posted by scruss at 12:56 PM on March 23