Guaranteed income is not the same as Universal income. Beyond the guarantee to fail as it interferes with the struggle to adopt real UBI, it is not even guaranteed.
If it is not "UNIVERSAL" it is just more of the same. Guaranteed is something we already effectively have. The thing that is wrong with our current system is 'means testing' and the bureaucracy that mismanages it. Guarantees you cannot enforce are salt in the wound.
We have people who are disabled living on a bag of potatoes and water for the last part of the month with our current labyrinth of programs whose net result is to deny help to those who need it most.
UNIVERSAL: Every Canadian must get it. If you are Canadian, you get it. It does not matter if you already have enough, even if you are a billionaire in the one percent. If there is overage in somebody's case, we just claw it back at tax time. Zero bureaucrats needed.
Basic: It must pay for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, communications, health care, personal care, and other necessities.
Income: Real money, not entitlements, coupons, or other things that require you to do battle with the system.
We are fighting for UBI, not some pale substitute that we know from many years of experience does not work. It does not help in the struggle for UBI to accept something that is not UBI. It makes real UBI look bad, and it takes momentum out of a movement whose time has come.
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