Comes a Time - Part 2 with Guest, Hugh Segal

Comes a time when, as a result of unprecedented events, we need to consider change at the systemic level. 

The Pandemic has “laid bare” many problems within our society, and inequities among citizens, which we now must take responsibility for addressing.

The pandemic has illustrated most acutely the growing socio-economic divide - The impact of COVID 19 has been particularly devastating on the poor and the ethnic minorities in our society.  As Canadians, we have a front row seat to the drama playing out south of the border which illustrates what can happen when the gap between the haves and have nots; between the rich and poor becomes too large.

The future of our economy is at best uncertain - with mounting job losses, businesses shuttering across the country; the changing nature of work and school; the shifting economic and political relationships between, and amongst nations; the mounting climate crisis.

These are big, complex challenges requiring us to engage in #socialinnovation; To consider bold ideas to protect the health and well being of our citizens and our nation as a whole. 

One such idea worthy of serious consideration is the implementation of #BasicIncomeforCanada. 

Our guest for this two part episode, #Comesatime is @Hugh Segal, renown political strategist, author, commentator, academic and former senator...He is also the recognized champion of #basicincome for Canada . 

In part 2 Hugh and I discuss results from  recent studies and pilots related to #basicincome as well as the costs associated with implementation. Hugh also responds to the critics ...#ForWhatit'sWorth

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Transcript

Comes a time Part 2 Transcripts

Blake:  [00:00:00] The next thing I wanted to discuss with you is   the results from the New Leaf initiative in British Columbia?  

Hugh: very impressive. 

Blake: Yeah, I thought so too  

so, there was a project. It was partly funded by the University of British Columbia and it was a controlled study that went out to fifty homeless people. Now these are people that were recently homeless. These are not people suffering long term chronic homelessness.

these were people had recently become homeless and they gave them each $7,500, no strings attached. In other words, they didn't have to justify what they were spending money on. What they discovered from this brief pilot was run for a year, was some really interesting things.  Number one, is that the decline of the use of the health system was probably the most dramatic result.

So, they figured that people by giving them $7,500, they actually used the healthcare system less opioid use, tobacco use, liquor use, went [00:01:00] way down, A good percentage of those 50 people still had a thousand dollars left of the 7,500 at the end of the term and most people spent their money on things like housing and obviously food. Some spent their money on transportation, a car so they could get to work. because remember you can't receive these social benefits and services, unless you have an address. It's very hard at least in Vancouver to work without a vehicle and others invested in their education. So, when they looked at the data, they figured approximately for giving people $7,500, that the contrasting  and cost for them utilizing the healthcare system and the social services and was approximately $50,000 per person so you can do the math, the savings were substantial, on our social service system. But the very fact that these people did not just take the money and go out and spend it on alcohol or drugs but they actually used it to improve their lot in life - to get out [00:02:00] of their condition of homelessness. it was a controlled study, very small, but the results were quite amazing. And I gather they're going to go on and implement a larger study going forward. 

Hugh: And that by the way confirms what we've seen in other places in the Ontario basic income pilot, which was launched by premier Wynne supposed to go for three years, but the new Government just was the case in other places, came in and stopped it, but, they did do a study on what had happened in  a whole bunch of communities, Peterborough,  Lindsey, Thunder Bay and Hamilton Brant  and it Hamilton the department of economics at McMaster University, did a study on recipients and what they did with the money and how they managed and a lot of it was very much the same as the project that you referenced in British Columbia. And more importantly, what a lot of people did was  including people who had jobs, which were low paying [00:03:00] jobs, not enough to get by they used the extra money to take a course to improve their education so they could get better jobs. in some cases, there were families that used the extra money to get a slightly bigger apartment in a better part of town so the kids could go to better school. They did exactly with the money what anybody would do with extra money, they spent it, not on drugs, tobacco, and on frivolous things, they spent it on things that are important for their family and one of the things we forget, unless we've had a personal experience with poverty is that poverty really it's about not having enough money, but what it really does to families or people who live in poverty, it steals their time, because between filling out the welfare forms, figuring out how to get enough food in the lunch box so the kid can take some soup to school between not [00:04:00] getting kicked out cause you can't pay rent between figuring out how to get a new shipment of oil for your furnace. If you live in cold eastern Canada,  you don't have a lot of time for the other things in life, but most people would like to do and that becomes problematic in terms of being a good parent, in terms of engaging with your children because of this endless, angst ridden panic, is a regular definition of your life. And there was a wonderful study on in London. There was a charity in London called Panorama. And one of the honorary trustees was his Royal Highness Prince William. And when he signed up for this, he said, look, I'm not just going to be sitting on your board and going to fundraising dinners. I'll do that. I actually want to see what you do and I want to be part of it. So, what they do of course is they go around in vans for people who are with the British calls, "sleeping rough" on the streets, and they have [00:05:00] blankets on them, hot soup, and they have tea and they have sleeping bags and they have all of that stuff and they keep on servicing these people to keep them well and alive in that present circumstance. Prince William said, "so I'm going to spend a couple of nights on the streets with these guys. Well you can imagine the security guys went berserk but he said, yeah, but he said, look, if they can manage it, I can manage it they gave him a little button he could press the phone with some problems that you never did. And he spent a lot of time and he talked to the people who most of whom had no idea who he was and he would ask them. "if you were given, 600 pounds a month, what would you do?" And they would say, "we get a little bed sitting room or we get what they call a caravan, which we would call a small trailer. which mean when folks often used to live in order to live or go on holiday with. Or we buy a new coat. they would do exactly what anybody else would do in that [00:06:00] circumstance. So, one of the worst kinds of discrimination that the poor have to face is the discrimination of low expectations. The presumption of the caseworkers who work for welfare departments across Canada, and by the way, I have nothing, but the highest admiration for them as individuals are trying to do a difficult job we have so many rules and regulations to administer in terms of eligibility. It's tough, part of the challenge is they have to make sure that if you're poor and saying that your poor, that you keep on meeting those criteria to be eligible for your monthly check. And that whole process is dehumanizing.  I don't know what it is in BC, but in Ontario once every couple of years, a welfare recipient, has to come in for a personal interview with his caseworker or her caseworker to where they basically have to come to a conclusion that person has no other prospects so they can stay on welfare. Imagine how [00:07:00] awful that discussion is for the case worker and for the recipient. I remember when I was teaching at Queens, I say to my graduate students, I hope you file your taxes. They'd say, why professor? We don't have any money. I said, that's exactly why you should find the taxes because when you file your taxes, the HST tax credit ensures that everybody who earns less than $30,000 a year, gets an automatic top up from CRA so the sales tax doesn't become too big a piece of your overall income. So, if you file your taxes, you’ll get several hundred dollars deposited in your account a couple of times a year. None of them knew about that. They shouldn't, that's not their fault, but that's basically what we're suggesting was that he used that model. Plus, the GIS model for seniors to do it properly without bureaucracy [00:08:00] efficiently in a way that respects their privacy and encourages work for the three and a half million living beneath the poverty line.

Blake: Yeah, you make a great point. we have this, I don't know this notion, this perception that, the people that are living below poverty, it's their fault that's where they want to be. That's their choice. and then as you say, we create a mechanism that keeps them there, which doesn't make any sense, from my research around workplace organizations for 25 years, looking at cultures, what I've come to understand is this and the research bears this out. If you pay people enough money so that money isn't an issue. In other words, so that they're not worried about their day-to-day survival, paying rent, paying for food, paying for education for the children, then they will turn their attention to doing great things. And my experience with all the organizations I've worked with over the years is that employees are motivated to do great things if you create the right [00:09:00] conditions to allow it to happen. And so that seems to speak very much to what you're just saying about, UBI and the current system. So, if I look at everything we've talked about, I see these following benefits. It removes the stigma around social services, welfare and employment insurance, unemployment insurance, even though we changed that name, to make us feel better, it still has that stigma, the alleviation of poverty and the subsequent drain on our health services, UBI provides the income necessary for people to find gainful employment. It increases community giving and philanthropy, because of course, people are able then to do those types of things when they're not worried about simple survival. it bolsters the economy in both good times and bad we've seen huge increases in community health and wellness figures as a result, and we know right now mental health is a major issue as a result of this virus. it increases trust in government. Allows citizens to pursue their passion, creating a range of benefits for [00:10:00] society as   well as for the economy, it's a potential catalyst for innovation when we enter this gig economy and again, under a system like that, we actually increase savings. We increase, investment in giving and all of these things. So, it seems like a no brainer on the surface. However, there are lots of critics. and so, I wanted to turn our discussion to that. So, I, there's a lot of people that say, we just can't do this, we can't afford it. it's a drain on government reserves. 

Hugh: let's deal with that issue first, also we'll hear from our friends on the far right, I’m the guy who believes in the market economy. And I believe in profit and I believe when investment. but I also believe in a marketplace that is intrinsically fair there are people on the far, right who say, look, if people aren't working, you can't send the money. Cause why would they ever work? They say, we can't afford it. It's too expensive. So, let's talk about the numbers for a moment. The parliamentary budget officer in studying [00:11:00] what the MINCOME, thing would have cost and what the Ontario model would have cost, if it was done on a national basis, said the gross cost; so, this was the amount of money you have to spend at the outset to get it going on an annual basis would be about $60 billion a year. Now, just to keep things in perspective, the general fiscal framework for Canada, not in a COVID year is about 300 to 350 billion a year in terms of revenue that comes into the federal government as we speak , so that number of 60 billion does not count the 30 billion in welfare costs, which we would be able to get rid of because the Provinces wouldn't have to run welfare  because the federal government would top people up above the welfare threshold. So, you may recall that our Premiers have asked the federal government for $28 billion for healthcare. This would generate $30 billion, which the Premiers [00:12:00] could then use for long-term health, healthcare, and whatever they think is necessary in their own province in cooperation with our legislature. So you have 60 billion reduce that by 30, and that is without counting how much we would save by having less people show up in hospital and having less people involved with the penal system because the numbers are clear if you live beneath the poverty line, quite aside from bad health outcomes earlier on, needing hospital care earlier on in life, you are far more likely to get into trouble with the law. You're far more likely to have substance abuse issues of one form or another. You're far more likely to have her circumstances of a family breakup and family violence, all of which costs us large amounts of money in our social, economic and health care system.

So, when you add all that up, you begin to get a total number, which is about [00:13:00] 30 billion. Now 30 billion is 10%. of our gross revenues as a country now from all tax sources.  That doesn't count the Provinces that's just the Feds, so 30 billion. so, investing 10% of your gross budget so as to reduce poverty, which is a drain on the economy and, gets in the way of productivity and reduces the workforce, strikes me as one of the best investments we could make, and it is eminently affordable.

The other thing of course that you hear interestingly enough, from opponents on the far left and there are some who don't like this idea, because quite aside from MINCOME and other examples, we have spoken about one of the first people to try this was that terrible old Marxist by the name of Richard Millhouse, Nixon, the President of the United States and when he got elected in 68, he got elected on a [00:14:00] platform of law and order and when he began to deal with the issues of law and order after becoming president, some of the young policy guys in his white house, guys by the name of Cheney, for example, in Moynihan and others said, Mr. President, if you're going to deal with crime in the middle of the cities, you got to deal with poverty and the reason that poverty connects with crime is because the way the state welfare systems work, it makes sense for the father to leave the house because there'll be more income coming in from welfare to the mother and the children, if the father's gone and when you remove, the father from the circumstance, you remove the twin parenting approach, which is helpful in terms of bringing kids up and making sure they go the right way in life. So that brought in something, they tried to bring in something called the family benefits program which was basically the first minimum income approach, automatic and of course r right wingers [00:15:00] in the Congress wouldn't support it because they didn't think you should do that for poor people in the cities and the Left wingers didn't support it because they didn't think it was enough. So now we have a cadre in Canada of hard left people who are opposed because they think frankly, what the poor need, and by the way, the notion this, the notion of the smalls, what the poor need, right? What the poor need are carefully crafted programs crafted by well-paid public service, who are all members, by the way, the public sector unions, and that's the best way to serve the poor and we will manage those programs and the poor will accommodate themselves to those programs - that is the bigotry of low expectations. That's the view that you can't give poor people money and expect them to spend it properly. When everything we've talked about, including that recent experience in BC and in other parts of the world [00:16:00] indicates quite the opposite. And but the left is committed and I think because Richard Nixon and Milton Friedman the famous right-leaning economist from the University of Chicago once said that if you gave the American government responsibility for the Sahara Desert, you would have a sand shortage in three years, and he said, don't give the money to bureaucrats and Government give the money to poor people they will know what to do with it. They won't set up offshore tax accounts or buy condos in Florida or in Arizona, they will spend it on rent and food and clothing in their community and that money will re-circulate. So, I think part, so those are the two groups that, and the other group, by the way, who are often opposed are civil servants in finance departments all around Canada, because they don't like the idea of a statutory program which says like a health insurance does, [00:17:00] you can eligible to get health insurance we'll spend whatever's necessary. They don't like that because it limits their discretion and their ability to create new programs with their ministers, which they can announce, because so much is going into these other costs.

But I think that I actually am hopeful that the present government, Minister Freeland and others who are looking at what we've worked during COVID and who now have NDP, minority government situation where they're dependent upon the NDP support, maybe in the best of all possible circumstances to get something constructive done along this line

Blake: yeah. you make some terrific points there, in terms of the resistance to this and the critics around it and it seems like a lot of this resistance is being driven by protecting, the way we've always done things in the current systems that we have in place and vested interests in maintaining those current systems.

I was really pleased that you sent me this [00:18:00] recent document from the Royal Society and I was looking at the table about how much of our GDP is a result of public social expenditures. And, I was quite amazed to see, most people think in Canada that we spend a lot on social services, but when we compare the amount based on the percentage of GDP that Canada spends, versus similar developed nations around the world, we really don't spend that much.

Hugh: We're beneath the middle of the pack and if you think about it, the two charts in that study one was where does what's the percentage of gross domestic product we spend on social and healthcare in Canada versus these other countries like Belgium, France, Germany, Australia, and many others and the other chart was, as I recall, How do we do in terms of controlling the level of poverty in our society and keeping it low as compared to other societies? And guess what? We don't do all that well on that front [00:19:00] either and what I find really interesting and I was saying this, to the folks at the Canadian medical association about whom I was speaking about this a few days ago. I said, in those other countries, when you ask those people, do you have confidence in your healthcare system? Those countries that spend more of their GDP on social policy and healthcare and do a better job at controlling poverty, have a much higher level of confidence in their healthcare system than we do here in Canada, so those things all connect. And I think, you talked about the eighties. I think one of the things that happened with both Mrs. Thatcher and President Regan, who I had some admiration for some of the things they did without question, but they made the case that you really could massively reduce tax revenue without causing any difficulty and when people would say that Mrs. Thatcher, what about the impact on society? She would say there's no such thing as society [00:20:00] and that reduction of the revenue based on governance, which is good for business and good for investment and all that stuff was so radical, but our Governments really haven't had the resources they need to do what they should be doing in so many of these areas. And when you think about this on the chart, that talks about how much of your GDP gross domestic product do you spend on social and healthcare as of 2018, we are even beneath for United Kingdom and the United States, because when you add up the cost of Medicare and Medicaid in the US, and the increasing cost of the national health service in the UK, as a percentage of their GDP, they're spending more. So, I think most Canadians would be surprised to hear that. And you don't often hear politicians and government talk about that because they know, citizens will say, why is that? why can't we do better? [00:21:00] What are the priorities that we're engaging in that are more important? than these issues are, that's the challenge for the baby going home? 

Blake: Yeah, I agree. And I'd like to just tell our listeners, we'll try to post some of this information on our show blog so that you can see it. I was quite surprised at it too, but here's something interesting Hugh, and for me, it will present, another research opportunity. But when I look at, and I've been involved in innovation in Canada, as I'm very concerned about, Canada's level of, capability around innovation and performance  and profitability as a result, we were, we ranked pretty low on the innovation index, as stated by the conference board of Canada and the report card in 2018 but when I looked out across the countries that we were looking at for this index,  it's quite interesting as they all seem to line up with this chart that you sent me at least on a surface level, more investigation is required, but it seems like those countries that are doing better in terms of [00:22:00] their investment, into and their impact, economic impact from innovation are those countries that also have the highest level of public expenditure as a percentage of their GDP in social programs.

Hugh: And if you look at the cut recoveries that are doing better than us on social expenditures, like Sweden and Denmark, and France and Germany, these are high market penetrating, profitable economies, who do very well, who are ahead of us on innovation in a host of ways. and they don't seem to have a problem, deciding to have a society with less inequality, is to make the entire society stronger, to produce better results, a more productive economy. And by the way, they don't run big deficits, quite the contrary they're very careful on how they spend. So, this whole notion that we can't do what's right, because we can't afford it [00:23:00] because we have to have lower taxes and everybody else, in some circumstances, and we're not prepared to invest, just makes no rational sense. 

Blake: The data would seem to suggest that. So that's something I'm going to look at very closely. The comparison between investment in social programs and the capacity and capability for innovation. I wanted to jump to a couple of, other, arguments that critics have posed and people spoke to me about and get your insights on those. But, if we implement a, universal, basic income, it will increase our taxes and it will jeopardize other social programs, like old age security and CPP and things like that. How would you respond? 

Hugh: I would respond by saying it's not true. there is no, let's be perfectly clear. All the proposals for basic income in Canada are only talking about reforming the way in which we put cash in the hands of the poorest in our society. It's not [00:24:00] about reducing special programs for seniors programs for those who have other kinds of handicaps in one form or another ,It's not about touching any of that and, and let's be clear generically we spend about $162 billion a year on all of our social programs, but we haven't really had much movement in the amount of people, three and a half million living beneath the poverty line, for many years so clearly something that you know, doing is not having its effect and the notion that this would force us to collapse other programs is just simply not true. There's no evidence to back it up, and in those other countries, by the way, who have more generous programs in this respect, they're offering them other programs beyond income support, is just as generous as ours if not more so. 

Blake: And so, what about the question about that it will require an increase in taxes. I know a lot of people feel that they're paying too much tax as it is right [00:25:00] now. those earning above a certain threshold are paying close to 50% in taxes. They're worried that something like this will then force a further increase in their taxes. what do you think about that? 

Hugh: the top rate in Canada for taxation is about 46% and that's on the very top amount of your earnings. You don't pay it right across the board. You just pay it on that top amount of your earnings number one, number two is we're going to be serious about shaping a society that is more productive and which is inclusive economically and which produces a recovery that has a place for everyone. One of the things that has to be part of that discussion is tax reform. We haven't changed - the last commission on tax reform was in the late 1960s and we haven't made any meaningful changes to our tax system for a long time. So, for example, if I have a small [00:26:00] company in Vancouver and I wanted to hire people to work in that company, I would pay more tax on their income and on their benefits and, what's required in terms of workplace safety and rest then I would, if I bought a machine. I would pay, more importantly, they would pay a higher percentage of tax on what they earned, working I would pay on capital gains tax from profits coming out of the business. So it's hard for me to justify why a millionaire would pay a lower rate of tax on dividends, than he or she has earned legitimately by making investments as a percentage, than the people working for him in the companies would pay on their employment, where they pay a higher rate of tax,  that discourages jobs, that discourages employment, so there are places we can make changes, which I don't think would increase the total tax [00:27:00] burden, but might make parts of it a bit more fair than it is now. And I think, that's a discussion that we should have the business community, the small business community we should have retirees, we should have a whole bunch of people is part of it. But we should ask whether what we have for today's economy, the economy that has to, if we are going to survive genuinely more new ideas and more innovation, but whether we have a tax system is actually doing the job and I would argue that it's not just as it's not doing the job in terms of helping those people at the low end of the spectrum, 

Blake: Again, a fabulous point, because this is something I've been thinking a lot about is that the need for tax reform in conjunction with something like UBI, because I think you're right nothing has changed. We just keep bolting on things to an old system and as you say, the world is changed, it's becoming a disincentive for entrepreneurs, and we know that we are going to lose significant jobs to automation, [00:28:00] and really, we're encouraging it by our current tax system. so, I love that point - the one, criticism that I'm interested in and I'm not sure how to answer, and maybe you can help here is the idea of inflation. So, a lot of people said, look, if we implement something like UBI, and let's say it is universal, then what it does is it creates conditions for inflation. In other words, people will spend, more driving up, spend more cash, driving up demands for goods and services, we'll have the examples that I've had come by me has been, a landlord will go "well, now that I know people have this basic income and they have the money, I'm going to up my rents because I know they can afford to pay for it" and things like that. 

Hugh: Here's the answer to that. First of all, as we are having this discussion, the rate of inflation in Canada is probably somewhere between zero and one percent. And there was a point at which, if the rate of [00:29:00] inflation gets too low, it becomes deflation, which means the value of things decline because there's insufficient demand for the purpose of purchasing them.

The old story - your house may be worth one and a half million dollars if there's a market for houses but if there, isn't a market for houses who knows what it's worth and all of that central banks have said pretty well that they like to see a 2% inflation rate, as a balancing point at which the prices of things don't go up to wildly. but there is some real demand in the economy and if the notion of getting low-income people, another basically $600 a month is going to produce some inflationary demand that would probably in the medium term, not be a bad thing would be a good thing. Secondly, most of our provinces we have rent control, which means that if you're living in a rent-controlled apartment, the criteria by which your rent can be raised [00:30:00] has there been repairs done in the building, have increased as costs have gone up. There are tribunals and other ways of dealing with that and the notion of just raising your rent on someone, because his income may or may not have gone up because of the basic income is usually not allowed under most provincial jurisdictions. Final point you and I file our taxes every year what those taxes are, how much we earn, how much we pay us is between us and CRA, otherwise it's confidential. That would be the same relationship that would exist between someone who receives a basic income from CRA and CRA, and the landlords wouldn't necessarily know whether their tenants are getting a bit more money a month or not because it's frankly, none of her business. So this notion that somehow it's going to produce this broad public desire on the part of everybody to raise prices on poor people, I think it's [00:31:00] a little overstated and it sounds like a hollow angst by people who say, "poverty is really very complex" and it's not just about the money to which I say folks who hide behind complexity, you don't want to do anything about it. It is about the money, it's always been about the money and the notion that people could live with a measure of self-respect and dignity as parents and as providers during tough times is I think part of what most Canadians believe is fair, and by the way, we do have, we have crop insurance for farmers and we have a series of programs whereby people can get tax incentives to save a little bit of money for their retirement. We spend taxpayers' money on a series of programs, all of which are worthwhile, but the notion we can't afford it when it comes to the very poor, makes no sense at all.  

Blake: I tend to agree and I like your comment about complexity y, that [00:32:00] seems to be a default when people don't really want to delve deeply into a problem and try to find some solutions. And again, I think the CERB program. It was very interesting to me. I was very impressed by the Trudeau government and how quickly they implemented that and demonstrated that this kind of program could be implemented fairly quickly and also with far less cost and less bureaucracy, less people having to review and look at it and administer the program that has been the one positive thing out of this pandemic or one of them. Is that we've seen what government can actually do when they have to. 

Hugh: Yup. And so, the question is, if we can do that in extremists, when we are going through a crisis of the kind of COVID represents, what can we learn from that? So as to make our society stronger and help the people who are most disadvantaged, cope better the next [00:33:00] time we have one of these problems because they won't be living in poverty the people living in poverty will be reduced. Those people will be living at a higher level of health and productivity and engagement, and that'll make the community as a whole stronger, economically more productive and that's good for everybody's economic interests. 

Blake: Yeah, great point and a great way I think, to wind down our conversation a little bit, but I wanted to, before we end this, I wanted to find out where people can find out more about UBI, where some resources that provide a balanced perspective on this. Where can people go to find out more information? 

Hugh: Let me suggest a couple of places. If people will Google BICN - Basic Income Canada Network. That will take them to a website, where there's a lot of resources and background material. And, you'll also find out that there are chapters literally in every province and every city there’s thousands of Canadians who are now [00:34:00] working to try to make this happen and, people will not only find the basic information from the central website but they can find out about where the chapter and organization in their community should they want to become part of that. I learned more from them and that would be one good source. Another great source, would be to go to the Conference Board of Canada which has done work on this, and by the way, as recently as this week, a very solid, pro-business organization, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce passed a resolution in favor of doing a nationwide pilot on basic income. There they are, business people who worry about, as they should profits and costs and employment and jobs and investment and return and all that good stuff they are now saying, we should give this a try.

So those are two or three of the places where people would get quite a bit of, quite a bit of information. 

Blake: and I think the other resource people can [00:35:00] consult. Is your book, Bootstraps Need Boots? Correct? 

Yeah, that's right. But the thing about in the book, when UBC press another great British Columbia organization came to ask me if I would write that book, I said, I've made a thousand speeches across the country and brought in legislation and bills and stuff on this so I'm not sure anybody would be interested. They said, no, we don't want that kind of book. The book we want is why would you as a conservative be in favour of Basic income? What would have happened in your life and your career to get you to that conclusion? First I was a little embarrassed about the idea, quite frankly, I got involved, doing some pro bono work for Premier Wynn to design the basic income pilot, in Ontario so I set the proposition aside, but they came back at me and one of the, one of the editors said, look, "Hugh if we do a book seeing how you, [00:36:00] as a conservative ended up on this side of the fence, on this issue helps a thousand other Canadians understand why it might be a good idea maybe it's something that we can do and  that tipped me over. And that's what the book is. It's basically a bit of a biopic on what I experienced various punch in my career around this issue. both in terms of local domestic policy politics and politicians, I worked for, it seems like even internationally to make a convinced supporter of this and so that's what the book will provide some insight on for those folks who maybe need something they want to read before they fall asleep or that will put them to sleep where there won't be any side effects in the morning. 

I will also add to Hugh's description of his book. I started reading it, I haven't finished it yet Hugh, but I think what I loved about it was the humanness of it and your stories and the stories of your family, coming over from Russia and what struck me is this is a similar story for a lot of people a lot of Canadians. It certainly [00:37:00] was for me on my father's side, where my grandfather came over after the first world war, he was Ukrainian, but he came over under an Austria-Hungary passport. He lived in a town, a village that was over its history, part of the Ukraine, part of the Austria-Hungary empire part of Russia. and so, I saw great parallels in your stories about your grandparents and your parents, to the stories that he used to tell. So, I think people will be able to relate to this, at a very human level and I really enjoyed it. And I'm looking forward to finishing the book, Hugh, I can't thank you enough again for your time today this has been really enlightening for me and I think for our audience and to our audience, I will post, as much information as I can, as well as links to Hugh's book on our show blog. And then some of the other resources that he has mentioned. 

Hugh: thank you. And it's been an honor and a privilege.

Blake: Thank you Hugh