Comes a Time - Part 1 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 ...#ForWhatit'sWorth

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Transcript

Comes a Time Part 1

Blake: Welcome to the first episode of season two of, for what it's worth called comes a time. We're really excited about the season and we have a very special guest for this two-part episode. My guest is an order of Canada recipient, political strategist, author, commentator, academic, and former Senator. He began his career at a young age as an aid in the government of Robert Stanfield.

Later, he became chief of staff to Ontario's premier bill Davis. And following this to Canadian prime minister, Brian Rooney, he was elected to the Senate by prime minister, Paul Martin, and chaired the Senate subcommittee on anti-terrorism. He resigned from the Senate in 2014 to take on a role as principal of Massey college at the university of Toronto throughout his illustrious career.

He has remained the champion of basic income for Canada. Please. Welcome Hugh Segal. thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. I'm really excited to talk to [00:01:00] you. It's a real honor for me to have you here, and I really appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule.

Hugh: Delighted to be here and thank you for asking. 

Blake: thanks Hugh 

 let me begin some opening comments just to frame our discussion for our listeners. If you'll bear with me for a minute. So, it comes a time when, as a result of unprecedented events, we need to consider change at a systemic level.

And the current pandemic has illustrated many things, some good and some not so good. on the positive side, the implementation of the serve benefits has demonstrated how agile our government can be in times of crisis, abandoning bureaucratic process in favor of effectiveness impact. We've seen leaders across the provinces, working together in a United effort to keep us all safe, assuming collective responsibility for outcomes.

We have been forced to develop a mindset for change at a pure necessity. Actively embracing it and becoming agents of change. We have been experimental because we don't have all the answers we've had to engage in rapid [00:02:00] prototyping. We've had to take risks and be resilient and engage in reflective practice.

However, the pandemic has laid bare many deficiencies that make up the structures that govern our society and inequities among citizens, which we must now take some responsibility for addressing. The pandemic has illustrated most acutely. The growing socioeconomic divide, the impact of COVID-19 has been particularly devastating on the poor and the ethnic minorities in our society, particularly in large cities.

And as Canadians, we have a front row seat to the drama playing out in front of us, South of the border, which illustrates what can happen when the gap between the haves and have nots in between the rich and poor become too large. The future of our economy is at best uncertain. We have mounting job losses, businesses, shuttering across the country.

We have a dramatic change in the nature of work and schooling, the shifting economic and political relationships between and amongst nations. The mountain climate crisis. these are big complex [00:03:00] challenges requiring us to engage at some level in social innovation to consider bold ideas, to protect the health and wellbeing of our citizens and our nations as a whole one such idea.

I think there's two, his time has come, that we need to seriously consider is the implementation of universal basic income. So, I'd like to give our listeners a sense of who you are. You are obviously a prominent Canadian, a lifelong, progressive conservative, labeled a red Tori. You began your career as a, as an aid to progressive conservatives, the leader, Robert Stanfield.

You were the chief of staff for premier bill Davis. And later for Brian Mulroney you were appointed to the Senate by prime minister, Paul Martin. And you retired from the Senate in 2007 and went on to chair the Senate subcommittee on anti-terrorism. Then you left politics to take on the role as principal of Massey college at U of T my old Alma mater.

But throughout all of this, you have become the recognized champion of universal basic income. Some [00:04:00] might think this is. Somewhat strange being a progressive conservative, but I'd like to then talk to you a little bit with where this passion for universal basic income came from. What were the experiences in your life that shaped this?

Hugh: Let me start by saying that like millions of Canadians, I grew up in a home that was lower working class, on a sort of. Edge of poverty. We often didn't have enough money to pay rent or groceries or heat, or in those days, pharmaceuticals, transportation. All at the same time, my dad was a cab driver, after a long period of unemployment, my mom worked as an all-night cashier in a, in the medical arts pharmacy in downtown Montreal to make some extra cash.

So that part of life was always a bit of a struggle. My parents were wonderful. Loving and kind people. And I was very fortunate to have parents like that, but in terms of the economics of the situation, they were always very difficult. So I grew up that way. I understand what that's like.

And I say that knowing that at the time we were going up on the edge of poverty, there are a lot of people in Montreal where I was born places like point Saint Charles and others who were living actually in more difficult circumstances. No. And so my interest in politics generally, and ideas really wasn't part of my life.

at the age of 12 or 13, up until the age of 12 and 13, my life was about school and home. The sanctuary as is the case for many kids, but it was really the visit to my school in 1962. The 62 general election of prime minister, beacon Baker, who was running for reelection classically. They come to a school.

I don't make a partisan speech. They talk about more general things of interest to the community as a whole. And, I was mesmerized by his approach to what the [00:06:00] country was about. he was coming for the purpose of presenting a copy of the bill of rights, which part of his past, and his government had brought in a couple of years earlier and he had a very inclusive message about, this is a country where wherever you're from the number, of syllables that are in your name.

There's gotta be a place at the family table for everybody, as long as you're prepared to put your shoulder to the wheel and do your fair share. And I never thought about that before, frankly. I thought about our family, but I never thought about it. That sort of thing. And I remember walking home from school that day and deciding that, maybe I should think about this political business.

Here's a guy who came from a Prairie community and was a outsider for many parts of his life. And now he's prime minister and he waiting all of us to get involved and be helpful in some way, shape or form. And so that's where I began to think about this stuff. And I got involved more and more progressively through high school [00:07:00] and university.

And while at university of Ottawa, part of what I did was organized sort of visiting speakers to come from parliament Hill and talk to the students. And one of whom was a young MP from Egmont Prince Edward Island. His name was David McDonald. He was a progressive conservative he'd been elected for the first time in 65.

And he came from a writing, which had quite a bit of poverty in the West part of Prince Edward Island, in Summerside to kick this. And by about 1969, he was working on a paper about how to reform welfare and how to reform the way we deal with poverty, which he took to a progressive conservative meeting in the Niagara, on the Lake Niagara falls, rather, which was called, I think prosperity for tomorrow.

And he presented that paper and there was quite a debate about what it was basically called the guaranteed annual income back then as a better way of proceeding than the [00:08:00] myriad of programs we now have, which are quite inefficient on occasion wastewater. And don't actually lift anybody up poverty. And that's where I got exposed to the idea at the age of 19.

And I really stuck with it ever since, because it's occurred to me. That if we keep on doing the same thing, time and time again, hoping for a different result. That's the definition of insanity and our welfare programs across Canada really haven't changed in half a century longer, and they're all highly bureaucratic.

They're very tightly tied to rules and forms, and they are very unhelpful in the sense that nobody receives more than half. But basic poverty line in their own province. So if let's say in British Columbia, it takes 15 or $16,000 a year to live over the poverty line, which means you have enough maybe for rent and clothes and food and [00:09:00] transport, you wouldn't get much more than about $700 a month, which is clearly not enough.

And then in BC and Ontario and all the provinces. We were all saying, if you're receiving welfare and you find that the work, then you'll be taxed back. Cause you're trying to make more than the $700 and a dollar per dollar in terms of the grant, which is a hundred percent level of taxation, which is why welfare discourages work.

And we need a program that helps people who are beneath the poverty line, but also encourages them to work and to be part of the workforce, which is a better way over the long haul for everybody.  as long as they can. So that's where it all started. 

Blake: Before we delve right into the nitty gritty details of universal basic income, for our audience's sake, maybe you could spend a bit of time describing really what it is and the difference perhaps between the various terminologies’ universal basic income, basic income and guaranteed income.

Can you talk [00:10:00] to this a little bit? 

Hugh: So there are a lot of terms that have been used. Many of your listeners will have, remembered perhaps Andrew Yang, who is the young, high-tech entrepreneurs who ran for the democratic presidential nomination recently. And he was for something called UBI, universal basic income, which is everybody.

everybody from the wealthiest to the poorest, we get a thousand dollars a month. And of course, if you're lower income, you'd keep most of it. Cause you don't pay that much tax on your income. And if you were better off, you pay more back in tax and that's how he proposed to do it. That's not what Canada normally does.

That's not what I would be proposing. That's not what the basic income as it's now described really is the basic income. And for those of your listeners from maybe over the age of 65, Is really like the guaranteed income supplement, which now exists [00:11:00] for all Canadians over the age of 65. If you're 65 or older in Canada, and you heard the last from all your other sources, then 1500 a month, the federal government talks you up.

So you have at least 1500 a month to live. It's 2,400 for a couple. So that's done not with caseworkers and welfare departments and bureaucrats and thousands of forms to fill out. That's done simply by filing your taxes and file your taxes. We're all supposed to file our taxes every year under the law.

And if you fall beneath the basic right, you get automatically topped out. So the basic income that I propose and that the basic income Canada network. Supports across the country is doing that for people who are now beneath the poverty line between the ages of 18 and 64. And just so we're clear, that's about three and a half million Canadians [00:12:00] fall into that category.

And most three and a half million Canadians. are divided about half and half between those who are working, they have jobs, but they're paid so little. Yes, they are really the working poor and those who are on welfare and other programs because they are beneath the poverty line. Our approach would be to replace all that with a federal income based tax top-up for everybody who needs it, when you the poverty line, which was amongst other things.

allow the problems is to collapse their welfare programs and save close to $30 billion a year, which is what they now spend on welfare. 

Blake:  

so you don't support the idea of universal basic income. In other words, paying all Canadians 

Hugh: The simple reason I don't is because it's a) much more expensive 

Hugh: and b) it doesn't actually get the money to the people who need it and c). the notion that the tax system is [00:13:00] so efficient, but those who don't need it would have largely tax back by revenue, Canada. The end of the year, I think is a little bit optimistic, right? You guys, people who are better off to get advice and accountants quite legitimately to figure out how to pay as little tax as possible.

So that would not make that approach to my mind very efficient and it'll be far too expensive. 

Blake: the reason that we reached out to you was of course, we had a number of guests on our show that talked about this idea of a basic income, universal basic income and in a number of different contexts.

We had one young engineer in Calgary who saw this as a real benefit. His perspective, both actually both guests that mentioned this, talked about it more in the universal sense. And the first said, I've been thinking about this universal, basic income.

And what I like about it is I think it might be a catalyst for innovation. So in other words, if people are able to have enough money, that they can focus on the [00:14:00] things that they want to do, the things that they're passionate about, that it might actually drive a very positive economic outcome. The other guest who actually had been on welfare at one point in her life, when she had two young children and her husband left her and she.

Could not afford to work and then talked about it because she said, when she was on welfare, the stigma around it was very negative. And so I said, what would you do? And she said, I would advocate for a universal, basic income. and so that the stigma is removed. And so that even people that.

Don't need it, to survive would invest it, would save it, which would, of course, again, drive an economic benefit. And she advocated the model very much like the model that was a pilot that was done in Manitoba in the seventies, the MINCOME pilot. Where, if you make over a certain amount, you get taxed back at 50%.

That was her perspective. But you're saying really we can't, this is too much of an administrative challenge to do it that way. [00:15:00] It's much better just to focus on those that are below the poverty line correct?

Hugh:  Yeah, the only thing I would say is there is a group now independent of the basic income organization, which is called, UBI, works group, which is a group of young CEO of high tech firms, communications firms, and others who are in favor of a basic income because they argue. And one of the ways in which we fund innovation in Canada, a lot of startup companies, they won't pay very much for bright young people who are working because they don't have a lot of money at the beginning, but they do give them stock options.

They do give them, things that may be worth money. If the company does well and begins to make a profit. So the issue is as a lot of those employees, particularly younger people are moving from project to project. What kind of stability should they have? And the notion that it's between projects, you failed to meet the poverty line and this topped you up.

So you could continue to [00:16:00] participate in the workforce at some point, and you create appropriate taxes for the money you earn, that's completely consistent with this idea,  the notion, however of sending. the, a family or Jim seen or other is a thousand dollars a month. It strikes me as something they wouldn't appreciate, and we can't afford

Blake: that makes sense. I really thank you for clarifying that. because I, it is a concern of mine. As you know my background is in workplace innovation and knowledge management, and I just came from a conference where we were discussing, the jobs at risk as a result of automation and this movement, as you correctly, pointed out to a gig based economy where you know, a good percentage of new jobs now in Canada are.

Gig based, so they don't have the stability that certainly you and I were used to when we were growing up full-time employment and benefits and that kind of thing. 

Hugh: You're right about that. And the other thing that's really changed, and I think this is why the employment insurance system has been found inadequate is because [00:17:00] 40% of the people who work in Canada are not eligible for employment insurance because their workers.

Who are gig workers, part-time workers, project to project. they are people who've built in any one job work long enough to qualify for EI , and we saw when shutdowns came in the screen, because of the public health advice and COVID a lot of those people, some of whom worked the servers in restaurants.

Several of them work in other kind of part-time labor were ineligible. And the government have to make changes to address that where if we had this basic income positioned in place, based on means, if your income fell for any reason, you could file automatically with, CRA, as we did, Canadians did back in March and April, where, you know, people were filing because they've lost their job in the previous week.

because the restaurant had closed [00:18:00] or whatever, they were filing on a Monday on wine and the money was in their bank account by Wednesday, there is no program run by any  province, no EI program, no welfare program that can be anything like that efficient. All of those programs have rules and have a criteria which has to be met and they have to have either people or algorithms that judge those criteria.

Takes a lot of time. And, I always say, I look for a balance when we got into this difficulty, this time as we did it in 08 09, the central bank, to each credit provided liquidity. So a lot of cash into the marketplace. So the major financial institutions could, provide liquidit we needed.

Now I remember prime minister Harper saying, we did not bail out the banks in Canada. Unlike other countries while he's right about that. But here's what we did do central mortgage and [00:19:00] housing went to all the banks and bought the goods, Portage portfolios that they all have. These are performing mortgages.

People were paying them readily and they weren't in distress and central mortgage and housing, which we all own as tax players played the banks $362 billion dollars to buy that mortgage portfolio, by the way, it was a good portfolio. It's generating profit for CMHC. Now it wasn't a bad investment, but the reason they did that was so the banks would have the liquidity, cash so that when you and I went to the bank machine, or you lying in a car loan where a small business needed a line of  credit, they had the cash to provide because cash was drying up all over the world because of the us credit collapse.

So we have done this for the big guys, and I'm not against doing that when necessary, but the notion that we have a problem about liquidity for [00:20:00] low-income people who are at the most difficult part of the cycle, strikes me as just unfair and unacceptable. 

I think in longer term, 

Blake: if one takes a longer view of the economy, that it's also not a good thing 

Blake: in that regard, either the idea of basic income or universal basic income is now become quite a hot topic.

I know that a lot of people thought that there would be something about it in the throne speech. There was not, there have been a number of studies that have now. Received significant profile. And I wanted to talk a little bit about those. one was the, I guess the first one that I was aware of in Canada called MINCOME in Manitoba from 1974 to 1978.

I understand that was quite a successful pilot study. 

Hugh: It was, interestingly enough, where it came from and how it happened is really important to  to understand. In the early sixties, Saskatchewan brought in universal health insurance, and then Mike Pearson, who was the minority liberal leader [00:21:00] between 63 and 68 across Canada prime minister got all the provinces to bring it in.

And one of the things that the federal government did at that time was to say to the provinces, this is going to increase demand for healthcare. So here's what we'll do. Every dollar you guys spend on new hospitals and new facilities. We'll match you dollar for dollar. And that was how he brought the provinces into the mix and how we got universal health insurance, right across Canada one of the great strengths of our economy and the West social programs, when that went on for a while. And as we turned the corner on the seventies, people began to realize that if you had no limit on the spending, then there'd be no limit on the increase. And at some point it would be unaffordable. So began, it was Mark LeLonde, who was the minister now a federal minister of health.

So we got to look at what is it that is producing sickness? [00:22:00] What is it that's producing illness? What is it that makes people sick sooner in life and mixed them in need and expensive hospital care. And of course, one of the most perfect predictors, sadly of bad healthcare outcomes is poverty. So that's where the idea of doing a test run in Dauphin, Manitoba, rural community farming community, and a few other adjacent  Manitoba communities came.

And, so it was jointly funded by our present prime minister's father, Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister at the time, and Ed Shirer who was the NDP premier of Manitoba at the time as the notion was that those were clear. We want, first of all, to see if we can eradicate poverty in this community, a). b) if we can encourage work unlike welfare and, c)  if we can measure what the broad implications are for the people who are helped and for the community [00:23:00] as a whole to figure out if it's too expensive, can we manage it?

Is there a net benefit? What's the return on investment? So that's what they did was supposed to be a five-year plan and only went on for three. But interestingly enough, you signed up, by saying that you'd never accept welfare and that you agreed that if your income fell beneath a certain line, you'd be topped up.

And that went on for three years. And some things that emerged in a study that was done by Evelyn Forget. Distinguished economist at university of Manitoba are really fascinating. Number one, the amount of people who showed up to work did not actually reduce.  People, even though they knew they had this back, the survey had this backstop in the event, there was problem.

We went to work on a regular basis. Number two, the use of a Manitoba health insurance system fell by [00:24:00] 8% during that three-year period. Number three arrests, car accidents, all the things that can sometimes be associated with stress and anxiety. They also diminished because the community was feeling much more secure.

The work was continuing and there was only two groups didn't work as much. One was new mothers. This was before we had a multi-week mat leave program in Canada. They use the extra top off to stay home with their new babies a little longer if they wanted to. And the other group was a group referred to by Stats Can as an attached young single males, which is a euphemism for high school students.

And what they did was they were, they when the family under the financial difficulty, because of the top up, they stayed in school. They didn't have to leave school to go find a job. If that meant that many more people in Dauphin. And in the neighboring [00:25:00] communities got to finish high school, which back in the seventies, finishing high school had a huge impact on your earnings for the rest of your life, as compared to those who had to leave with creative, they to go find a job. So the net result was, this works. It encourages work. There's no stigma because everybody could sign up as it is with welfare. And because it was a private relationship between you and the MICOME program, nobody, none of your neighbors knew who was in or who was out, which is not the case often with welfare.

So those results were very encouraging. 

Blake: So let me ask you, given those encouraging results, why was this data buried? I had never heard about it until I started to do research. Why was this buried and why was it never carried forward beyond 1978? 

Hugh: We have a tradition in Canada when political parties replaced each other in an election time, [00:26:00] where often the political party that just got elected, doesn't like to embrace the ideas of the previous government.

So in that cycle that you referenced, Mr. Trudeau in 79 had been, defeated by Mr. Clark and Mr. Schrier had been defeated by Sterling Ryan, the progressive conservative,  and so that combined with Ottawa, bringing in, fiscal austerity based on some discussion, the G seven around inflation rates meant that the program wasn't funded on an ongoing basis and neither of the new governments and the provinces wanted to continue it. So literally the files,  hundreds and hundreds of boxes of files, anonymized or stored in the federal government warehouse in, and if it wasn't for Dr.Forget  economist for university of Manitoba, who said, I'm going to actually find out what's in those [00:27:00] boxes and see what the results are, we would never know. And now to her credit, she has done various peer reviewed study for the Canadian Institute for health research and others. Which gives us the data that you've been talking about and, is a very important part of the discussion. We owe her a lot for having had the entrepreneurial courage to get that job done.

Blake:  And so as more of  the research or the data is being analyzed, we're getting a fresh look at this and how successful it was.

I wanted to jump to Finland. So I know Finland has completed a two year study on a universal, basic income implementation and their results were pretty much in line with what you've just expressed around MINCOME. And again, this they've saw it certainly an increase in the health and wellbeing of their citizens.

The wellness index went way up. They saw a slight increase in employment, not significant, but it certainly didn't go down. So more people were [00:28:00] working and they found that what. Implementing this in Finland did was create a renewed trust in government and support for government was at an all time high.

But once again, Finland has chosen not to continue with this past this two year period. What do you think about that? 

Hugh: Two things, Finland is a proportional representation system, so it's governments tend to be coalitions of different parties and, the study started when the coalition had more of a social democratic content to it, and it was stopped when after an election, the coalition has more of a center right bias to it. And so that's part of why that didn't continue. and then of course, when a new coalition got reelected recently with a more of a social democratic mix to it, they reintroduced the program. I think what's really important about the Finnish sample is unlike MINCOME, which is about anybody who fell [00:29:00] beneath the poverty line, Finland was only about people who are unemployed because what the MINCOME study realized was there's a lot of people who work, but they don't earn enough for any one, job, to get above the poverty line, some people. beneath the poverty line and who are working poor, have more than one job in order to try to make ends meet.

That was what the Fins were trying to figure out was what did it do to the unemployed? So their sample was a different sample, a little narrower than the sample that we had in Manitoba for MINCOME study 

and I gather, 

Blake: there's also a study going on Spain around this  

In the spring, 

Hugh: the Spanish government, which is also a coalition, announced they would be bringing in a basic income because they saw what basically all of our public health officials have seen. And 

Blake: with Dr. Tam, the senior 

Hugh: public 

Blake: health officer for Canada has reported 

Hugh: on, [00:30:00] is that when the COVID infection began to spread, if you do a heat map of Vancouver or Victoria, or, Toronto or Ottawa and Montreal or Halifax or Calgary, you will pouring that the better parts of the city in terms of income, where people are in better housing, where people are earning more were not as effective as those parts of the community, where there were more low income people living in more dense housing and where the infection rates were much higher.

So what public health people have been saying for a long time? Yes, even without COVID poverty is the best possible predictor of bad health outcomes. So when something like COVID hits you see it in much more dramatic terms because people living in a certain part of the are people going about their business at home and working by zoom and not having to show up for [00:31:00] hourly paid work are doing better in health terms than people who don't have a choice or who are living in poverty, which raises the question, how many lives could we have saved in this present context if we've been investing in reducing poverty properly in the previous 10 years. And I think that's the real kind of revolutionary question, which comes out of the COVID experience. And, historically this is not a new thing, the British went to do a national health service after we went through unbelievable suffering -  the regular bombings and whatever, during world war two Canada went to a Canada Pension Plan, went to old age security and went to overtime in  the early sixties, universal healthcare, all in some way, because of the war experience in the United States, they brought in programs for the GI's to get the college and a whole bunch of things.

So the notion that one needs a [00:32:00] pandemic, we got a chance to think. About what we're doing right. And what we can do better and begin to do what we're doing better. I think represents a tremendous opportunity. For all governments across Canada, regardless of their political affiliation. 

Blake: Yeah I really love that point Hugh I was thinking, growing up as a child in Toronto and my grandfather, who I was very close to as a boy, who was served in both world Wars. I remember him saying to me, Blake you have been born into Beilock, you've been born into a life of privilege, but with that privilege comes responsibility and it seemed like.

Post-World war two, there was a feeling of optimism. We were looking to improve the lot of life for everybody, and this was globally. And my grandfather used to say this to me all the time. you have a responsibility because you have been lucky. And the idea is we're going to raise the standard of living for everybody.

And that seemed to be the motivation after the second world war. and certainly in growing up for me in the sixties [00:33:00] and seventies, that was the case. And then in the eighties, Things started to change and I could feel it where people were more concerned about the accumulation of personal wealth and adopted a mindset that said, our society works best when we have winners and losers.

When we have multi-millionaires that get there by, hard work and effort that's let the market economy dictate.  how society runs and things like that. and it's been disturbing me for years. AndI think, as you correctly point out, now we are at this point much, like we were at the end of the second world war, where this is an opportunity to look out and say, we see some problems here. It's time for us to really start to change the way we do things. 

Hugh: I agree with you. If you think about Sarah Mugham running premise on which Canada was built, . The underlying premise is life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our premise is peace order and good government. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that ours is better than theirs. I'm saying ours is different [00:34:00] and ours is different because our definition of order has, I think for a very long time now, certainly for half a century included the idea of fairness. You can have order in a society when all, when people generally think society operates fairly. Why don't we, why don't we not cross on a red light, even though there no traffic coming? why does the vast majority of Canadians file their taxes every year? Even though we don't have enough auditors and policemen to arrest the folks who don't, because we basically believe in the system not perfect as many flaws, but we believe the system is intrinsically fair. And when we bring in the charter of rights and freedoms, When Mr. Dieffenbaker brought in the bill of rights deal with issues of discrimination. and when we brought in universal health insurance, so everybody would have access to healthcare, whether they have enough money or not to pay for it, we went down a road and I [00:35:00] think the next step on that road is to deal with poverty because poverty is costing us all.

I live in Kingston, Ontario, and we have seven federal and provincial prisons within 50 miles of downtown, and 80% of what I like to refer to as "the  guests of her majesty" in those prisoners are in fact from the 10% of the population who live beneath the poverty line, and if you go into any emergency ward in Vancouver, anywhere across Canada, there will be people who are brought in on a regular basis because of some trauma or heart attack or car accident, God forbid, but there'll be a whole bunch of people who are sitting there because some chronic condition, has acted up.

They need help. They don't have anywhere else to go in. The vast majority of them are people who are at the poverty line, and I remember, St Michael's hospital, which has a very engaged population health program as a matter of policy that when someone came into the emergency ward in that kind of [00:36:00] circumstance, clearly down on their luck, they wouldn't be allowed to leave without a hot bowl of soup and a sandwich, and the hot bowl of soup and sandwich costs the hospital all in for that person, $1,007, because the medical apparatus they did the triage and check them over and did their blood pressure and checked all the sorts of things and figure out what the problem was that costs a thousand dollars per person. So poverty costs everybody. And the notion that we would be doing all these other good things and leaving poverty is if we don't see it and it doesn't matter just think of the opioid crisis, not only in your part of the company, but all of our big cities, that is connected to poverty in many serious ways and if we could be dealing with poverty, we could be doing our best to diminish some of the worst case results in that context. 

Blake: I agree. It always amazes me given, the development of our, of Canada and our society that [00:37:00] we actually have this level of poverty in my mind.

It should not exist. This concludes part, one of comes a time with Hugh Segal. You will be back with us next week for part two, where we will delve deeply into some examples of successful implementations of universal, basic income and basic income. We will also talk about the costs and benefits as well as some of the criticisms.

Please join us next week. For part two of comes a time for what it's worth. .