Reduce Income Gap, Through Guaranteed Annual Income.

The rich are getting richer and there’s no sign that’s going to change in the near future.

Poverty costs governments and politicians Canadians/Taxpayers.

The cost of poverty is in the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Every Year.

Do you want to live in a world where the one per cent own more than the rest of us combined?

Among the suggestions to combat this and to reduce, inequality in the world is an idea that has been around for decades: a guaranteed annual income.

Now, this may sound radical but it’s been tried before in Canada. An experiment ran in Dauphin, Manitoba between 1974 and 1978 to see if the plan would prompt people to take advantage of the money and leave the labour market.

During the experiment, the community saw visits to doctors and hospitals and emergency stations go down, domestic abuse decreased, as did the need for mental health treatment. Students also stayed in school longer.

Our existing Old age security and welfare system—they are NOT one and the same as our government politicians would  so dearly like us to believe, Canadian  seniors have long all paid full premiums for their social/income insurance policies-- while supposedly well intentioned is not working and has NEVER worked.

Do you remember the days of the Alberta British Columbia welfare collection circle?

There is, of course, a much better, very much less expensive, way of doing it. A way that is also much more efficient, focused, and fair. I believe that a negative income tax or an automatic top up for people who fall beneath a certain level, as the government’s claim to do but do not for senior citizens, is the only way to proceed.”

An Interesting- or should be for English Speaking Canadians side Issue:

Five Ways Canadian Funding is Improving Health Care in Francophone Nations????.

PARIS – Smartphones that double up as microscopes and injury registries, using selfies to diagnose disease, and fortifying local food resources to feed babies and pregnant moms.

Those are just a handful of ideas Canada is funding to transform health care in developing Francophone nations.

This week, Grand Challenges Canada poured $1.2 million in seed money to 11 ideas scientists are working on in health care innovation???. Five of the projects hail from Canada, while researchers from Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Egypt, Haiti and Rwanda also received funding for their ideas.

In BC, the Federation of Labour and NDP party are pushing for increased minimum wages of $15 per hour, as are the Canadian Labour Congress and National NDP party. Such inflationary policies put the burden of increased costs of base wages, increase costs of paid vacation, stat. holidays, EI, CPP and WCB directly on the employers and as Canadian taxpayers the employees.

 I'd like to propose other sources be considered to get our citizens out of poverty.

Per the Minister of Finance in an interview on today's West Block, the average Canadian is already paying 45% of their annual income in taxes - federal, provincial and municipal.

As of 2012, small businesses employed over 7.7 million individuals in Canada, or 69.7 percent of the total private labour force.

Small businesses created a little over 100,000 jobs, on average, between 2002 and 2012, accounting for almost 78 percent of all private jobs created on average.

Where are all those jobs and income going to come from, when forcing increased wages onto small business employers in one jump, of over 46%, will force many small businesses to close? With all the layoffs from major retailers and oil companies occurring, aren't our economy and employment options unstable enough?

Survival rates for small and medium-sized enterprises in Canada decline with time. About 80 percent of enterprises that entered the marketplace in 2008 survived for one full year and 72 percent of enterprises that entered the marketplace in 2007 survived for two years.  

Public/Civil Servants have very high wages when compared to their private counterparts and their paid leave entitlements far exceed reasonable expectations and/or those of most citizens in private enterprise.

As Canadians, we need to work together to ensure we get decreased taxation levels to increase our disposable income levels and to create wage equity. I suggest beginning with our government/public officials and CEOs of taxpayer funded- therefore forever publically owned-Crown Corporations getting their salaries decreased very significantly. There needs to be greater levels of accountability on how our tax dollars are spent. Why are we sending so much money abroad in foreign aid when we have people living in poverty right here at home that should be helped first???

I think stop gaps-such as a guaranteed income (which, throughout their working years, Canadians seniors have already paid for)-above the poverty line and Tied, In Equal Dollars to any increase in public/civil servant salaries is not only a good idea but that it is an absolute necessity, if we are ever to have a sustainable Canadian economy. The One Percent, those who would be dictators to the rest of the world definitely must, be made pay more taxes to help take some of the burden off the other 99% of a Canadian economy and us who wish to continue building Canada. © Al (Alex-Alexander) D. Girvan. All rights reserved.