abff08f4813c @ abff08f4813c @j4vcdedmiokf56h3ho4t62mlku.srv.us

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Universal: Everyone gets it, no means testing, no bureaucracy and the cost associated with that.

Basic: You are not buying caviar and exotic holidays, just enough to live and pay rent.
Agreed.
Income: Therefore taxed.
Minor quibble - technically a concept of non-taxable income does exist, see https://www.taxtips.ca/glossary/non-taxable-income.htm for some examples. But agreed on the main point (that UBI is and should be taxable).

E.g. If UBI is 1000 a month it will likely push people into a higher tax bracket therefore their after tax income will not be 1000 more

In fact it might all be taxed away for those who are actually rich.

and for the richest they should be taxed more than they ... [receive] ... from the UBI.

I'd go a couple of steps further. Those rich enough (so not just the richest but perhaps everyone who's even slightly rich) should have the UBI fully taxed away. Another way to put this is that their taxes after UBI should = taxes before UBI + cash value of UBI

Basically we need to sort out a proper taxation system before this can be implemented.

So if this was just some kind of accounting gimmick then this would be perfect.

The issue from what I understand is that real money - the 1000 in your example - has to be sent into the richest person's bank account (or equivalent money-receiving receptacle) before getting retrieved by being taxed back. Perhaps we could do something like saying UBI is paid out annually and only given the day before taxes are due to be paid in order to minimize the amount of time this money is floating out there - but the issue is that it still costs real money to pay everyone, even the richest of the rich, this UBI, only to claw it back again in full later. (At most, some higher middle class folks might gradually get less and less than the full amount of the negative income tax/basic income, until we get to zero.)

So it's not the most efficient way to handle money. By contrast, with a NIT we avoid needing to have that extra cash to move around - we'd only have to give the basic income to those who wouldn't qualify for this claw back. That frees up funds, real money. The catch is that we'd need some bureaucracy to deal with it - but by making it part of the income tax, the existing taxation bureaucracy can deal with it, hopefully minimizing this aspect of the cost. We'd likely have some costs here anyways as part of the "sorting out a proper taxation system" prereq for a true UBI, and the hope is that a NIT wouldn't cost more than that.

I had previously moved more towards a negative income tax approach rather than a universal basic income. The latter seems to be consistently found to be too expensive to implement universally, and how does it make sense to give the basic income to someone who's currently a billionaire or even a millionaire? (Ok, if a former millionaire loses it all and ends up deep in debt, that's a bit different, but that's why I'm limiting to current millionaires.)

That's why I found this,

which found it is possible to halve previously projected costs while maintaining or even increasing its poverty-reduction impact.

To be so intriguing. Alas,

The PBO, therefore, confirms the P.E.I. report’s conclusion that it is possible to roughly halve the cost of a basic income program for Canada and each province by using the economic family definition instead of the nuclear family.

Basically, the use of the artificial "economic family" standard is what justifies giving lower payments to these folks. So the proposal saves money by .. refusing to spend extra money.

Since housing is so expensive right now, many more are living together than we'd normally see otherwise, so I think today's "economic families" are a bit artificially inflated. If a UBI based on this did go through, I'd expect folks to start moving out of their parents homes to qualify for additional basic income - which would legitimately help them afford their new places, but also cause the programme's costs to skyrocket.

I don't think the above was accounted for properly. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see a UBI or an NIT come to fruition, and Canada does have a working example of this from the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome

But having a badly designed proposal tried and failed would hurt the movement, so we have to look at these ideas closely. Ultimately, I don't see that the "economic family" concept makes sense, and without it the cost of the programme doubles. Perhaps it still works, but be prepared to fund it at double the stated level, don't let that rise catch us by surprise.

I counted them as refugees because of their stated intent. They are privileged enough that they can use non-humanitarian avenues to do it. First class vs economy…

Fair.

But let's keep in mind that the non-humanitarian avenues can be restricted. See this from last year, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68621013 when Canada had announced that they would limit the number of temporary work permits granted. It seems like this idea was revived again this year, https://theworldbridge.ca/canada-introduces-first-ever-cap-on-temporary-residents/

From the later link there are 2.5 million temporary residents in Canada, from all over the entire world. Meanwhile, from https://usafacts.org/articles/how-many-voters-have-a-party-affiliation/ there are over 45 million folks registered to the Democratic party in the US. It's easy to see how the spots to move to Canada (legally) fill up pretty quick in this situation if things get bad enough.

So I think we're on the same page here. Those early birds with enough privilege can use alternate pathways to come to Canada, but even latecomers with the same level of privilege may find a more difficult situation to contend with.

The story of the Bergs is heartbreaking. I wonder what happened to them.

As far as I can tell they're still in Canada, still in limbo. The process of claiming asylum is a slow one, and they've only been here a couple of months. So .. they haven't been approved yet, but neither have they been told to pack their bags and leave.

The “Safe Third Country” agreement will come under stress, I think, when the shit hits the fan.

Agreed. Likely it's time has come and gone.

But if one really thinks about it, one can see that the STCA was meant to be for Canada's benefit originally, as there was almost nothing going the other way pre-drumpf (and post-drumpf it's probably zero). So even historically speaking, it was always about keeping refugees in the USA out of Canada...

Minor nitpick.

Are we going to have a surge of political asylum claimants and/or refugees from the States? The first ones have already started trickling in.

No, from the linked article, those three are not coming in as refugees. As professors hired by a university based in Canada, they're at least coming in as skilled workers with the appropriate work permits.

These are the first who are trying to come under political asylum, https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/12/donald-trump-transphobia-us-family-seeking-asylum/

That said, back when folks were worried about the Insurrection Act and martial law being declared on April 20, aletheisthenes wrote ( here https://medium.com/@/part-4-a-shopping-list-for-the-unthinkable-b9c5d65c9a83 ) that folks should consider heading to Canada and Mexico, or even the Carribbean, as an option,

I’d say you have days to plan a sudden vacation in Mexico or Canada
You spend a few days or weeks in Canada, Mexico, or the Caribbean
If there is a major event that changes the world. Run. Go. Fast. Get to the border and across it fast, before it closes. If you can.

Moving on to the main point,

And what the hell are we doing to prepare for this?

Sadly, this.

Minister says Canada 'won't be cruel,' but will enforce border agreements
"People that are coming here, if they come in an irregular fashion, that is not the right way to do so and they will be turned away subject to the Safe Third Country agreement we have with the U.S."
In December, the federal government announced plans to spend $1.3 billion to improve security at the border

From https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trump-canada-u-s-border-1.7438813

they just aren’t useful enough to scale up.

Yep. Worth noting that the OP wrote this,

You can now pre-order an equivalent NS-1.

But there's nothing in the linked article to actually place such an order, or any indication that any of the robots are for sale. Rather the article just describes a series of "games" designed to show how advanced the research in China is. Which is otherwise fine, but the author using the article in a very misleading way here.

Meanwhile, if you wanna buy a walking robot, you can do so here: https://www.canadasatellite.ca/fr/Unitree-G1-Edu-Plus.htm?srsltid=AfmBOooGdkEmgTt%5C_XKF25CA1sy4dZWb5OcfpCNXp1KJlQnaFGcXIF2-W4Lk&gQT=1

It will cost you roughly 65k CAD

Key word being "was"

Anyways the article linked to another which explains that they qualified as an exception because they had a brother in Canada (a Canadian citizen already), but CBSA got all nitpicky about the docs (no specifics given but one gets the impression that there's a misplaced comma or something) and sent them away twice. They had to get a lawyer involved and file before the Federal Court to get in.

That's awful that the family got separated like that.

Glad that they finally made it in, but CBSA treated them terribly unfairly. You shouldn't need a lawyer to make an asylum claim (as most folks aren't in a position to even find a lawyer willing to help, let alone figure out how to pay for one - or find one of the pro bono folks).

Let's not forget the sacrifices made to avoid splitting the vote, such as https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/green-party-list-of-candidates-debates-1.7510915

They should have got onto the fediverse instead.

I'm not sure how accurate this is, but from https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/can-canada-still-trust-u-s-food-safety

However, this recognition does not exempt food imports from meeting the regulatory requirements. All food sold in Canada, whether it is domestic or imported, must meet Canadian food safety requirements.”
Canada has a robust system in place through onsite inspections and verifications to verify imported products comply with Canadian regulations, it said, adding that the CFIA is tracking any changes in the U.S. and other exporting countries “and will take any necessary action to continue to protect the health of Canadians and maintain a safe food supply.”

The implication being that they can inspect produce already certified safe by the FDA and that they will do so if they consider it necessary.

Whether or not they're already determined that's the case (vs still thinking about it), well....

It's bigger, as it's not just food safety at risk, but medication and medical device safety is at risk too, as explained in https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/article/amid-deep-cuts-to-the-us-fda-experts-warn-canadians-could-lose-vital-safety-information/

So by all means, organize to ban US food imports, but you shouldn’t have been eating it to begin with.

Who says we are? Boycott movements started months ago...

See https://news.ubc.ca/2025/01/canada-food-flows/ and https://www.euronews.com/next/2025/02/24/new-buy-canadian-apps-released-as-boycott-of-us-goods-in-response-to-proposed-tariffs-grow and https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/12/i-feel-utter-anger-from-canada-to-europe-a-movement-to-boycott-us-goods-is-spreading for reference.

One other thing to add to this - Leslie from the article is likely a Canadian citizen, but a permanent resident in the same situation has a a very good reason for wanting to be able to maintain their ability to fly into the US. In short it makes it easier to return to Canada if you lose your PR card while abroad anywhere else in the world. See https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/ottawa-travel-nightmares-permanent-residents-1.7509870 and https://www.canadavisa.com/canada-immigration-discussion-board/threads/crossing-us-canada-border-without-pr-card.869083/

Actually it used to be pretty common for those who live very close to the border to frequently cross both sides. Sometimes this even results in dual citizenship (if the closest hospital is on the other side of the border).

Alas, that's part of the old relationship, now dead and buried.

I could be comparing apples to oranges here, but I really view this unfavourably compared to Peter Dutton in Australia - details in https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-05-03/peter-dutton-losing-dickson-coalition-leadership/105247916 but in short Dutton resigned from leading his party after he lost both the national election there and also his own seat.

What makes me think that a strong CPC outcome is likely is that there was data from the weekend showing that CPC without a leader handily sweeps the election. So I assume they change PP for someone more likeable which puts them in a much stronger position, therefore likely to win if the Carney gov’t doesn’t execute well.

That's fair. But my point was that the new person they swap in could be someone who remakes the CPC into a more centrist or even leftist party. (Perhaps even someone who was a former Liberal Party member.) Not saying that's likely, just that it's another possibility that prevents the disaster scenario... (as opposed to someone like Danielle Smith taking the reins, which the disaster scenario requires).

All of what you suggest..

Yep, ditto. Sounds like we're pretty much in agreement here.

Thought it worth going through and pointing out the logical flaws in the disaster scenario.

Mainly, there are a number of false premises involved.

He likely has significant Brookfield investments in that blind trust.

We don't know that. More importantly, he doesn't know that. A blind trust is supposed to be blind, which means that he doesn't know if these have since been sold and replaced.

Without knowing that the blind trust does in fact own the investments to any particular degree of certainty, the odds of a move to benefit Brookfield specifically at the expense of others is reduced, probably significantly so.

He likely has a seat open on that board whenever he quits public service.

I'm not sure how much Brookfield would be influenced by public opinion, but if Carney actually did this, he'd likely suffer greatly in terms of public opinion. Usually companies pay attention to this because failing to do so can hurt their pocketbooks (think things like public boycotts, such as folks refusing to buy gas at gas stations that are fueled by the pipeline).

What if he uses emergency powers to ... [get] ... that much richer

I can't cite an authority on this but I strongly suspect that this would not be legal. And while I'm really uncertain about what legal remedies might ensure in this case, I strongly suspect both disgorgement and significant jail time would be on the table. And of course, being found a criminal by the Courts of Canada would make it that much harder for Brookfield to offer Carney that spot on the board.

Considering how much personal risk Carney may take on in doing this, I think this significantly reduces the chances he'd attempt this, even if he were inclined to do so (which hasn't been demonstrated imho).

while we get saddled with an even angrier and vindicated CPC

This one displays a clear logical error - that of non sequiturs and false dichotomy. It doesn't automatically follow that, even if all of the above happened, that the CPC would be able to follow and push its current agenda. What if sympathy for Quebec after all this is so strong that PQ ends up with the leading role in a new coalition? Or former Liberals flee to the NDP, reviving it and granting it a majority?

Perhaps even the CPC may be so disgusted by this that they have a change of heart and reform. (I mean it's a hypothetical possibility.)

Archive now that the gift has expired: https://archive.ph/Q5Jw8

No, I wouldn't have recognized him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge/_Paulo/_Lemann

I have always found it hugely ironic that these guys are supporting a US administration that will only make it harder for them to immigrate to the US.

Meta can go eff itself.

Google provides the correct translation:

Crisis: We Must Plan for the Worst

Trade War

Who's Better Against Donald Trump?