The Front commun des personnes assistées sociales du Québec does propose a universal guaranteed income, which would not be subject to seizure and which could not be reduced. If everyone in Canada received a basic income that would ensure they would never lack the basics... Statistics Canada's low-income cutoff causes problems for political decision-makers. We know that people who are at the LICO are not rich.
We need a new approach. The ping-pong games that the federal government and the provinces get into are becoming more complicated—who will control this and how much will this guaranteed income be? The reference we have for a general, universal income is the low-income cutoff. People have to meet certain criteria in order to qualify for various grants under targeted programs. For example, we need to know whether the children know how to brush their teeth, assuming they still have some. The targeted programs force us to label social problems as diseases.