Mr. Speaker, in his latest work, Passage obligé: Passeport pour l'ère nouvelle , Charles Sirois writes the following about a minimum guaranteed income.
“What if the social safety net were replaced by a protective net, one that were not intended for a specific category of citizens but for everyone without distinction? This protection would take the form of a guaranteed minimum income.
Every person aged 18 and over, rich or poor, male or female, young or old, would receive on an annual basis a sum of money corresponding to the strict minimum necessary for food and housing.
The collective wealth to which all workers and all consumers contribute, and which the government keeps in its coffers, would no longer be used to assist certain classes of citizens.
Couples would share in this guaranteed minimum income, as would students over the age of 18, and seniors as well.”
This is the true formula for abolishing poverty in Canada.