John Bolton - November 09, 2025


Universal Basic Income is Coming - What you need to know


Episode Stats


Length

19 minutes

Words per minute

186.76135

Word count

3,682

Sentence count

214

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

What would you do if you could live on a guaranteed basic income? What would you name it? Senator Kim Pate has a bill that would provide a guaranteed livable basic income in Canada, and it s getting a second reading in the Senate.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hi, it's John, and welcome to the channel, a channel where I dare to be different.
00:00:08.500 It's 4.26 a.m. Sunday, November the 9th, I tip my big blue mug of coffee to you today.
00:00:15.400 Thank you so much for being here. I'm this close to 40,000, so if you haven't subscribed,
00:00:20.340 I'll put my mug up and say just click on subscribe. Now, if you hit the mug right now,
00:00:24.120 it won't subscribe you, hit the button below. So I dare to be different here on this channel.
00:00:32.340 And this topic might have a few of you turned off, but I want you to have an open mind here.
00:00:39.580 In fact, I'm going to go back, dare I say it, 20 years to my old job working in Cornwall, Ontario.
00:00:47.320 My program was called John Bolton's Cornwall Today. You say it's a small market radio station. It was
00:00:53.100 a small market radio station with a big show. I get to talk to so many people. I spoke with
00:00:59.640 Stephen Harper and Dalton McGinty and Elizabeth May and Justin Trudeau and politician after
00:01:05.260 politician. And the topic that I'm going to discuss today that you're going to be really
00:01:09.720 pissed off about, I discussed this with the Canadian Senator about 20 years ago, a conservative
00:01:16.740 Canadian Senator, by the way, who passed away just a couple of years ago. We'll get to that in just a
00:01:22.020 moment, a short interview I did with him of about six, six to seven minutes. So what am I talking
00:01:26.940 about today? I'll get to that in a moment, but I have a question for you. When I say the words
00:01:31.800 universal basic income, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you? It'll probably be one of two
00:01:38.740 different things. The first thing might be no effing way. The other thing would probably be something
00:01:45.640 like, there's no damn way. I want to go to work every day and slave away at my job to pay taxes so
00:01:52.660 somebody can sit at home and get paid to do absolutely nothing. And I agree with you. I agree
00:01:58.800 with you 100% on that. But what if that program actually saved Canadian taxpayers money? Would you
00:02:07.600 have an open mind to that? For instance, if you were to implement universal basic income
00:02:13.520 and not allow people to sit at home and do nothing and collect money, and it actually cut down on the
00:02:20.080 cost of other social programs, say welfare, would you be in favor of that? Have an open mind here.
00:02:26.800 Okay. So why am I talking about this today? Because I woke up shortly after one o'clock this morning,
00:02:31.620 I opened up X and I saw this tweet. Now Sherry DeNovo, don't much like Sherry DeNovo, but this is what
00:02:36.840 she tweeted out this morning. And I haven't seen much on this online. People have been talking about
00:02:42.640 the budget all week. After over 70 years of folk advocating for a guaranteed livable income,
00:02:48.520 my dad was working on this in the 1950s. It's finally moving ahead. Second reading and on to the
00:02:54.220 Senate. Thank you, Leah Gazan. Now I think Leah Gazan's that other nutcase who wants to throw you 1.00
00:02:58.660 in jail for residential school denialism or something. But anyway, thank you for your work. This single move
00:03:04.640 would allow the poorest to eat and have a place to live. And this is from UBI Works, breaking Canadian 0.80
00:03:09.680 Senate Bill S-206. That's what it's called for a guaranteed livable basic income. And that's what
00:03:15.600 they call it, not a universal basic income. Past second reading and will be sent to committee.
00:03:20.340 News release. Senate committee to study guaranteed livable basic income. Senator Kim Pate.
00:03:25.800 No doubt some of you right now are really pissed off if you're still here. Okay. And I understand where
00:03:31.980 you're coming from. Those first two things we talked about. No effing way. And I don't want my 1.00
00:03:35.800 tax dollars going to somebody sitting around doing nothing. I understand where you're coming from. I
00:03:40.360 feel the same way. And I felt the same way when I did an interview on this 20 years ago.
00:03:45.460 But again, what if this were to help? Have an open mind here. So Senator Kim Pate is the one
00:03:50.820 who spoke back in June about this issue in the Senate. She spoke for 39 minutes. And I watched the whole
00:03:58.320 thing this morning. So you don't have to. And here's just a short little clip of a couple of
00:04:03.180 minutes. It doesn't explain the whole thing, but it might give you a little better idea of what's
00:04:07.520 going on here and how far along this bill has moved through the government.
00:04:12.260 This legislation does not prescribe a particular design or model. This would be for governments as
00:04:18.240 well as experts and communities to determine. This approach reflects how crucial it is to get design
00:04:25.940 questions right. The bill does, however, establish a few essential parameters to guide development
00:04:32.920 informed by decades of research, expertise, evidence, and lived experience. First, guaranteed
00:04:40.020 livable basic income must be universally accessible to people in need. Everyone whose income is below
00:04:46.180 or dips below a certain threshold can access these cash transfers. As a person's income from other
00:04:53.900 sources increases, for example, through a new job, the amount of income received would gradually decrease.
00:05:00.900 Second, the income must be livable. It must provide an amount sufficient to afford essentials and permit
00:05:08.900 people to rebound out of poverty wherever they live, including in remote communities on reserve and in the north.
00:05:14.900 Current social assistance schemes do not provide enough to live on. Indeed, 98% of people receiving social assistance are
00:05:22.900 unable to escape poverty and 71% are in deep poverty. This minimum subsistence means that people are trapped
00:05:29.900 at the margins, making impossible and unacceptable choices, for example, between food, medicine, or shelter.
00:05:39.900 A third and related requirement under Bill 206 is that guaranteed livable basic income must be unconditional.
00:05:45.900 Unlike current social assistance programs, people would not have to meet requirements that are too often unrealistic
00:05:52.900 and ill-adapted to the realities of those living in poverty, that open every aspect of their lives to scrutiny
00:06:01.900 and then place them at constant risk of losing what little benefits they are provided. These policies are dehumanizing,
00:06:08.900 they are financially costly, testing people's eligibility and policing their behavior takes mountains of
00:06:15.900 administrative resources and results in worse, not better outcomes.
00:06:20.900 Fourth and finally, Bill 206 reinforces that guaranteed livable basic income must be one strand in a strong social safety net.
00:06:30.900 While some less generous forms of income support like provincial and territorial social assistance might no longer be needed,
00:06:37.900 guaranteed livable income would not necessarily replace programs and supports linked to specific needs,
00:06:44.900 for example, for Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, those retiring or losing jobs.
00:06:50.900 The program must not and would not leave people with low incomes worse off.
00:06:55.900 As the Senator says at the beginning of that clip, there's no real model for this so there's no real plan on how it would be rolled out
00:07:03.900 and you need to stay vigilant because you don't want to have to pay your money for somebody to sit at home and do nothing
00:07:09.900 and you want to make sure that this is going to save money and not cost more.
00:07:13.900 And this has been pretty much ignored over the last couple of days that I can see as everybody focuses on the budget
00:07:19.900 and votes of confidence in the budget and what's going on in the House of Commons.
00:07:23.900 This is a big deal. Now, I would say to the Senator, if she ever happens to see this, you need to end the DEIBS
00:07:31.900 because if you watch her full video, she talks identity politics.
00:07:35.900 She talks about racialized people who are poor, Indigenous people who are poor, women who are poor.
00:07:41.900 And I would suggest to you, Senator, that a majority of the people in the country who are poor are probably white
00:07:47.900 because there's more white people in the country. Stop talking about people when it comes through their identities,
00:07:55.900 whether it's racial or gender, and just talk about people, Canadians.
00:07:59.900 I think your message wouldn't be lost on a lot of people. And don't do land acknowledgements
00:08:03.900 because you do that right at the beginning and the people that you want to try to convince this is a good idea are gone.
00:08:09.900 They don't even want to listen to you anymore. So that's just a bit of advice for you.
00:08:13.900 Now, I want to take you back almost 20 years.
00:08:17.900 I want to take you back to Senator Hugh Siegel.
00:08:19.900 Now, Hugh Siegel was a politician. He was a senator.
00:08:25.900 And here he is right here. He passed away in 2023.
00:08:29.900 He was a Canadian political strategist, author, commentator, academic, and senator.
00:08:33.900 He served as chief of staff to Ontario Premier Bill Davis and later to Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.
00:08:39.900 This man was a conservative.
00:08:41.900 And I had a chance to talk to him on my program, John Bolton's Cornwall Today, going back, I would say, probably 20 years.
00:08:49.900 And I had the same problem with this as you're having right now.
00:08:53.900 And listen to what Hugh Siegel had to say.
00:08:55.900 I thought about this first thing this morning when I saw that tweet from Sherry DeNovo.
00:09:01.900 And at the end of what you're hearing, if you go through the whole thing, I hope you'll do that.
00:09:05.900 Tell me what you think of Hugh Siegel and his argument for, at the time, what he called universal basic income,
00:09:11.900 which is now called guaranteed livable basic income.
00:09:15.900 And Senator Siegel joins us on Cornwall Today. Good to have you here, sir.
00:09:19.900 Hi, John. Nice to be here.
00:09:20.900 Okay, maybe what I can do right off the top is say that you're a conservative.
00:09:23.900 You're sort of a lone wolf when it comes to this type of an idea, I would think, for a guaranteed annual income.
00:09:28.900 But can you explain in a nutshell what you're proposing here?
00:09:31.900 Yeah, well, it's actually nothing all that radical.
00:09:34.900 We have a guaranteed annual income supplement now for seniors where if you earn beneath a certain amount from all your various sources,
00:09:43.900 if you're 65 or over and you fill out your tax form, you get automatically topped up.
00:09:48.900 That started when Mr. Davis was the premier of Ontario.
00:09:51.900 That's when that program was brought in for people here in Ontario.
00:09:54.900 And then it spread to the other provinces and now it's a federal program as well.
00:09:58.900 So that system doesn't involve any more bureaucrats.
00:10:02.900 It doesn't involve any more kind of, you know, welfare officers to interview people,
00:10:09.900 which our present welfare system does require, which is quite expensive.
00:10:12.900 It simply says if you're earning beneath what we know is necessary in Cornwall or Kingston to kind of deal with the basics,
00:10:20.900 food, lodging, heat, et cetera, you'll get topped up so you do have enough.
00:10:26.900 And that's basically what I'm suggesting is a better way than the amount we're now spending.
00:10:31.900 We spend about $140 billion a year federally and provincially on transfers to people now,
00:10:40.900 and that does not include any expenditures relating to health or education.
00:10:45.900 So that's a very large amount of money.
00:10:47.900 I think this new approach would be more efficient.
00:10:51.900 It wouldn't require all the bureaucrats that we now have for Ontario Works and others.
00:10:56.900 You know, the rule book for an Ontario Works caseworker dealing with clients has 800 rules in it as we speak, John.
00:11:05.900 That's pretty tough for even the best public servant to administer.
00:11:09.900 And a lot of those rules discourage work.
00:11:11.900 As you know, if you're a welfare recipient and the vast majority of people living beneath the poverty line are single moms,
00:11:18.900 if they find a job and earn more than welfare allows, of course, they lose all their benefits.
00:11:25.900 So the net result is to almost claw back 100% of that which they're trying to earn, which makes no sense at all.
00:11:32.900 It goes against my conservative principles, which is people should be encouraged to work.
00:11:36.900 Well, let me just jump in right now and ask you this.
00:11:38.900 If people aren't working at all, would you top them up to that minimum that you were talking about?
00:11:42.900 You're saying people who aren't making a specific amount, we'd top them up.
00:11:45.900 Or if people weren't working at all, would you give them this annual income regardless, right?
00:11:48.900 Well, it depends on why.
00:11:50.900 I mean, we know that a lot of the people who are not working now are disabled.
00:11:53.900 We know that a lot of the people who are not working now are people who are under the age of 25 and are trying to stay in school.
00:12:02.900 At the present time, if you're a welfare recipient in Ontario and you apply and get accepted to St. Lawrence College
00:12:09.900 and then you apply for an Ontario student financial assistance, you're taking off welfare right away
00:12:14.900 and we all know that actually getting an education is the best way to guarantee one's own ability to earn one's own way over time.
00:12:23.900 And it's the best way to make a real contribution to our economy.
00:12:27.900 Part of our problem now is taxpayers is if you look at the prisons, you will see that over 90% of the people in prisons
00:12:35.900 come from the 10% of our population who have the lowest incomes who are living beneath the poverty line.
00:12:41.900 That's a huge cost to you and me as taxpayers.
00:12:44.900 We know that people who are poor and live beneath the poverty line are the first to get sick.
00:12:50.900 They stay in hospital the longest.
00:12:52.900 They don't live as long.
00:12:53.900 They drop out of school first.
00:12:55.900 These are the costs that are really a huge burden now on every taxpayer, those people,
00:13:01.900 the vast majority of us who are working.
00:13:03.900 So the issue is how do you reduce those costs responsibly?
00:13:06.900 How do you encourage people to do something by making it easier for them to do nothing?
00:13:10.900 And I'm wondering if you're giving up on people because we're talking about poverty reduction here.
00:13:14.900 Right.
00:13:15.900 And the best way to reduce poverty is to get an education and get a job.
00:13:19.900 So don't you want to find out what the problem is, why people are poor,
00:13:22.900 get them the help they need so they can work in society as opposed to having other people top up their income?
00:13:27.900 Well, we don't do that for our senior citizens.
00:13:30.900 Well, seniors aren't working though. We're talking about...
00:13:32.900 Well, no, but wait a moment, wait a moment.
00:13:34.900 Well, we did that because we made a decision that we did not want our seniors to live beneath the poverty line.
00:13:39.900 Mm-hmm.
00:13:40.900 Your question implies that it's okay for all kinds of people, young mothers and others,
00:13:44.900 the disabled, to live beneath the poverty line.
00:13:47.900 And I guess, John, you and I respectfully disagree on that.
00:13:49.900 Mm-hmm.
00:13:50.900 I think the most constructive way you can invest is to get people out of poverty.
00:13:55.900 And I think, by the way, if you did that, you'd want to make sure that there was a real incentive,
00:13:59.900 i.e., the first $4,000 or $5,000 a year that they earned after they're being topped off would not be taxed.
00:14:05.900 So they would much rather...
00:14:07.900 And you wouldn't top them up at a level where they would be earning as much by being topped off as by working.
00:14:15.900 They would probably top them up to a level which deals with the very basic requirements in a way that would probably be a bit more generous than the present welfare,
00:14:24.900 but not really enough to live with any measure of comfort.
00:14:27.900 You know, of course, that in Canada today, except in Newfoundland and Labrador,
00:14:32.900 every welfare recipient gets between $11,000 to $19,000 for a family of four less than what the poverty line is.
00:14:41.900 The only place in Canada where they've had, and I point out it's a progressive conservative government that did that,
00:14:46.900 the decency to bring everybody up to the low-income cutoff is Newfoundland and Labrador.
00:14:51.900 But right across the country, existing levels of welfare do not bring people up to what they basically need to get by.
00:14:59.900 And, of course, that contributes to some of the crime and other related problems that we see.
00:15:04.900 You know, some parts of the country it's prostitution, some parts of the country it's drugs,
00:15:10.900 and that's the sort of thing that costs us huge amounts of money.
00:15:13.900 So, no, I don't want to give people money for doing nothing, but I want to give them a hand up,
00:15:18.900 and we should do it in a way that doesn't involve more bureaucracy, that doesn't involve more civil service,
00:15:23.900 that doesn't involve more administrative costs, but is automatic through the tax system,
00:15:27.900 which is what we now do justifiably for our seniors.
00:15:30.900 You have great faith in people, and I think maybe we differ a little bit there,
00:15:34.900 because I think some people would take advantage of this if they could.
00:15:37.900 I mean, I know people in this community who take advantage of our welfare system.
00:15:41.900 You know we have a lot of fraud involved in that.
00:15:43.900 Are you not concerned that this might be taken advantage of, and that we would be deeper in a hole at the end?
00:15:47.900 Well, John, that's a very, very good point.
00:15:49.900 You know that when you fill out your federal tax form, which is how I would do this,
00:15:53.900 and you sign that signature line on the bottom of the page,
00:15:57.900 if there's a fraudulent declaration, that is a far more serious crime than gaming your welfare officer.
00:16:05.900 So my point is, because the federal tax system protects privacy,
00:16:09.900 because the penalties for a false declaration are very high,
00:16:13.900 that is a much better way to clean up the system than have the present circumstance
00:16:17.900 where the vast majority of our income support workers in the welfare system have a caseload way higher than they can manage,
00:16:24.900 which just makes it easier for that system to be gained.
00:16:27.900 Okay.
00:16:28.900 So I think this is a better way of doing it.
00:16:29.900 I've only got about 60 seconds here.
00:16:31.900 Who determines how much, and how do you stop government spending from spiraling out of control,
00:16:36.900 which it always does?
00:16:37.900 Well, in the recent report that was done by Senator Eggleton, myself,
00:16:42.900 and the Standing Committee on Social and Economic Affairs at the Senate,
00:16:47.900 we made the case we don't want to spend one penny more than is now being spent.
00:16:52.900 We want to spend the existing amount more efficiently to get better results at lower cost.
00:16:57.900 That's where we're starting from.
00:16:59.900 We don't want to spend any more money.
00:17:01.900 Secondly, understand this.
00:17:03.900 If people who were applying for this were topped up, they would no longer be eligible for welfare.
00:17:10.900 That would reduce the welfare burdens in most of our provinces,
00:17:14.900 and that is money that could go into tax cuts, could go into paying down the deficit,
00:17:17.900 could go into early childhood education, things that we all know are important.
00:17:22.900 But now, with the present welfare burdens, you're not going to get there.
00:17:25.900 This would reduce the welfare burden, and the federal government, through the tax system,
00:17:30.900 I think, could manage it much more easily.
00:17:32.900 And, of course, they could reduce transfers to the provinces for welfare over time.
00:17:36.900 And net-net, this would be far more efficient and far more effective for the taxpayer.
00:17:41.900 Senator, it's a great discussion. I really appreciate you chatting with us about this.
00:17:45.900 You make some great arguments.
00:17:46.900 John, it's great to hear your voice, and thank you for giving me the chance.
00:17:49.900 Well, thank you very, very much. It was nice speaking with you.
00:17:51.900 All the best.
00:17:52.900 Senator Hugh Siegel on AM 1220 and Cornwall Today.
00:17:55.900 For those of you who are still here and may have listened to that whole interview I did with Senator Hugh Siegel about 20 years ago on my radio program,
00:18:04.900 it's hard to believe it's been 20 years. It really is.
00:18:07.900 And it's funny because I interviewed thousands of people.
00:18:09.900 I don't remember most of them, but I always remember that one because this issue pops up every once in a while like it is right now.
00:18:16.900 What did you think of his argument?
00:18:21.900 Because it's the same argument that people pushing Bill S-206 right now, including Senator Kim Pate,
00:18:27.900 in her 39-minute speech in the Senate back in June, it's the same thing they're saying today.
00:18:34.900 And as a conservative, keep an open mind here, you may be throwing crap at your screen right now.
00:18:41.900 But if this actually saved some money, helped people, ensured that they continued working while they were getting a bit of a hand up here,
00:18:51.900 and it didn't disincentivize work, that's an easier way of saying you're not paying your money to allow somebody to sit at home and collect a paycheck for doing nothing.
00:19:01.900 If it could do those things, would you be in favor of something like this, which they call the Guaranteed Livable Basic Income?
00:19:08.900 Well, they haven't completely formed this plan yet, and you need to keep your eye on this one, folks, because it could move real fast.
00:19:15.900 And the way we're making people poor in this country, meaning the Liberal Party, the way the cost of living is,
00:19:22.900 a lot more people might be needing this in the future.
00:19:25.900 Let me know what you think in the comments.
00:19:27.900 I thought it might be interesting, and I didn't want to spend my whole morning rage-farming against the Liberal Party.
00:19:32.900 We can do that again starting on Monday.
00:19:35.900 If you liked the video, give me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, ring the bell for notifications.
00:19:39.900 I will see you in the next one.
00:19:41.900 Have a great Sunday.