In one of last weeks’ prayer reports, I sent a request calling for the abolition of Bill S-233. Believe it or not, I received heavy flak in response.
Arguments against my prayer predominately admonished my refusal to "look at the present situation of seniors." The messages I received usually went something like this:
“You should support Bill S-233 because it will help many seniors who can’t pay their rent and are impoverished.”
But is that actually true? Will Bill S-233 actually aid those toiling in poverty? One is initially inclined to say, “Of course! They get a basic income!” But upon further inspection of the bill and what it demands, perhaps not.
The first section of the bill reads, “The Minister must develop a national framework for the implementation of a guaranteed livable basic income program throughout Canada for any person over the age of 17, including temporary workers, permanent residents and refugee claimants.”*
Fair enough—all that’s saying is that the Government of Canada will generate a Universal Basic Income for all people aged 17+ across the country. History has proven such a program actually increases poverty, but, nonetheless, let’s suppose it works.**
But then, in section 3 (b) of the bill, it says that the bill's framework must include measures “to create national standards for health and social supports that complement a guaranteed basic income program and guide the implementation of such a program in every province.”*`
Now we see the problem. The economic argument against the bill (though very credible and very damning) is less compelling than that moral argument. Indeed, a Universal Basic Income would totally bankrupt our already broke country,*`` but the economic sanity of the bill is of no consequence for the Liberals. For us to argue, “It’s too expensive!”, while accurate, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter precisely because of the reason people emailed me—the prevailing sentiment is, “If we’re helping the poor, why should we take cost into account?”
But this bill doesn’t help the poor, does it?
It enslaves them.
Suppose you earn $0 on your own. Your only income is the (to give a random example) $24 000 the government gives you every year. Seniors might fit this description.
Note the deadly danger—Any senior who relies on the UBI will rely on government. And anyone who relies on government is handcuffed to do what government wants.
If the welfare agents say “dance,” the seniors will dance. If they say “run,” the seniors will run. If the bureaucrat demands, “Take a vaccine,” the seniors, with no other choice but to obey lest they forfeit their UBI, will be inoculated. The process will continue ad infinitum until the seniors do exactly what the government wants them to do, think what the government wants them to think, and believes what the government wants them to believe. Failure to do so will mean their UBI, and thus, their means of survival, will be revoked.
Is it really so difficult to believe that government will control men through economic means? If anyone thinks so, let him review the last two years with sober judgement. Why then should we think the present government so benevolent and altruistic that they will just hand us out “free money” with no strings attached?
Thus, it’s not so much that the UBI helps seniors as it does entrap them and forces them to be servants of the state. “Is that such a bad thing?” one might ask. It is. It's beneath the humanity of every man to serve an institution; the institution was made to serve man, and not the other way around. But with Bill S-233, that logic is reversed entirely. Man turns into a servant of the state, who, in turn, is presently acting as a servant of sin. To that end, forcing a senior to practically worship the bureaucracy for their UBI cheque isn’t love, and it’s not generous.
It’s degrading.
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*,*` https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/S-233/first-reading
** https://mises.org/wire/hidden-costs-universal-basic-income
*`` https://www.fraserinstitute.org/article/the-expensive-truth-about-a-universal-basic-income