Senator Bellemare: I can see how a universal program might seem very appealing, but I would like to go back to the idea of adopting more targeted measures to tackle poverty. Senator, how did you react to the second report of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, specifically the part where he laid out the impact on income distribution should a guaranteed basic income be funded with money currently allocated to existing programs? In other words, several programs would be abolished to fund one universal program. If we look at the impact on distribution, it is clear that the group most severely impacted would be single-parent families, whose income would decrease under a guaranteed basic income system. Single-parent families are currently the second-poorest segment of society, and they would lose over $5,000 per year if a universal basic income program like this one were introduced.

Maybe you missed that bit of information, but I think it is proof that universal programs can sometimes hurt the very people we want to help.

[English]

Senator Pate: I agree. There were facets of the costing that I certainly have questions about and have raised with the Parliamentary Budget Officer as well. I think one correction perhaps is that we’re talking about universally accessible, we’re not talking about a universal basic income such as a demo grant, which has been recommended by some where it would go to everybody and then be pulled back at tax time.

When I first started looking at this some years ago, I was interested in all of these facets, but in talking to people like our colleagues Senator Downe and Senator Wetston, people who have more expertise — and former Senator Eggleton, who spent his pre-Senate life, his working life, as an accountant helping people with money protect and hide that money — we don’t want that. We also need tax reform, which I think the Parliamentary Budget Officer touched on but doesn’t really go into.

Then when I talked to Senator Downe, he talked about the fact that those who are hiding money offshore — of course, an issue that he has a tonne of expertise and I have none in — that we could virtually fund an initiative like this with the tax resources that are lost by some of those sorts of measures. Then I talked to Senator Wetston and he talked about how we need to address the money laundering issues in this country. That’s why I say I’m very excited about the possibility of a number of us working on this, looking at a framework, addressing these issues and meeting those challenges because it’s not that we should hide our heads in the sand about the very real challenges of doing this in a country as large and with as many jurisdictions as Canada. But the fact that we pretend that we’re not already paying multiple billions of dollars — tens of billions, hundreds of billions — to deal with not dealing with poverty, I think that is where we are putting our heads in the sand. That’s what I’m suggesting that we need to stop doing. We need to look at how we can actually invest those resources so they create better opportunities for everybody in this country, not just those whom we — because of myths and stereotypes — judge to be deserving or those who do not.

(On motion of Senator Duncan, debate adjourned.)

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Galvez, seconded by the Honourable Senator Forest:

That the Senate of Canada recognize that:

(a)climate change is an urgent crisis that requires an immediate and ambitious response;

(b)human activity is unequivocally warming the atmosphere, ocean and land at an unprecedented pace, and is provoking weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe, including in the Arctic, which is warming at more than twice the global rate;

(c)failure to address climate change is resulting in catastrophic consequences especially for Canadian youth, Indigenous Peoples and future generations; and

(d)climate change is negatively impacting the health and safety of Canadians, and the financial stability of Canada;

That the Senate declare that Canada is in a national climate emergency which requires that Canada uphold its international commitments with respect to climate change and increase its climate action in line with the Paris Agreement’s objective of holding global warming well below two degrees Celsius and pursuing efforts to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius; and

That the Senate commit to action on mitigation and adaptation in response to the climate emergency and that it consider this urgency for action while undertaking its parliamentary business.