So a federal election has been called. Our riding (Bruce-Grey- Owen Sound) traditionally votes Conservative, especially at the federal level. In 2019 our long running Conservative MP, Larry Miller, retired. Our local Liberal Riding Association had an excellent candidate and put forward a supreme effort to get him (a he in this particular case) elected. To no avail. It looks like it will be a tougher row to hoe this time.Yet we still have to represent the 27,500 people who voted Liberal in 2019.

As well I think we should do whatever we can to engage people in the political process, encouraging people to register to vote and then to vote. About 30,000 people did not vote last time. We could deem it a victory by substantially reducing that number.

I personally believe that a Universal Basic Income (UBI) is inevitable. We could put forward a candidate who promises to hurry that up. This would also be an opportunity to explain to people how it would work. (Basically, a UBI is paid to everyone, the same as Old Age Security is paid to all people 65 and over, making it easy to administrate.)

The mantra we hear today is to grow the economy in order to provide jobs, jobs, jobs for the middle class. In fact, a UBI would do exactly that, by using people relying on UBI to drive the economy.

If there are other local people out there as passionate about UBI as I am, I would be glad to hear from them.

Bill Moses, Owen Sound