Many basic income advocates say that it is a way of bringing people more freedom in terms of what they do with their lives. Would you agree with that claim?

Absolutely. Apart from my own experience, I have friends who were able to move into safer, cleaner housing. They were able to go back to school. They were able to provide better opportunities for their children and buy healthier food. Being able to do these things gave them a huge sense of freedom and also a sense of dignity.

Tragically, this story doesn't have the happiest of endings. How did the Ontario pilot end?

So in the middle of the Basic Income pilot, there was an election in the province of Ontario and Kathleen Wynne was replaced by a man named Doug Ford who is very, very similar to Donald Trump. He promised during the campaign to not cancel the basic income pilot, and then he very abruptly broke that promise less than a month after being elected.

His decision to end the program more than a year early threw everybody's lives into turmoil. People were locked into leases or schools that they could no longer afford. There were quite a few people who were on the Ontario Disability Support Program, (ODSP) who were able to get out of poverty while on Basic Income. They were all of a sudden thrown back into poverty. It's quite scary. I honestly do believe that some of my friends will die, and I really don't want to have to go to funerals because of this turmoil and this stress that it caused.

It's such a huge abuse of government power. It is absolutely disgusting and disgraceful for somebody to make a promise and then break it because he feels like he can get away with it without any consequences.