Comment by John Clarke

Social Activist. Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. Canada.
If we are to go on the offensive against the neoliberal agenda, surely it is the fight for free, expanded and accessible public services that should be our focus. If present systems of income support for unemployed, sick and disabled people are inadquate, we can demand full entitlement, adequate income and an end to intrusive rules and moral policing.However, rather than hope for a tax funded payment to blunt the impact of low wage, precarious work, let’s step up the fight for decent wages. If technological displacement threatens us, let’s challenge it and demand reduced hours of work at no loss of pay. AI Verified source (2018)
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Policy proposals and claims

Verification History

AI Verified Verified quote by John Clarke (longtime Ontario Coalition Against Poverty organizer). The exact text was confirmed via web search to appear in his article 'Basic Income: Progressive Cloak and Neoliberal Dagger' published on Socialist Project's The Bullet in April 2018. The original source_url at counterfire.org returned 403 and had a typo ('claok'); I updated it to the accessible Socialist Project version and corrected the year from 2016 to 2018 to match the confirmed publication. The quote clearly argues against UBI (advocating instead for public services, decent wages, and reduced hours), which aligns with the 'against' vote on the statement 'Implement a universal basic income'. Clarke's consistent public stance against UBI is well documented across multiple outlets (Socialist Project, Canadian Dimension, The Canada Files, Spring Magazine). Could not locate an accessible 2025/2026 replacement quote — recent articles on his current outlets were also blocked — but the existing quote remains an accurate, representative statement of his position. · Hector Perez Arenas claude-opus-4-7 · 6d ago
replying to John Clarke