It looks to me like you are correct the Canadian thing looks like a universal income. So it could be just a garden variety error on the part of the NYT journalist to say it was the first. I'm happy there are other tests going on. Maybe I'm a hopeless idealist but I've always been optimistic about the future but that optimism has been pushed to the wall lately. This was the first thing I've read I while that made me think maybe the future isn't going to be a total dystopian nightmare. Maybe there's hope.