Four panelists met in the southwestern Ontario city of Guelph Wednesday night to debate the merits of a basic income guarantee. When the dust settled, there may have been more common ground than first imagined.

The central question of the evening was ‘Can a Basic Income Guarantee Eliminate Poverty?’ Sheila Regehr, chair of the Basic Income Canada Network, kicked off the evening with a 20-minute introduction about basic income. She was then in conversation with Peter Clutterbuck, from the Social Planning Network of Ontario, Noah Zon, Director of Policy and Research, Maytree, and Dr. Nicola Mercer, Medical Officer of Health, Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.

Regehr promoted and defended basic income on many levels, pointing out that Canada already has two forms of basic income policy in place – Old Age Security (OAS) and the Canada Child Tax Benefit. She pointed out that income guarantees for seniors and children worked in tandem with good public services to provide a better quality of life.

“We know seniors are better off. We know children and parents are better off. We have generations of evidence here,” she said.

The BICN chair also pointed out that increasing rates of technological change and automation are creating a new reality and challenge for human labour, with employment much more insecure. She says a basic income would promote a fairer distribution of work, wealth, income and better civic participation.

Clutterbuck offered the most qualified support of the evening, pointing out that poverty wasn’t only about income, although that was one aspect. It is also about poverty of exclusion from the community, he said, and lack of employment chances.

“The idea of de-linking labour from income security is a bit troubling to me and I think…it undermines community advocacy movements,” Clutterbuck says.

Clutterbuck emphasized that we “can’t just pretend paid labour is not important.”

He also questioned why our society allows the deterioration of good jobs to occur, pointing out that good paying and meaningful work can help people “get far beyond the poverty line.”

“But workers need more rewarding jobs, with opportunity planning,” he said.

Clutterbuck did say that a “basic income should be part of a balanced discussion, and then it could have a role.”

“Income security should be situated within a wider discourse with employment opportunities.”

Clutterbuck hopes the forthcoming pilot administered by the Ontario government could demonstrate how a basic income could work in tandem with other supports. In this way, the income security and community supports become interdependent, able to withstand future political scrutiny, he says.

Dr. Nicola Mercer, Medical Officer of Health, offered her clear support for a basic income, stating that poverty is “making people ill.”

Citing decades of research as far back as the Whitehall study, which examined mortality rates over 10 years among male British Civil Servants aged 20-64, Mercer says it’s clear that income security would tremendously help with population health.

She pointed out that in her city of Guelph, one neighbourhood is challenged with a 30 percent poverty rate for children. This same neighbourhood “has no grocery store, no library, and no daycare.”

“It is really an impediment,” she says, because if families don’t have the income to have a car to access the services they need it creates layers of problems.

“Everything is compounded. An unequal distribution of wealth makes for an unequal distribution of health,” Mercer says.

Noah Zon, for Maytree, says not all basic income policies are created equal, something that all panelists agreed on.

“The wrong kind of basic income could make people worse off,” if it corresponded to an erosion of public services.

In pointing out the efficacy of the Canada Child Tax Benefit, Zon says that “we know people use money remarkably well” to help their families, agreeing that this form of a basic income – including the OAS for seniors – have been successes.

The Maytree researcher says that the cost of bring up all families in Canada over the poverty line with a basic income could be $300 billion dollars though, and that’s after factoring in the elimination of welfare systems. (However, Zon seemed to be referring to a demogrant model here, rather than the more widely accepted and more affordable negative income tax model, in which some monies are clawed back as people work.)

“I’d rather focus on the gaps in our existing benefits though…rather than choose a modest version of a basic income just because it might be more affordable,” he said.

Zon cited the Alaska Permanent Fund which gives about $2,000 to each resident per year, a dividend from oil development, as an example of a modest basic income that would be ineffective.

Shared values, health, and community

Regehr emphasized that the basic income guarantee would have to be “designed well, based on the values we share.”

“A basic income also has the potential to have positive community-wide effects,” as has been shown in India, Regehr says.

From a mental health angle, Regehr says “we can make the choice to throw money at mental health now, or we can first take a huge mental health strain off of people first with a basic income.”

Better employment

Clutterbuck cited the example of the activist federal governments of the early 1970s that helped create meaningful work opportunities for people. As a young history teacher who graduated into a large glut of teachers in 1971, he says that new and different opportunities from government allowed the flourishing of careers, like his, in the non-profit sectors. This helped build communities and contributed to better social cohesion.

Pointing out there are now robots that spend time with people who have Alzheimer’s, he wonders “why we’re not paying people to be with people?”

“This is an example of making better employment decisions.”

Food Security

Mercer points out that research shows that women who have food security issues tend to be more overweight than those who do not. As well, they often raise daughters with mental health issues.

“Moving people out of poverty requires more than a basic income,” but a basic income is a great start, she says.

Out of Poverty

Zon says recent changes to the Canada Child Tax Benefit by the federal Liberals have moved 397,000 people out of poverty this year.

“And that’s a strong case for a basic income,” he adds.

Social justice thinker, R. W. Connell, once said that: “Statistically speaking, the best advice I would give to a poor child eager to get ahead in education is to choose richer parents.”

Connell’s advice goes beyond education, though. Income is the building block for not only education, but our very health and wellness. Income and its distribution is the most important of the social determinants of health.

Support for basic income can be found within local, provincial, and national public health organizations. The Canadian Public Health Association, for instance, is calling on the federal government to “take leadership in adopting a national strategy to provide all Canadians with a basic income guarantee.”

Ontario and Alberta public health associations have also indicated their support. This includes individual health units from municipalities across Ontario that also want to see the realization of a basic income as a means to improve population health.

And the long-term, upstream savings from having a secure, basic income in place are considerable. As basic income advocate Rob Rainer has written, we are “bearing massive cost from poverty, inequality and economic insecurity.”

He writes that Canadian spending on health care tops $200 billion a year and that about 20 percent of this—or $40 billion plus—is due to what are called “health inequities between lower and higher income Canadians.”

Rainer also points out that the cost of poverty—in health care, criminal justice, and lost productivity—has been estimated at 5.5 to 6.6 percent of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product.

“Our GDP is now in the range of $1.5-$2.0 trillion a year, meaning that poverty costs in the range of $82-$132 billion per year. Thus it stands to reason that as poverty is reduced, potentially sharply by Basic Income, the savings are going to be substantial,” Rainer writes.

Education

From an education perspective, there are few better positioned than Dr. Avis Glaze to comment on the need for basic income policy to address poverty. Glaze has worked at all levels of the school system in Canada and was also Ontario’s Chief Student Achievement Officer and the founding CEO of the Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat. She also pioneered character education, among other innovations, in Canada.

Glaze says if we want to ensure Canada is a tapestry of safe and healthy places to live, work and raise our children, “then we must address poverty in a systematic and intentional manner.”

“A basic income would be essential if we want to close achievement gaps,” says Glaze.  “From an educational perspective, this seems to be one of the most intractable issues in education, not only in Canada, but internationally.”

In a previous interview with Leaders and Legacies, Glaze noted she has always encouraged her colleagues in education to speak out more about social policy.

“Let’s take principals, for example. Many studies show they are a respected group in society. When I speak to them, I ask ‘how are you engaging in political action?’”

Glaze says most educators would not describe themselves as “political.” She says there are many reasons for this. Many do not speak directly to the media. They have school trustees and communications departments who speak on behalf of the school district.

“But if we think about politics as the ability to influence decision making and to enhance life chances of our students, we must become more political, seeking every opportunity to bend the ears of politicians.”

Here in Ontario, the Honourable Hugh Segal has been tapped to deliver a discussion paper to the province by the fall to help inform the design and implementation of a basic income pilot. Just how the Province plans to evaluate the pilot is unknown at this time. However, looking at the implications and outcomes within education and population health will be crucial as we move this innovative policy idea from theory to reality.

NDP Winnipeg MP Dan Blaikie says he is proud of his party’s recent support of the principle of basic income and says now the work beings to actually define what this means.

Blaikie – considered to be one of the most promising new MPs in Parliament – says he has “long been interested in the idea.”

He points out that the recent resolution in support of basic income at the party’s Edmonton convention was to affirm the party’s support for the concept, study it further, and to support a pilot project.

“I was first concerned to get my party on board, to take a bottom up approach,” Blaikie tells Leaders and Legacies.

For the new MP, he says his support for the principle of basic income is driven by his strong belief in social and economic justice. He also wants to prevent more conservative-minded legislators from using it as an excuse to support the dismantling of the entire social safety net.

“I’ve long advocated for social and economic justice, and an important component of that is income,” he says.

Blaikie says that right wing thinkers “sometimes try to approach this (basic income issue) with the idea we should diminish services and pull the rug out from people.” But the NDP MP says we will still need things like mental health supports, addiction supports, and affordable housing…still need to continue these ensure things.

Since the NDP has a strong history of social justice, Blaikie feels that “we should be in this debate” in order to help shape the idea.

“The issue of basic income is up for grabs about how to define it. I think the overall concept is what’s important because we know that people who have less income are more likely to fall into cycles of poverty,” he says.

Despite his support for basic income as a concept, Blaikie feels it would still be valuable to increase existing supports compared to the status quo, if basic income was deemed unaffordable. This could include topping up the Working Income Tax Benefit, Canada Pension Plan and Old Age Security, among other programs.

“Whether it’s by slowly increasing those existing supports and expanding them or whether we have full basic income, that’s up for grabs,” said Blaikie.

When challenged that topping up existing benefits would not address precarious work in all its forms, Blaikie noted that “serious” Employment Insurance reform could help offset this.

“This is a policy option. We certainly need to recognize the changing nature of work in Canadian society.”

The MP says if the approach ends up being to slowly expand the existing ring of benefits out, “it’s better than nothing.”

“We know the status quo is not good enough,” he says.

That being said, Blaikie notes, government revenue has been in decline for some time, from income tax to corporate tax rates.

“The idea that sufficient money isn’t out there (to fund basic income) is something I’m not convinced of.”

Blaikie says that a discussion about our income-generating options as a society has to happen.

“If the choice is to do all at once or nothing, I think it’s a false choice.”

Benns: From your perspective as an entrepreneur, why is the concept of a basic income guarantee useful to society?

Schmidt: Basic income is all about voice. Some people want more while some people want less. By guaranteeing everyone has the absolute minimum you can guarantee, as a nation that the basic needs of life are met. It’s a win-win for the market and those who are in the market. It’s a fundamental improvement on capitalism and even democracy, because everyone now has a minimum amount of voice.

As an entrepreneur basic income could come to reflect a new society. The people that want more can create more without as much risk. There will always be sizable risk when you’re innovating. It wouldn’t be called innovation if there wasn’t. Here’s the thing; people will always want to live their dreams. Basic income removes the minimum requirements to live. As a serial entrepreneur you’re worried about so many things, but imagine if you have to worry about putting food on the table or paying your rent at the same time, I think these are distractions that inhibit some of the greatest creative minds.

Benns: Do you see automation as a real threat to traditional jobs? If so – and more and more people end up having difficulty finding work — how can we still find a way to make a difference in society? What might still need doing?

Schmidt: Of course, jobs that are less cognitively complex and more physically laborious are disappearing. That’s a fact and they will continue to disappear. Just to be clear, I think it’s a great thing. Automation makes us happier, we just need to make sure our economy catches up. Basic income is a step in the right direction because it allows society to become more creative. Some of society’s best work is done in our free time and comprises the things we love to do, like contributing to Wikipedia or answering questions on Stack Overflow. Lots of disbelievers feel like society will become lazy with a universal basic income. I think the economy will become more efficient. If people are only given the bare minimum some will want more and some will be comfortable with just enough — and that’s okay.

Enhanced capitalism, or capitalism 2.0 in my view, will be based on a more democratized economy. Things like the multiplier effect will have a monumental impact on a nation’s bottom line. The Institute for Policy Studies reported that:

“Every extra dollar going into the pockets of low-wage workers, standard economic multiplier models tell us, adds about $1.21 to the national economy. Every extra dollar going into the pockets of a high-income American, by contrast, only adds about 39 cents to the GDP.”

Fundamentally, this means that dispersion of wealth makes our economy stronger and laziness is not what we should be focused on.

Benns: In the U.S., Robert Reich believes there should be a patent tax. He wonders if giving every citizen a share of the profits from all patents and trademarks that government protects for an extended time (say 20 years) might help fund a basic minimum income for everyone. They still benefit from the protection length of time and people benefit from this new way we could redistribute profits. As an entrepreneur, what are your thoughts on this?

Schmidt: There are lots of creative ways to distribute wealth. This is one of the many ideas that seem promising or at least worth a shot, but at the end of the day we need to start experimenting. As a quick retort, I think companies should pay the people instead of politicians to keep things out of the public domain. That just seems like the right thing to do. While I don’t think this is the only solution it’s definitely a potential source for a resource-based wealth fund.

Benns: What’s the big picture take-away about basic income, in your mind?

Schmidt: My perspective is simple. I believe that we are moving toward an entrepreneurial society as a whole. Big and small businesses flourish the best in neutral economic climates. I think things like basic income slightly de-risk starting a business for some people and can overall increase a nation’s economic prosperity. This is mostly fueled by my optimism in the people. The strongest retort I’ve heard concerning basic income is that it promotes laziness. I think there will be people that abuse any system, but if the right stipend for the right locality can be found it can be beneficial on many levels.

I feel like as a nation Canada is extremely progressive. Areas like Waterloo, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver have created innovation hubs and the next major innovation (as a society) is in public policy that increases a nation’s ‘happiness.’ This is giving the people more so they can build more.

Benns: What is the connection between automation and basic income? Why should we be considering this social policy change based on automation trends — hasn’t this always been predicted and yet we still seem to have jobs?

Vertolli: The short answer is that the belief that “we still seem to have jobs” is a misleading perception held by people whose jobs have yet to get significantly affected. This means it is held by people in the middle-class range with medium-difficulty jobs that require one to think. The problem is systems like AlphaGo, Google’s Artificial Intelligence that just beat the world champion at Go, demonstrate that even these tasks can now be learned by sufficiently powerful AIs.

To put it even more bluntly, I could probably replace most of the staff in the head office of most companies with a single tech or small team. And, I could do that using simple automation in most cases. More complex cases require more complex techniques, but we now have those. This would have a significant initial cost, and I expect that is one of the major contemporary deterrents. However, companies like Google and McDonald’s don’t have this problem and they set market trends.

Unless everyone except highly specialized experts and CEOs (and most CEOs are probably replaceable with automation) wants to be unemployed, they best start thinking of solutions as soon as possible. Basic income is one obvious option that already has evidence in its favour.

Benns: Should we be thinking about the nature of work differently, in the context of basic income? In what way?

Vertolli: I think there are three major reasons why people work and each of them contribute differently to what work means. The first and most obvious one is to meet basic needs, such as food and shelter. The second major reason is for what I would call quality of life. This includes the purchasing of anything non-essential, such as a new smart-phone. Third, and finally, work is something that occupies people’s time. If the meaning of work is going to evolve, I expect it will evolve along one of these lines or at least based on one of them.

To be honest, I think few people in modern Euro-American nations have had to deal with the first reason for a while. A minimum wage job can provide for a single person who lives simply easily enough. I should know. I have been a university student for nine years. And, with increasing automation, I hope that this will generalize to other nations that have been impoverished by our success more often than not. Thus, this reason is not really a good candidate for how we think of work.

The second major reason is probably one of the biggest things today and thereby motivates much of what the average, modern Euro-American thinks of work. People like to have nice stuff, myself included. But, if automation takes off the way I expect it to, then the cost of everything is going to rapidly decline. Nice stuff will not have the value that it once did. This means we have at least a couple options to consider here. We can either abandon our current way of thinking in favour of something else or we can try to maintain it. One way we can do the latter is by creating pseudo-scarcity by controlling the rate of production. In other words, we can perpetuate a sense of scarcity in order to drive the economy.

I think this is the best indicator of a complete failure to enter the 21st century, but that is just my opinion. I also think it can’t possibly hold. The tech industry was built on the backs of some of the most anarchistic minds in the world and they are the gate keepers of all that software.

The third reason is the way I think we should go. If we buy the whole nine to five thing, work eats eight hours of the average persons day and I expect it is actually much more. This time is tied both to our identity and our sense of accomplishment, which is why there are such negative consequences for people who are out of work for a long time, including the elderly. Thus, the question is, in a world where no one needs to work for necessities or quality of life, how do we occupy ourselves and reward those who benefit society? Or, we should redefine work as a measure of our identity and productivity in the world — not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. As a fully funded PhD student, I live by this model and it is infinitely more fulfilling in my mind than what most people call ‘work.’

Benns: What do you think people most fear about basic income? Why or why not is this unfounded?

Vertolli: Those of older predilections and times probably still hear communism in it, despite the fact that no contemporary forms of communism have a basic income to my knowledge. I’m not really interested in addressing this issue but it’s there.

Another major reason is that the Boomers worked hard for their money. They are the second kind of work, in that they define themselves through and by that model of work. I can see almost every one of them saying, “You haven’t proven yourself. You don’t deserve nice things.” But, that’s just not true anymore: automation makes this metric moot. The problem is that when you challenge the model you are simultaneously challenging the Boomers’ identities, and they are the ones with all the power, for now.

Those who don’t fall into either of the previous two views probably are more sensitive to the social implications and required infrastructure change of such a move. For example, what happens to welfare and every other social service? What about the social stigma of living off of basic income or having it when others do not in the early stages? Basic income combined with automation will have as great an impact in the 21st century as both world wars did in the 20th. This is and should be terrifying. But, it’s a good kind of pain with an incredibly improved quality of living for all as an outcome.

Benns: What were two or three of the most revealing aspects of the Dauphin, MB experiment with basic income, in terms of how it changed people’s lives?

Calnitsky: My recent paper is on social stigma, and broadly, the “dignity problem,” which I think gets insufficient attention in these debates. Participants with experience in the welfare system wrote about the pervasive indignities inflicted on them. Meanwhile, when asked about Mincome, people viewed the program as a pragmatic source of assistance. According to people’s accounts, participating in Mincome didn’t damage your standing in the community.

And there’s a couple reasons for that. First, instead of degrading and invasive case-worker discretion, Mincome was not unlike the un-stigmatizing benefits that can come at tax time. It didn’t have the same case-by-case treatment, the searching investigation of recipients’ lives. The whole thing could be done by mail. And second, perhaps more importantly, it was a broadly available, universalistic program. It treated lots of different people in a similar manner. It blurred the lines of demarcation between low-wage workers, the disabled, unemployed workers, and former social assistance recipients. The more universalistic a program, the more people it reaches, the more normal it starts to feel.

So, for example, one person wrote, “I feel that [welfare] is more for disabled or people which are too lazy to work. It doesn’t include us, we’re both able and willing to work but can’t get a job due to the low employment rate.” They joined Mincome simply because they were “short of money.” Mincome was less likely to signal your moral worth, instead it was just a practical problem solver.

If we’re interested in social policies that are resilient I think the dignity problem, or the moral aspects of these policies are worth considering more closely. Universalistic income maintenance programs will be popular, and that popularity is a key source of their sustainability. What’s more, unlike targeted welfare programs, they don’t exacerbate divisions among poor and working people.

Benns: We seem to be on the path to more pilot projects in Canada, with updated data. Broadly, do you have a prediction about the results that we will see? Will the changes in society since the 1970s inevitably affect the data?

Calnitsky: I think pilot projects are extremely exciting. There are, however, some pitfalls to watch out for. From my perspective, looking at the Mincome experiment, one of the problems with the experimental approach is that you get a lot of empirical scrutiny, but you miss the important “popularity” effect. That is, for a basic income advocate, the difference between running an experiment and actually implementing the thing, is that only in the latter do you have the popularity of the policy working on your side, making it difficult for politicians to put the kibosh on things, or politely ignore it in the face of inevitably ambiguous evidence. Mincome was popular; but popularity can translate into robust social policy only once it’s implemented widely.

Universal healthcare in Canada was simply implemented. Once in place its popularity made it hard to roll back. If we had experimented with it first, it would be easy to imagine some negative findings coming out here and there, harming its chances of being realized.

This issue is compounded by the fact that it’s often not clear what results are acceptable. The debates around US and Canadian experiments from the 1970s were muddled from the outset because there was no prior agreement on what amount of work reduction was acceptable. So, proponents and opponents alike had ammunition: proponents observed the small reductions in work as vindications of the program’s feasibility, while opponents interpreted the same data as a sign of the program’s failure.

In terms of changes since the 1970s I’d make two points. First, there’s no question that there is a gap between a small rural town and contemporary labour markets. In spite of that, the precarity of Dauphin’s seasonal labour market bears a certain resemblance to the contemporary world of work. On this score a number of participants said they joined Mincome for security-related reasons. One woman said this: “Uncertain of husband’s earning abilities for [the] winter months as seasons sometimes affects his earnings. . . . If one loses a job (or illness) I feel Mincome gives families a little more security and helps remove some extra fears.” Her family faced a different set of circumstances, but insecurity is a common thread. And there is little doubt that labour markets are even less secure than they were in the 1970s.

Second, regarding the contemporary welfare system, there have been important changes, but in many ways we see the same regulation of the lives of the poor, the same distinctions between the “deserving” and “undeserving.” Recent studies show that the social assistance system continues to be marked by deep social stigmatization, and I think we have every reason to expect that a more universalistic and unconditional system would improve people’s lives in much the same way it did in the 1970s.

Benns: You did qualitative research of the Dauphin years with basic income. Is there a particular story/anecdote that stands out for you for its power?

Calnitsky: Perhaps what’s most interesting is that I found that Mincome’s social meaning was powerful enough that even participants who themselves had particularly negative attitudes toward social assistance—people who opposed welfare on moral grounds, who saw welfare recipients in a negative light, and who believed strongly in the principle of earning one’s own living—felt able to collect Mincome payments without a sense of contradiction.

A man who wrote, “Welfare to me was accepting something for nothing,” joined Mincome because it “would be a benefit to me at some time.”

Another person refused welfare, saying “welfare is for (the) needy or bums”; he joined Mincome for pragmatic reasons: “For the extra income.”

A third refused welfare saying, “I’m able to support myself.” He joined Mincome saying “I might get assistance.”

This kind of positive reception really bears on the program sustainability issue. If we want robust social policies we should look toward universalistic programs that take the question of the moral quality of the poor off the table.

After a groundswell of support from mayors across the province, including pressure from health units and organizations of all social policy stripes, Ontario will proceed with a basic income guarantee pilot project.

The location of the pilot has not yet been announced but the recent provincial budget document makes clear that the government pledges to “work with communities, researchers and other stakeholders in 2016 to determine how best to design and implement a Basic Income pilot.”

A basic income can take different forms but it is generally understood to ensure everyone an income that is sufficient to meet their basic needs, regardless of work status.

The budget also states that, “The pilot project will test a growing view at home and abroad that a basic income could build on the success of minimum wage policies and increases in child benefits by providing more consistent and predictable support in the context of today’s dynamic labour market.”

Further, the budget notes that “the pilot would also test whether a basic income would provide a more efficient way of delivering income support, strengthen the attachment to the labour force, and achieve savings in other areas, such as health care and housing supports.”

Prior to this, Leaders and Legacies helped place the issue on the municipal agenda by interviewing mayors across Canada.

Calgary’s Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Edmonton’s Mayor Don Iveson galvanized discussion on this issue. They were soon joined by Halifax’s Mike Savage and St. John’s Mayor Dennis O’Keefe. In fact, no less than nine provincial and territorial capital leaders support basic income or at least pilot projects. Innumerable smaller city and town mayors across the nation – many of them in Ontario – also declared their support as well.

Dr. Evelyn Forget, who is one of Canada’s top researchers on basic income, was a key influencer of the Ontario government’s decision to try a pilot, along with Mincome executive director Ron Hikel. Mincome was the experiment tried in the 1970s in Dauphin, Manitoba, and it was Dr. Forget who found this data and analyzed it. Her analysis of Dauphin’s basic income experiment is held up around the world as promising data and a reason to move forward with basic income social policy.

After the Ontario budget’s announcement, Dr. Forget tells Leaders and Legacies and the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) that timing is everything.

“Sometimes all the forces in the universe align. It’s time. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come,” Dr. Forget says.

The chair of BICN, Sheila Regehr, says “kudos to Ontario for its vision and the opportunity to roll up our sleeves to design the basic income we want and need.”

“We need it rolled out across Canada, and Quebec too is in the game, so there’s no reason why people and governments in other parts of this country need sit on the sidelines – it’s time for us all to get to work,” Regehr says.

François Blais, minister of employment and social solidarity in Quebec, has been asked by Premier Philippe Couillard to figure out how the province might turn their existing income support tools in the direction of a basic income guarantee.

At the federal level, Jean-Yves Duclos, federal minister of families, children and social development, has stated that a guaranteed minimum income is a policy worthy of discussion. Other provinces have also declared their interest in basic income, including Prince Edward Island.

Benns: How did you come to be involved with the fight for a Basic Income? 

McAuslan: I had heard about basic income almost 30 years ago, but did not understand poverty. I grew up on a farm in southwestern Ontario. I have never personally known poverty. Naively, as a young adult, I believed everyone must have had the same experience I had. In nursing school during my psychiatry rotation I was totally overwhelmed by the prevalence of sexual abuse in the patient histories. During my nursing career, I have met people living in poverty, but seeing those living in poverty (when I had the privilege of visiting people’s homes during my years as a VON nurse) helped me to see the impact of poverty on health and the challenges of rural poverty.

In my 30s, within one year, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, my second child was born and my marriage fell apart. It was a dark time in my life. I was working part time and could not afford the mortgage in the city, so moved back to the rural community I grew up in with my two children. I had a good paying job, had financial security, and a loving family that helped me with child care and emotional support. I made it through those tough years, raising children on my own, the death of my mother and the struggle to get further education. I have always wondered how someone without all the supports I had makes it through life’s challenges.

In the last few years I have gotten to know several people living in poverty through my church. Their experiences of the system, the challenges obtaining food for their children, the overwhelming paperwork, the multitude of agencies that do not communicate with each other and the judgement they face has been an education for me. I knew something had to be done. I found the Kingston Basic Income Facebook site one day and called them to volunteer my help.

Benns: What about basic income policy makes it a smart move for the economy?

McAuslan: Currently one in seven or 4.9 million Canadians live below the poverty line and struggle with the insecurity of shelter, food and other basic needs. Some qualify for social assistance, a system that provides inadequate monies and is laden with disincentives to work and continual judgement. There are also the working poor struggling for enough money for the same needs as well as day care. Getting ahead seems like an impossible dream.

We are often overwhelmed with the multitude of requests for charitable dollars. This reflects an attempt to fill the gaps of poverty.

Our tax dollars are supporting a huge infrastructure to administer the systems related to poverty. It is estimated that the cost of homelessness in Canada is $4.9 billion per year. We know that poverty and health are linked. The tax payer cost to our healthcare system specifically due to poverty is estimated to be $7.6 billion per year. We know that there is a link between poverty and the criminal justice system. The savings in dismantling the infrastructure, in healthcare and the criminal justice systems would be substantial.

We are often overwhelmed with the multitude of requests for charitable dollars. This reflects an attempt to fill the gaps of poverty. Food Banks, United Way, the Salvation Army and other churches and charities help provide food and support both emotionally and financially…but doesn’t come close to meeting the need.

A Basic Income Guarantee would provide financial security for all people, to know there is a cheque coming that will keep them above the poverty line and that they can work and get ahead without penalty.

Benns: Why do you think a ‘living wage’ gets more press than basic income?

McAuslan: A living wage is commendable, but will only help those who are employed. The assumption that all people are able to work full time is erroneous. For many, whether it be from mental health issues, learning disabilities, and so on, obtaining and/or keeping a full time job is impossible. Sometimes this is a temporary time in their lives, where they just need some stability to get on their feet again. For others this will be a life-long struggle.

Benns: The most common concern is about implementing a basic income guarantee is that too many of us would choose not to work. Why do you believe this won’t be the case?  

McAuslan: Dr Evelyn Forget’s analysis of the data from the Dauphin, Manitoba’s Mincome experiment in the 1970’s (which was a basic income experiment) showed that people did continue to work with the exception of two groups. One group was young mother’s (before the one year pregnancy leave was initiated) and the other was teenagers. Another finding was that the teenagers spent more time in school and more graduated.

A single mother I have met would like to return to work now that her children are in school. Any income she makes will be deducted from her next month’s social assistance cheque. She told me she will lose dental and drug benefits for her children if she makes more than $1,000 per month, so she chooses not to work.

When people’s lives are stable financially and they are healthy, almost all will choose to work.

Saskatchewan is a province in transition. Traditionally alternating between two major political parties; the Sask NDP and a ‘conservative’ type party currently incarnated as the SaskParty. Today, the Saskatchewan Green Party is challenging that status quo in the upcoming April 4, 2016 provincial election. A key policy in the Green Party ‘Real Change’ platform is the implementation of a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI).

A recent Report on Poverty delivered to the current provincial government last year focused on the need for a test pilot on GLI to measure its potential in eliminating poverty. In that report, it was also stated that Saskatchewan citizens were doing fairly well except for 10 percent that lived in constant poverty (below the low income cut-off). For this 10 percent, it was a daily struggle to find enough food to eat, a safe place to sleep and the search for livable employment was endless. Without the higher skills or finished education, employers would constantly hire and fire these desperate people, keeping them in a state of constant bare existence, never getting ahead. They always awoke to a bleak future for themselves, let alone any children they may be raising.

The mere mention of a solution to this poverty trap, let alone a potential perfect solution, has many citizens chattering about the GLI. Saskatchewan may well be catching up to the rest of Canada. Alberta not only has the Minister of Finance, Joe Ceci, but also two big city mayors – Naheed Nenshi and Don Iveson — onside. The province of PEI has Premier MacLauchlin promising some form of basic income and PEI Green Leader Peter Bevan-Baker pushing him along. Most recently the federal Liberals and Quebec Premier Phillipe Couillard talked openly about moving forward toward restructuring and implementation of a GLI.

Here in Saskatchewan, the birthplace of one of Canada’s most cherished social programs – Medicare — the debate on how best to eliminate poverty has truly begun. The SaskParty ruling government clings to the hope of an economic recovery with oil prices surging higher bringing much needed jobs in the oil patch again. The Sask NDP talk only about spending more to better Healthcare and Education but only mention a Basic Income test pilot project. The Sask Green Party has costed out the GLI and intends immediate implementation upon forming government after the April 4 election. By putting in a minimum income floor which no Saskatchewan citizen would fall below, the Greens would effectively help over 113,000 citizens and end poverty.

Like Medicare, the GLI faces many of the same hurdles before any government could hope to get to the stage of implementation. Firstly, citizens need to have a desire for the GLI. Due to the oil downturn, over 26,000 oil workers became unemployed and indirectly affected other businesses due to lower discretionary spending. In addition, the higher cost of living has stayed high, even though the economic boom is well over. These tough times have laid the groundwork for citizen support of the GLI.

Another two hurdles include both the cost and outcome(s) of implementing the GLI. Many citizens question whether a GLI is affordable especially in our economic downturn. Plus, what about all the laziness that will occur? I would say this is the perfect time to test out the macro effects of a GLI and take note of any issues or problems that occur. As for the laziness question, all studies across the globe show the exact opposite. People work more with a GLI, not less.

Medicare has proven its worth to millions of Canadians whose health outcomes would have been much worse in a private system. The perfect storm of income insecurity and higher cost of living in Saskatchewan may well bring the election of a government promising the implementation of the Guaranteed Income. We will soon find out after April 4, 2016.

— Victor Lau is the leader of the Green Party of Saskatchewan.

The Minister stated that the concept of a guaranteed minimum income may have merit for Canadians.

“A guaranteed annual or basic income involves a government ensuring that each citizen receives a minimum income regardless of their employment status,” highlighted Morel Caissie, CASW president.

“It’s an idea that CASW supports, under certain conditions, and we are especially pleased that the minister has also acknowledged that such a strategy can come in many different forms – not all of which are made equal.”

CASW has explicitly called for a targeted basic income – a guaranteed income targeted to seniors and other economically vulnerable populations – in 2014’s Promoting Equity for a Stronger Canada with a view to introducing the policy to Canada in a responsible fashion, taking stock of all potential outcomes.

“What would be deeply concerning,” added Mr. Caissie, “is if such a policy came at the expense of all other essential social programs.”

The implementation of a guaranteed income should not be cause to eliminate all other social assistance programs and strategies, according to CASW. A basic income would be a key piece of a national poverty reduction strategy when simultaneously paired with other policies, such as national affordable housing and childcare strategies. More than just supporting Canadians toward better futures, the policy could be exceptionally cost efficient as well, according to the organization.

“I’m not surprised that the Minster, a veteran economist, sees the potential in such a policy,” stated Mr. Caissie. “Policy makers have long understood the amazing economic impact of eliminating poverty and supporting the social determinants of health. By providing an up-front investment in people, a guaranteed income has the potential to provide huge long term cost savings in the areas of health care, social services, and even corrections. When we support people out of poverty, we support the economy.”