Comments on: Goodbye welfare, hello basic income

By: Ontario appoints basic income advocate, Hugh Segal, as special advisor | Leaders and Legacies

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:02:16 +0000

[…] has spent over 40 years in pursuit of a basic income guarantee policy for Canadians. He was chief of staff to former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in the 1990s and […]

By: Margaret

Margaret — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 13:55:51 +0000

Not all seniors get even that much. For example I am a New Brunswick senior who receives under $10,000 a year, my partner a bit more. A lack of livable wage would not be quite so bad if I lived within an urban area or could easily walk to my closest urban area with libraries and museums and coffee shops and such. Because a house in a rural area was the only affordable home my family could afford many years ago, now I am stuck here in a housing development surrounded by woods, ideal for hermits but culturally alien to someone like myself who was born and raised in towns and cities with people-friendly shops. If it were even a farming community where neighbours are friendly and helpful but it is not. Also, we pay high taxes and I'm not really sure what we receive in return. We must pay maintain our own well and sewage system which we also paid to install and replace some years later when municipal regulations changed. Street signs have disappeared, roads are in bad shape and we only receive garbage pickup every second week. During winter there is no such thing as snow removal. Snow from the road is plowed into our driveways, often in the form of large ice boulders after we have cleaned our driveway. The rising gas prices certainly do not make life easier but a vehicle is a definite necessity. My home is too far from downtown to walk, there are no busses and a taxi would cost at least $40.00 for each trip into town. My partner and I share the house and one car. I restrict myself to going into town only three days a week to work in my art studio which is downtown and open to the public. It is an old building in need of repair and much too costly to heat in winter otherwise I might move there. My studio is pretty well the extent of my social life. I rarely go anywhere in the evening, especially during winter. If I could afford taxis I would participate in community cultural events. I try not to complain too much about this because I know I'm not the only senior who lives such an existence. Many others have tried to convince themselves that FB is a substitute for real human contact but I don't think so. I have never known a life of equality with my peers. I've never been in a situation where I felt financially secure and independent my throughout my years of child-rearing followed by years of chronic unemployment. I believe I would have fared much better both then and now if I had received some sort of basic Income that I could call my own. I speak from long experience when I say that a basic income for every citizen should be a basic human right.

By: Roderick Benns

Roderick Benns — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 18:42:47 +0000

Well, seniors (at least in Ontario) have already experienced the automatic top-ups that people like Hugh Segal have been advocating for. As he writes in the Huffington Post: “The answer, in terms of poverty reduction for working age people, is the same as it has been over decades for seniors — automatic top-ups for those who fall beneath the poverty line. When that happened for seniors in Ontario in the mid-1970s, their poverty rate fell from over thirty percent to under five percent — without the hiring of additional civil servants — largely because the tax system was the chosen delivery instrument. This Ontario plan migrated to all provinces and the federal government. It brought seniors back into the economic mainstream.”

By: Sidney Wells

Sidney Wells — Wed, 15 Jul 2015 18:33:08 +0000

Why not start with the Seniors? They are the ones who have put into the system for years and get relatively nothing back…I know because I am a senior and I get $12,360.00/yr (OAS and CPP) after 43 years of working hard and paying into the system. And I am expected to survive on that income. Can I get a job at 65-70 yrs of age? With over 40yrs of experience?… No chance…

By: Dawna Kinnunen

Dawna Kinnunen — Thu, 25 Jun 2015 02:38:39 +0000

I believe this can be accomplished in a simpler way by adjusting social assistance rates within the existing framework for each Province :
1) the amount of money it would take to set up whole new programs could be put into existing systems – it would be millions of dollars to set up new systems, pay out large severance packages to Provincial employees, re-create existing websites and written documents
2) social service offices help their clients with WAY more than just sending out cheques – who would help people with the many other needs they have?
3) in my previous experience working in social services we processed numerous amounts of “during the year” changes – changes of address, family composition ie children coming into or leaving a home – Federal systems are not set up to handle “on the spot” changes like this – families already suffer due to wait times with Federal benefits such as child tax credits – this would be unacceptable for “basic” income support
4) using existing systems can work – save millions of dollars that can be re routed into low income families pockets

By: Roderick Benns, “Goodbye welfare, hello basic income.” | BIEN

Roderick Benns, “Goodbye welfare, hello basic income.” | BIEN — Sat, 16 May 2015 18:41:27 +0000

[…] Benns, “Goodbye welfare, hello basic income”, Leaders and Legacies, 1 May […]

By: Roderick Benns

Roderick Benns — Sat, 16 May 2015 11:12:15 +0000

We do not advocate giving everyone in Canada $20,000. The vast majority of Canadians work — they WANT to earn more than just barely keeping above the poverty line. The program would simply serve to save those people who lose their job, or who are working part time and need some assistance to be ‘topped up’ to $20,000. Also, the figure of $20,000 is an estimate. Studies need to be done on this and pilot projects need to be created.

By: Peter Moss

Peter Moss — Thu, 14 May 2015 22:39:46 +0000

Simply giving everyone in Canada (35 million) a guaranteed income of $20,000 would cost $700 billion dollars. If you restricted it to the ages of between 21 and 65, it would still cost ~$400 billion dollars.

I want to see more funding and implementation information.

By: Kevin Toppins

Kevin Toppins — Thu, 14 May 2015 19:12:47 +0000

I believe this is a minimum income you’re describing, not a basic income. A basic income would not be adjusted by how much money you make, it would be unconditional.

They have drastically different outcomes, where working in a minimum income doesn’t help you at all if you’re under the limit.

In a basic income, working a part time job leaves you with more money than no job.