The Kingston Action Group for a Basic Income Guarantee is living up to its name — taking action in the form of a national letter writing campaign directed at the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development, Jean-Yves Duclos. The hope is that a large number of people will simply copy and paste this letter, adding their own name, address, ... Read More »
Roderick Benns, publisher of Leaders and Legacies, spent nearly two years interviewing prominent leaders and academics across Canada on the merits of a basic income guarantee, hoping to help put the policy on the radar of politicians across the country. A basic income (also known as a guaranteed annual income) would ensure no one ever drops below the poverty line. ... Read More »
Alanis Obomsawin’s powerful documentary, We Can’t Make the Same Mistake Twice,’ debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. The film chronicles the nine year legal battle initiated by the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada (FNCFCS) and the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) against the Harper government. In 2007, the FNCFCS and the AFN filed ... Read More »
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 ... Read More »
A basic income guarantee is not a magic bullet for all forms of economic deprivation in our society, according to a York University professor – but it’s absolutely necessary for the most severe instances of poverty. Dr. Dennis Raphael, a professor of Health Policy and Management at York University in Toronto, says the people in poverty within the bottom 10-15 ... Read More »
The ninth annual Basic Income Week surpassed all expectations in Canada with a plethora of basic income-related activities of note. This reflects only a limited cross-section of activities: Ontario Basic Income Pilot Nowhere is the discussion about basic income more developed than in Ontario where the government is poised to release the parameters of a basic income pilot this fall. ... Read More »
Roderick Benns recently interviewed Dr. Gary Bloch about basic income. Bloch is a family physician with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, and co-Chair of the Ontario College of Family Physicians’ Committee on Poverty and Health. His clinical, educational, program development, and research interests focus on the intersection between poverty and health, and specifically on what primary care providers can do to ... Read More »
A family doctor says basic income policy represents an acknowledgment “of the right to live a decent life.” Dr. Danielle Martin, a family physician and Vice President Medical Affairs and Health System Solutions at Women’s College Hospital in Toronto, says increasing social assistance amounts would not achieve that goal because of the punitive way the welfare system operates. “Rather than ... Read More »
The Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) has recently made its submission to the House of Commons Finance Committee pre-budget consultations, urging creation of a basic income that would be universally available to Canadians in times of need. BICN Chair Sheila Regehr writes in her executive summary that this is “an important time to build on basic income initiatives underway in ... Read More »
As basic income policy gets more press as a way to drastically reduce poverty, inevitably there will be those who seek to preserve the status quo approach. This has served us inadequately for many years and yet there are some believers who remain. These same believers often seek to create false policy choices, as Armine Yalnizyan has done in her ... Read More »
Leaders and Legacies Canadian leaders and leadership stories
