Ccpa on basic income final.pd

RESEARCHwww.policyalternatives.ca ANALYSIS SOLUTIONS
Basic Income:
Rethinking Social Policy
Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy, editors
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Ontario
October 2016

About the CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY
ALTERNATIVES’ ONTARIO OFFICE
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About the CONTRIBUTORS
Karen Foster is an assistant professor, Sociology and Social Anthropology,
Dalhousie University.
Trish Hennessy is director, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario office.
Alex Himelfarb is chair, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ Ontario Ad-
visory Board and former clerk of the Privy Council.
Anita Khanna is the national coordinator, Campaign 2000.
Jennefer Laidley is a research and policy analyst, Income Security Advoca-
cy Centre.
Danielle Martin is a family physician and vice president, Medical Affairs and
Health System Solutions, Women’s College Hospital.
Ryan Meili is a family physician, founder of Upstream: Institute for A Healthy
Society, and an expert advisor with the Evidence Network.
Michael Mendelson is a senior scholar at the Caledon Institute.
Sheila Regehr is chairperson, Basic Income Canada Network.
Tim Richter is president and CEO of the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness.
Louis-Philippe Rochon is a full professor, Laurentian University, and co-edi-
tor, Review of Keynesian Economics.
Toby Sanger is an economist, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE).
Dan Wilson is with the Assembly of First Nations.
Armine Yalnizyan is a senior economist, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Margot Young is a professor, Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all of the contributors to this compendium, as well as
the following people who helped bring this project to fruition: Manisha Ag-
garwal-Schifellite, Peter Bleyer, Kerri-Anne Finn, and Emily Turk.
The opinions and recommendations in this report, and any errors, are those
of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers or
funders of this report.
ISBN 978-1-77125-311-6

Basic Income: Rethinking Social Policy
5 Foreword by the editors
9 Basic income: a way forward
Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy
13 Basic income: the time is now
Sheila Regehr
16 The health case for a basic income
Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin
18 Basic income and seasonal work
Karen Foster
21 Basic income: a roof over their head?
Tim Richter
26 Honourable intentions?
Dan Wilson
28 The devil’s in the details
Jennefer Laidley
33 Basic income solutions in an era of slow growth
Armine Yalnizyan
36 Guaranteed Annual Income and the lone mother
Margot Young
39 Basic income shouldn’t upend the goal of full employment
Louis-Philippe Rochon
42 How progressive is a basic income? Labour perspectives
Toby Sanger
47 Basic income or bait and switch?
Michael Mendelson
54 Six principles to guide a basic income program
Anita Khanna
57 Notes

4 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Basic Income: Rethinking Social Policy 5
Basic Income:
Rethinking Social Policy
Foreword
Editors
We have not been the flag bearers of the basic income idea in Canada.
Others have taken that mantle.
Nor are we playing the role of opponent or skeptic. Quite the contrary;
we recognize the potential for this idea to ignite the long overdue transform-
ation of our welfare policies, to force the needed debates about the purpose
of social policy, and to expand our sense of what’s possible.
We also recognize that few public policy ideas move this suddenly from
the edges of public acceptability into the main policy window of several sit-
ting governments.
As a policy, basic income has long suffered from the perception that it
is a utopian dream — an impossible goal.
Bound within the dismissal of utopian thinking is a deeply rooted cyni-
cism about what we can achieve collectively.
That cynicism has long infused Canadian political thinking and policy
making.
It is what has prevented our House of Commons from making good on
its 1989 all-party commitment to eliminate child poverty in Canada by the
year 2000. It’s 2016, and we have still not reached that goal, though the new
Canada Child Benefit is a welcome step in the right direction.
It is what has guided a 20-year low-tax, small government political nar-
rative that has left no political party untouched.

Over the past two decades, the Canadian imagination about what is pos-
sible has narrowed. We have been taught to think small, to move in incre-
ments and to stay rooted in the realm of pragmatic politics.
The question for social progressives is, quite simply, how has that served
our cause? How has the current approach to poverty reduction, precarious
work and the kind of vulnerability that every single of one of us might face
in this lottery of life moved the needle on what is possible — on what our
real potential could be?
The fact of the matter is that the idea of a basic income has catapulted
out in front of all of the incremental public policy approaches that have
long been on the table.
The basic income has become Canada’s newest example of Overton’s
Window at work: within certain public policy circles, it has moved from the
realm of impossibility to pilot project status.
By appointing former senator Hugh Segal, one of basic income’s most
steadfast proponents, to advise on a way forward, the Ontario government
has served to help legitimize the idea of a basic income.
The history of the idea of basic income shows it’s no passing fad, but
that translating it into action may get mired in the muck of consultations,
delays, poor execution or, most likely, inadequate funding.
But maybe, just maybe, this is the kind of jolt that breaks the mould.
Maybe this is a step in a new direction — and new directions are in great
need right now.
The world is changing rapidly.
Those who find appeal in the idea of a basic income often cite the changing,
unpredictable nature of the world: the impact of technological change on
work, the instability of the labour market and the rise of income inequality,
which privileges a select few at the expense of the majority.
As a tool for poverty reduction and income inequality, basic income has
been critiqued as a blunt instrument, as no silver bullet. But this is the hist-
ory of critique for all social policy. The minimum wage is a blunt instrument,
but raising it certainly helps the bottom line for those workers who earn a
minimum wage. Social assistance is no silver bullet — the system certain-
ly needs an upgrade — but to blow it up and replace it with a single cheque
without other supports and public services would not constitute an upgrade.
Here’s the challenge: will basic income be a program within the cur-
rent austerity frame designed to reduce costs and government’s footprint,
or does it represent an alternative to that frame, an objective or set of ob-

jectives for transforming our welfare state and reinvesting in social justice
and greater equality?
Thinking of basic income in those terms, less as a single program and
more as an objective for all governments, changes the frame; it shifts the
expectations of government. It holds up a guiding point by which to assess
government initiatives to alleviate poverty, to reduce income inequality and
to address precarity in the labour market.
There is never one single shiny solution to this patchwork of problems.
But basic income, as an objective, asks the right questions and could help
inform public policy on everything from the inadequacy of social assistance
to the inadequacy of the minimum wage.
It is in that light that we present this compendium of thought on the
idea of a basic income. Seeking consensus on the basic income may be pre-
mature, but that was not our goal in this compendium. A range of opinion
is healthy for democracy.
The contributors to this volume disagree on many things but they do
agree on the premise: everyone deserves a path out of poverty; a life of
dignity; everyone benefits from greater equality; and while paid labour can
be incredibly gratifying for some, it is not the answer for everyone.
This compendium offers a wide range of considerations that any govern-
ment or policy maker attempting to embed a basic income as an objective
of their mandate ought to consider. Some of those considerations are tech-
nical in nature. Some are philosophical.
And some, like Dan Wilson’s contribution, get to the heart of the chal-
lenge: the decline in trust in governments to do what they say and to act on
behalf of the greater good.
Sheila Regher makes the case that the time is right, as are the social and
economic conditions, for a basic income now.
Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin emphasize how basic income, combined
with essential services, would have positive health outcomes and reduce the
pressures on the health system, yielding significant downstream savings.
Karen Foster sees basic income as an antidote to changes in the labour
market and as a way to tackle the perennial challenges in Canada posed
by seasonal work. She argues that it would allow an end to the distorting
and inadequate coverage of seasonal workers under the Employment In-
surance program.
Tim Richter describes how basic income, combined with the right servi-
ces and housing policies, could bring an end to homelessness and its extra-
ordinary human and economic costs.

Dan Wilson discusses how basic income could give some breathing room
to poor Canadians, which is essential not only for their dignity and well-be-
ing but also for breaking the cycle of poverty. Importantly, he asks how the
pilots will treat Indigenous Peoples, who should not be excluded by virtue
of jurisdictional issues.
On the more cautious side, Jennefer Laidley provides a list of questions
that need to be answered to ensure that Ontario’s poor and people with dis-
abilities are not made worse off by the introduction of basic income.
Similarly, Armine Yalnizyan asks what the right balance is between
improving social services and enhancing income. She urges greater atten-
tion to the former.
Margot Young goes back to a 50-year-old Royal Commission on the Status
of Women in Canada report on gender inequality in Canada that included a
basic income among its solutions. She singles out two concerns: complex-
ities around women’s relationships to paid work and the vision of citizen-
ship that basic income proposals employ. She maintains caution against a
rush to a basic income.
Louis-Philippe Rochon warns that a basic income should not distract
from essential labour market policies and a commitment to full employment.
He argues that good jobs continue to be the best social policy.
Toby Sanger examines the basic income idea from the perspective of the
labour movement, providing a rich historical analysis and posing the ques-
tion: should labour’s focus be on the goal of full employment or on the goal
of reduced work hours?
Michael Mendelson provides cost estimates for a basic income high
enough to truly lift Ontarians out of poverty. Given the high cost and polit-
ical realities, he concludes that a basic income might best be viewed as a
long-term goal, but that concrete incremental steps can and should be taken
now. He reminds us that we already have key elements of a basic income,
at least for children and people over 65, and suggest we focus on gaps. He
makes a number of suggestions, including a basic income for people with
disabilities, enhancements of employment insurance and enriched housing
allowances. Mendelson’s work reminds us that ultimately a comprehensive
approach to welfare reform will require all governments to be at the table.
Anita Khanna writes about Campaign 2000’s fundamental belief that the
delivery of basic income must complement a strong program of public and
social services, a well-developed strategy to create quality jobs, and robust
employment standards that support families struggling to escape the mul-
tiple dimensions of poverty. Continuing to build a stronger public service

architecture is vital to the eradication of child and family poverty. She also
lays out six principles that should guide the development of a basic income.
Taken together, these are the issues that ought to inform the next steps
in testing basic income and rethinking welfare in Ontario.
Basic income: a way forward
Alex Himelfarb and Trish Hennessy
This collection acknowledges the growing momentum in Canada in support
of an old idea: a government-provided basic income.
The federal government, several provinces and some municipalities have
expressed an interest in the idea with Ontario leading the way. The Ontario
government announced in its 2016 budget that it would be moving forward
on a basic income pilot and has called upon Hugh Segal, a long-time advo-
cate, to help design the test and identify the criteria for evaluating its success.
The province defines basic income as “a payment to eligible families or
individuals that ensures a minimum level of income.” The pilot is intended
“to test the growing view that a basic income could help deliver income sup-
port more efficiently, while improving health, employment and housing out-
comes for Ontarians.” Segal’s discussion paper is expected this fall, followed
by Ontario government community consultations on the idea.
This collection of short essays is intended to identify the key debates
around basic income, its potential benefits and its risks. Hopefully, it stimu-
lates the kind of debate we need in Ontario and beyond, on the role of a basic
income and the future of the Canadian welfare state.
The idea of a basic income guarantee is, of course, not new. The Uni-
versity of Manitoba’s Evelyn Forget has traced its history as far back as the
late 18th century, its advocates representing startlingly diverse perspectives
— from American pamphleteer and founding father Thomas Paine, to uto-
pian socialist Charles Fourier, to Christian philanthropist Cornelius Blatchly.
From the outset, the idea of a basic income has been mired in contro-
versy in large part because it exposes fundamental differences in our views
of justice, freedom, the balance between collective and individual rights
and responsibilities, and the role of government.
The major schism has been between advocates who argue that poverty
is a collective responsibility and that relief is a right of citizenship essential
for dignity and equality of opportunity; and critics who argue that poverty

is an individual responsibility, typically the result of bad decisions, and that
unconditional money would simply reinforce those bad decisions.
The latter view continues to play out in social policies that seek to dis-
tinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor and echoes among
opponents of redistribution and progressive taxation.
In any case, for the most part, the idea of basic income languished.
It had a minor rebirth in the late-1960s and early-1970s in both Canada
and the United States, each under different circumstances and for some-
what different purposes.
In the U.S., conservative policy makers concerned about the post-war ex-
pansion of welfare programs and the influence of governments saw a basic
income as a market-based replacement for piecemeal welfare programs.
They argued that, despite the large amounts of money governments were
spending on social services, too many people continued to live in poverty
— in part because targeted programs were often demeaning and unneces-
sarily constraining, expensive to administer and created disincentives to
work, trapping people in welfare. Milton Friedman, one of its key propon-
ents, argued that a basic income would, over time, forestall growth in wel-
fare spending, reduce the size and influence of governments, eliminate the
need for minimum wage laws and allow private charities to fill the gap that
the disappearance of targeted programs left behind.
Four pilot projects were launched under President Richard Nixon to test
the feasibility of a negative income tax, in which people below a certain in-
come threshold received cash benefits, primarily to test how “free money”
would alter behaviour, particularly work effort.
Opposition came not only from the political right but also from unions
and progressive organizations concerned that basic income would distract
from or undermine other important priorities: enhancements to health and
social services, labour policies such as minimum wage enhancements, and
a commitment to full employment.
Some argued that the poor could end up worse off, depending on the
size of the benefit and what programs it replaced.
The results of the pilots were ambiguous, but they seemed to reveal a
modest reduction in work effort (mostly by those who were not primary earn-
ers) and the unanticipated finding of an increase in divorce rates.
Opponents on the right seized on these findings, warning that a basic in-
come would leave in its wake a country of layabouts. With opposition from
both the right and left, the idea died yet again.

In Canada, while policy makers were influenced by what was going on in
the U.S., advocates gave greater priority to the objective of ending poverty.
Jurisdictional conflicts also inevitably played their part as provinces, angry
at unilateral federal changes to unemployment insurance and family allow-
ance, called for a joint review to rationalize income support.
The Liberal minority government — with pressure from the federal NDP
and interest from the NDP government in Manitoba — launched pilot pro-
jects in Winnipeg and Dauphin, Manitoba. They were also designed to test
whether providing targeted financial supplements to families living below
the poverty line would result in reduced work effort.
Research at the time, and more recent analyses by Forget, show that the
new benefit had very little impact on work effort. The major exception was
among women who chose to provide care for their young children and stu-
dents who chose to continue their education. In addition, Forget found sig-
nificant downstream benefits, for example through reduced rates of hos-
pitalization.
Critics were not assuaged, citing small sample size and the somewhat
different results in the United States. As in the U.S., opposition from both
right and left prevailed and the pilot was abandoned by the newly elected
Conservative government.
Flash forward 45 years: the idea of a basic income has returned, yet again.
Switzerland recently held a referendum on the introduction of a version
of guaranteed income (though it was defeated) and a couple of countries
have committed to experimenting with the idea.
In Canada, as elsewhere, the idea is backed by a diverse and growing
grassroots movement. Governments seem to be listening. So why the ren-
aissance?
This growing interest no doubt reflects, at least in part, a recognition
that the evolution of our welfare state has not kept pace with demographic
and economic change or the transformation of our labour market.
Over the last few decades, in Canada at least, policy makers seem to have
viewed the welfare state largely as a “cost,” a threat to balanced budgets and
fiscal health. Their focus was on “bending the cost curve,” keeping bene-
fits low, targeting more narrowly, privatizing delivery where possible and
lowering public expectations.
At the same time, we have seen more people, especially youth, trapped
in precarious, often low-wage work with no benefits and few prospects.

While some European jurisdictions were transforming their welfare, tax and
transfer programs, we were busy cutting taxes and containing spending. With
a few notable exceptions, the result for Canadians was “less of the same.”
The idea of a basic income has been given new impetus from our in-
creasingly precarious labour market. Paul Krugman, an optimist about the
future of work, has made the case for a basic income as essential to helping
people manage while the economy and labour market sort themselves out.
For those who imagine that the future portends fewer jobs and greater pre-
carity, even if only in the medium term, a basic income provides an ob-
vious antidote.
Changes to the labour market and concerns about the future of work have
given new relevance to the approach of social democrats such as Charles
Fourier, who saw a basic income as freeing people from dependency on
paid labour, giving workers greater bargaining power, and valuing volun-
teerism and unpaid work.
The renewed interest in basic income and government’s willingness to
experiment represent an important opportunity to reimagine the future of
social and labour market policy. But, as its history shows, the opportunity
can all too easily be wasted or subverted.
That the idea has won renewed favour from proponents across the ideo-
logical spectrum is no doubt a large part of its political appeal, but that also
means advocates hold very different views of what an income guarantee
should look like, how generous it should be, whether it should be targeted
or universal, and how it should be paid for.
Simply put, there is no one single version of guaranteed income. Which
version of guaranteed income will our government be testing?
It will be imperative that the government be clear not only on the pur-
poses or objectives of a basic income, but also on which of those objectives
should take priority over others.
Much of the criticism from the left, for example, reflects the concern that
given the fiscal pressures on governments and the continuing aversion to
raising taxes, austerity objectives could easily outweigh all other purposes
of a basic income.
Is the pilot primarily driven by the desire to end poverty, to reduce de-
pendency on paid labour, or to reduce costs?
Related to this is the question of the current programs the basic income
would replace — will the income be large enough to cover what is lost?

To meet its social objectives, the benefit would have to be, at a minimum,
more than is provided by welfare and whatever other income programs it re-
places, and ideally would bring people above the poverty line.
Even with administrative savings, new revenues would be required most
likely through increases in income taxes or value-added taxes. Just how much
taxes may increase depends on how high the allowance is to be, whether it
is universal or targeted to bring all Canadians up to the poverty line, when
and how quickly it is taxed back when recipients earn additional income,
and which other programs are subsumed within it.
Even though any potential tax increase would simply flow back to Can-
adians as income, the idea of significant tax increases for this purpose could
be a tough political sell. The government should consider whether basic in-
come is better viewed as a program or as an objective to guide more compre-
hensive welfare reform that would examine how income, public services,
and labour market policies can work together to reduce economic inequal-
ity and mitigate its impact as well as to ensure that all Ontarians have ac-
cess to the essentials, that they can live in dignity regardless of their job
situation, and that they have sufficient income.
The papers in this compendium have different views on the risks and
benefits of a basic income, but all agree that we must not waste this oppor-
tunity to rethink welfare and put equality and social justice back at the cen-
tre of public policy.
A basic income: the time is now
Sheila Regehr
How do you know when the zeitgeist — the spirit of a particular period of
history — is changing?
Perhaps when the term “basic income” is popping up everywhere on
social media?
Or when many governments around the world are showing practical in-
terest in a long-standing moral and philosophical idea?
Or when the word “work” appears in quotation marks?
The basic income idea has risen to international prominence very quick-
ly in the last few years for moral and practical reasons, and in ways that may
confound traditional political categorization and process.

As a working model it has also quietly existed, including in Canada,
under different names and guises for some groups of people.
In addition, there is a growing Canada-wide, progressive basic income
movement. For several years, the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN),
its international affiliates, and many local groups have helped provide the
means for people to connect, learn, and share knowledge to promote the
kind of basic income we want.
Now that the idea is back out in the light and its time may truly be com-
ing, Canada is better equipped than most countries to make it a reality —
the BICN wants to ensure that everyone can “meet their basic needs and
live with dignity regardless of work status.”1
For comparison, what Canadians know as social assistance (again under
various names) is anchored to a model that is the opposite of a basic income
and based on a different value system. It is highly conditional, controlling
and judgmental, restrictively targeted and stigmatizing to users — charac-
teristics that won’t go away even if rates are raised.
There is solid science showing the damage this does to human brains
and bodies; people living in poverty who rely on their jobs to get by often
experience the unhealthy effects of their stress and insecurity.
A basic income model also embodies a more complete recognition
of “work” as activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to
achieve a purpose or result. Surviving on social assistance may be the hard-
est work there is.
Of all the valuable and essential “work” that humans do, however, it is
“waged labour” that has come to signify worth, status and moral rectitude in
our society and in policy, as the primary basis for distributing income. This
has never worked well for people who have high time demands outside the
market, such as caring for dependants or managing a disability. With the
world of waged labour dramatically changing, we need to curb our moral-
izing and find better ways to distribute work and income.
A basic income is not a panacea, nor does it displace other policies that
work. But it could very well be a key that unlocks multiple possibilities, al-
lowing a range of policies and services to be more mutually supportive — fos-
tering social solidarity and democracy, unleashing creativity, and smooth-
ing transitions.
The basic income idea is capturing the imagination of a public longing
for a new, more hopeful narrative and this is very powerful. The idea is, and
should be, driven by values and principles that must in turn drive the tech-
nical mechanics that put the idea into practice.

When considering a basic income, I suggest two overarching themes be
taken into account.
First, do not underestimate the problems and challenges facing our so-
ciety and economy. There is widely held concern about robots and techno-
logical unemployment, as well as concern about the precarity, persis-
tent poverty, and extreme inequality that go hand in hand with expensive
socio-economic ills.
Poverty and inequality break down along lines of gender, race, religion,
nationality and other factors that further divide people and can give rise to
social unrest and violence. Anger at immense corporate power, bank bail-
outs and tax evasion is growing. The planet is a finite resource. These prob-
lems are not going away. Tinkering will not do.
Second, do utilize and have confidence in Canada’s experience and abil-
ity. The basic income story will unfold differently depending on a country’s
policy and political context. Canada is already in the middle of its story.
We have forms of basic income that have been functioning well for dec-
ades. Benefits for seniors combine a universal demogrant and a negative in-
come tax model. We also have a partial basic income for some working age
adults. It’s deceptively called a Canada Child Benefit but the parents get the
cheques and make the decisions about using their time and money with no
conditions or judgment. The vast majority of families with children receive
some benefit, with the greatest amounts going to those who need it most.
In The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World, Sir Michael Marmot
calls this “proportionate universality.”2
For both seniors and families with
children, relevant services complement the income support. The issue for
Canada is not whether a good basic income is possible but who is current-
ly left out. And how can we fix that?
We have experience, successful results, evidence, technical expertise and
many of the prerequisites for a basic income cited in the literature, like tax/
transfer system integration, statistical capacity and accepted standards of
income adequacy. We have precedents for taking disability, maternity and
lone parenthood into account. We can learn from a new Ontario pilot that
addresses the needs of people who have been left out, but we are not sole-
ly dependent on it.
We have political pressure in the form of universal health care, which we
highly value. Income is the leading determinant of health. Poverty and in-
come insecurity translate into expensive health care needs. A key solution
to rising health care costs that preoccupy governments is not in the health
care system; it is in income security.

Canadians who care about this idea do need to write, talk and listen to
each other to share different perspectives, advance our mutual understand-
ing and work for the best basic income we can get. Many thanks to this CCPA
volume for encouraging that to happen!
The health case for basic income
Ryan Meili and Danielle Martin
When a patient goes to see their doctor, they do so hoping for help to under-
stand or treat an acute illness or a longer-term problem.
It might be something as simple as a rash or a cut, a chronic illness like
asthma, or something more socially and psychologically complex like de-
pression or addiction.
What do people expect from a health care provider? Usually some sens-
ible, evidence-based advice, perhaps a plan for further investigations, and
sometimes a prescription for a medication or referral to an expert.
The goal of these interactions, and the real purpose behind our health
care system, is the best health for Canadians. But the evidence on what
makes the biggest difference in our health is clear: health care matters, but
it isn’t what matters most in making a population healthy.
Social factors such as income, education, employment, housing, food
security and the wider environment play a much larger role than health care
in achieving the best outcomes for any population.
Of these social determinants of health, the most influential is income.
Income is often referred to as the “determinant of the determinants” be-
cause it influences access to other essentials for good health, such as where
people can afford to live and how far they can go in school.
A growing body of evidence shows that allowing poverty to continue is
far more expensive than investing to improve people’s economic well-be-
ing. In Ontario, the cost of poverty has been calculated to be upwards of $30
billion per year.3
This cost may be the strongest motivator behind the resur-
gence of interest in a basic income, but the health case cannot be far behind.
Poverty leads to higher rates of heart disease, depression, diabetes and
scores of other illnesses — so doctors should, and do, care about poverty.
This understanding has led to greater emphasis on assessing income status
in primary care.

Clinical Poverty Tools are being developed across the country, follow-
ing the model developed by Dr. Gary Bloch and Health Providers Against
Poverty in Ontario,4
to help front line health care workers support their pa-
tients to access the financial help they need.
But just as health is far more than health care, improving health through
increasing access to income has to go far beyond clinical efforts. This has
led physicians to move outside of their traditional roles and start advocat-
ing for upstream policy changes that will have real impact on the health of
the people they serve by reducing poverty.
A basic income guarantee is, of course, not the only option for addressing
poverty as a social determinant of health and a social justice issue. But for
the same reasons economists, activists and others are expressing renewed
interest in basic income in recent months and years, it is gaining consider-
able support among physicians across Canada.
In Saskatchewan, physicians have advocated for the development of a
poverty reduction strategy that includes a trial of basic income. In Ontario,
194 physicians signed a letter to Minister of Health Eric Hoskins calling for
a basic income pilot program—and in its 2016 budget, the government com-
mitted to such a pilot.5
Doctors have also come forward at a national level, with the General Coun-
cil of the Canadian Medical Association — “the Parliament of medicine” —
passing a motion in support of basic income at its 2015 meeting in Halifax.
Where more extensive basic income pilots have been tried, both inter-
nationally and in Canada, the results with respect to health outcomes have
been impressive. The MINCOME experiment in Dauphin, Manitoba in the
1970s resulted in higher school completion rates and a reduction in hospital-
ization of 8.5 per cent, largely due to fewer accidents, injuries and mental
health admissions.6
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Canadians
spent $63.6 billion on hospital services in 2014; a decrease of 8.5 per cent
in health spending in today’s environment would result in savings of $5.4
billion.7
A more recent study, again in Manitoba, evaluated the impact of the Pre-
natal Benefit Program. Between 2003 and 2010, low-income expectant moth-
ers received an extra $81 per month. This resulted in decreases in low birth
weight (21 per cent) and pre-term birth (17.5 per cent). This kind of positive
early childhood intervention can lead to long-term cost savings and, more im-
portantly, significant improvements in health for the entire life of that child.

As with universal health care or any other large public benefit program,
details matter. In order to have an impact on health, the program would need
to provide adequate support to really pull people out of poverty.
Any version that leaves people stuck behind a welfare wall or that allows
only for the most basic survival impedes their ability to thrive.
And, of course, doctors know well that there is no such thing as a pana-
cea: no single treatment can cure all ills. Some people have envisioned a
version of basic income that replaces all other social programs, commodi-
fying every part of our lives.
A well-designed basic income program would certainly simplify the
complex labyrinth of programs and barriers to their access currently faced
by people living in poverty. But we still need minimum wages and strong
labour laws. We need a well-designed public health care system that in-
cludes coverage of prescription medications. We need affordable housing
and affordable child care.
In other words, we need to find the balance between making sure people
have the money to afford what they need and making sure that what they
need is affordable. We also need to ensure that where public policy princi-
ples and economies of scale point to government provision of services, such
services should not be left to the free market — even if people have a little
more money to bring to market.
Some policy changes happen slowly, with incremental movements in
public opinion. But every once in a while, an idea that had seemed out-
side the realm of possibility quite suddenly gathers momentum. In the last
couple of years the concept of basic income has moved from the margins
to the mainstream.
It now feels that Canada has gone from the question of if to how. A wise
approach to implementation of a basic income guarantee could give us the
most significant change to the health of Canadians since the introduction
of medicare.
Like medicare, it has the potential to be a universal program that reflects
our values and informs our identity as Canadians.
Basic income and seasonal work
Karen Foster
A small but substantial proportion of all jobs in Canada are seasonal.

By definition, the proportion fluctuates with the seasons, but the latest
Statistics Canada data (CANSIM, 2016) tell us that the number of workers
in seasonal jobs can range from a low of 214,000 in mid-winter to a high of
766,000 in summer.
This represents roughly two to five per cent of all workers in the coun-
try. In the Atlantic provinces, the incidence is much higher, with about one
in 10 workers in seasonal jobs.
Thus, although it’s marginal, so-called “seasonality” in employment is a
reality for hundreds of thousands of Canadians. It’s also a constant concern
for policy makers and employers — especially those in rural areas — who have
difficulty recruiting people with job offers that only cover part of the year.
In many industries, like seafood processing and agriculture, the appar-
ent reluctance of Canadian workers to take seasonal jobs has led employers
to seek migrant workers through the Temporary Foreign Worker program.
Canadian workers who do take seasonal jobs are left with the problem
of how to make a living year-round. In all but a few exceptional instances —
e.g., the crude stereotype of the wealthy fisherman — one season’s income
cannot stretch over a whole year.
In most communities, it is also difficult (if not impossible) to match a
seasonal job with a job in a different industry for the rest of the year. As the
aggregate numbers show us, there is an abundance of jobs in the summer
but in winter it’s reduced by two thirds.
There simply aren’t enough winter seasonal jobs to go around. Accord-
ingly, the solution for many seasonal workers is to collect Employment In-
surance (EI) in the winter. The last published attempt to measure the con-
nection between EI and seasonal employment is likely outdated — it is from
2003 — but it points to a strong correlation: 61 per cent of all seasonal jobs
reported in the national Survey of Labour and Income Dynamics were fol-
lowed by a period of collecting EI benefits.
It is prudent to ask whether or not the EI system should serve this func-
tion, and governments have indeed asked that question before. In 2012, the
federal government answered it with some EI reforms meant to coerce sea-
sonal workers to find other jobs in the off-season instead of relying on EI
benefits.
The swift reaction from seasonal workers, employers and industries, and
the mainly rural communities that rely on them, along with the CANSIM sta-
tistics that show no long-term reduction in claims after 2012, suggest that
seasonal workers are not simply opting out of work in the off-season. Sea-
sonal fluctuations in employment, in other words, are not a problem of indi-

vidual motivation; they are a structural feature of our economy. Thus, they
require structural supports — as even the freest of free markets always do,
in practice if not in theory.
As a sociologist who studies work, unemployment, productivity and,
most recently, rural economies, I have come to believe that a basic income
is the most promising solution to cyclical and structural unemployment,
and especially the seasonal employment that sustains the Atlantic prov-
inces where I live and work.
There are many reasons, but three stand out.
First, a basic income lacks the moral baggage of EI or social assistance.
It’s a moral project, certainly, because it rests on the belief that everyone
deserves to live with dignity and security.
But in the model of basic income I endorse, a person does not have to
prove his or her moral worthiness by declaring and demonstrating a will-
ingness to work. Seasonal workers would not be shamed for selling their
labour to the industries we benefit from — the fisheries, forestry, tourism,
agriculture, outdoor recreation — or pressured in the off-season to seek a
job that isn’t there.
If we stick with a system that punishes and treats with suspicion work-
ers in these industries, we will continue to see labour shortages and disap-
pearing small communities.
I can only conclude that we have stuck with this system so far because
we are afraid of what happens when people don’t have to sell their labour to
live. However, all of the pilot tests of basic income have shown that it is pre-
cisely this attachment to work as a meaningful and moral activity that en-
sures that most (if not all) people would continue to work for a paycheque.
Second, a basic income dispenses with the increasingly naïve idea that
we can employ everybody all the time.
Since Confederation, we have been working harder and smarter, and
throwing money into new technologies, in pursuit of increased productiv-
ity. The flip side of increased productivity is less work for people. We can
either scramble to invent more jobs by inventing more needs for ourselves
or we can treat ourselves to a society where we all work a little less and have
more time for our communities, families and creative pursuits (or, god for-
bid it, time to do nothing).
In communities with seasonal industries, a basic income opens up the
possibility for people to work all summer for pay and then take the winters
to read, do house repair, go on vacations, raise children, play a sport, make
art, write stories, plan events — all of the stuff that makes life worth living.

Third, a basic income could do all this without a gigantic bureaucratic
structure full of people whose job it is to make sure other people are being
honest about their job searches. It could replace much of our current patch-
work of regular government transfers, each with their own piles of paper-
work, in a single payment.
There could still be top-ups for people with disabilities and parents
of young children, and EI would have to remain for people who lose their
jobs. But EI as a Band-Aid solution for the wounds left by seasonal indus-
tries could disappear entirely.
Overall, a basic income promises to help us come to terms with our econ-
omy and job market as they actually exist — not as they exist in the imagina-
tions of orthodox and neoliberal economists — seasonal fluctuations and all.
Basic income: a roof over their head?
Tim Richter
Tonight an estimated 35,000 Canadians will sleep in shelters, on the street
or in some form of temporary accommodation.
Over the course of a year this number balloons to over 235,000 Can-
adians. It’s notable that for the vast majority of these people — over 85 per
cent — homelessness is a short-term and infrequent experience stemming
from poverty.8
Aside from the tragic human cost, homelessness also exacts a significant
financial toll, costing the Canadian economy over $7 billion per year.9
This
cost is born primarily by the provinces who bear the burden of health, jus-
tice and social service costs accrued by vulnerable homeless people boun-
cing aimlessly through expensive public services as a result of worsening
health and the predictable interactions with the justice system that come
from poverty, addiction and mental illness — interactions more effectively
remedied by housing and support.
In the early-1980s homelessness was such a minor issue in Canada that
there were very few counts completed. In one of the country’s first ever home-
less counts in 1992, the City of Calgary counted 447 people as homeless. By
2008 that number had exploded to over 4,060. This pattern has played out
in communities across the country.10
The popular narrative on homelessness in Canada would have you be-
lieve that homelessness is the product of addiction, mental illness, and/

or poor choices by individuals. The fact is, modern mass homelessness in
Canada is primarily the impact of austerity on the very poor — the result of
fewer affordable housing options for the poorest Canadians who now have
lower incomes and less income security.
Current interest in a guaranteed or basic income provides an import-
ant and needed opportunity to examine how income, services, and hous-
ing policies can work together to end homelessness and its human and eco-
nomic costs.
Homelessness is the result of an intricate interplay between structural
factors (social policy, housing market and labour market changes, for ex-
ample) and individual circumstances (poverty, addiction and mental ill-
ness, for example). Since there is no evidence to suggest a dramatic change
in the rates of mental illness or addiction among poor Canadians over the
last 25 years, the evidence points us to structural factors to explain the rise
of homelessness.11
The large-scale homelessness we see today in Canada coincides with the
rise of austerity and closely mirrors the American experience. While there
have been changes in economic conditions and housing markets, the sin-
gle biggest change that explains the rise of homelessness is the impact of
austerity on very poor Canadians.
Austerity in Canada began slowly in the 1980s but picked up steam in
the 1990s and became the policy of choice over the last decade. This meant
deep cuts to provincial transfers (the money the federal government pays
to provinces that the provinces in turn use to pay for everything from health
care to welfare) and cuts to direct federal spending on almost everything.
Among the cuts was the national affordable housing program (in place since
in 1973), effectively ending federal investment in new affordable housing.12
This left the provincial governments, also fighting significant budget defi-
cits, to pick up the slack, which they could not.
According to the 2014 State of Homelessness in Canada report:
In 1982, all levels of government combined funded 20,450 new social hous-
ing units annually. By 1995, the number dropped to around 1,000, with
numbers slowly climbing to 4,393 annually by 2006. Over the past 25 years,
while Canada’s population increased by almost 30 per cent, annual nation-
al investment in housing has decreased dramatically, by over 46 per cent.13
While recent attention has been rightly focused on federal investment
in housing and a long-sought National Housing Strategy, we can’t forget the

poorest Canadians faced an austerity double whammy — along with the cuts
to affordable housing came cuts to welfare and income support.
Reduced provincial transfers saw reductions in the amount of assist-
ance many could receive along with increasing restrictions on eligibility.
Tightening eligibility criteria saw the number of households receiving as-
sistance in Canada fall dramatically, from a peak of 3.1 million in 1993 to 1.7
million by 2005.14
Those who find themselves among the growing popula-
tion in homeless shelters were most affected and least likely to access ex-
isting income supports or social services.
With increasingly limited affordable housing options, the poorest Can-
adians have been left to seek housing in the increasingly expensive private
rental market and pretty much on their own.
In a newly released examination of rental markets in Canada’s nine lar-
gest cities, University of Calgary professors Ron Kneebone and Margarita
Wilkins note “a very strong trend of falling [housing] affordability [for very
poor Canadians] brought about by a significantly faster average annual rate
of growth in rents relative to social-assistance incomes.”15
Montreal and Quebec City are notable exceptions to this trend — and
the reason is instructive to the consideration of guaranteed annual income.
Kneebone and Wilkins write:
Since 1990, the affordability of rental accommodations for those with very
low incomes has actually improved in Quebec City and Montreal. This is
unique in Canada. It has mainly been the result of significantly larger in-
creases in social-assistance incomes provided in the province of Quebec
than elsewhere and somewhat slower increases on rents on [lowest cost]
rental units.16
A guaranteed annual income is designed to “ensure everyone sufficient
income to meet basic needs and live with dignity, regardless of work status.”17
Housing is most certainly a basic need and income is critical if we are to ad-
dress this need in an enduring way.
Let’s take as an example the contrast in the state of homelessness in Al-
berta and Quebec.
The metropolitan Montreal area has a population of just over 4 million18
people and counted 3,01619
people as homeless in their most recent home-
less count in 2015. By comparison, Calgary has a population of 1.4 million20
and a homeless count of 3,555.21
On a per capita basis, homelessness in Calgary is over three times high-
er than that of Montreal. There are inevitably many factors to consider in

comparing homelessness in both communities (for example, social hous-
ing infrastructure, shelter beds, social support services and demographic
factors, as well as labour and housing markets), but it’s interesting to note
the correlation between rental housing costs, social assistance, and rates
of homelessness.
Kneebone notes that Calgary is the most expensive place in Canada for
poor people, whereas Montreal and Quebec City have consistently been the
best places to live for low-income earners:22
There are many factors that helped create that disparity, but the primary
one is the fact that over 24 years, rental prices in Calgary have increased an
average of 3.4 per cent annually, compared with an annual 1.6 per cent rise
in social assistance funding. Conversely, the average rent in Montreal rose
an average of two per cent with social assistance climbing 2.6 per cent.23
For the vast majority of people who experience homelessness in Can-
ada, the experience is brief and infrequent; over 85 per cent of those who
experience homelessness are considered transitionally homeless. For these
people, homelessness is primarily the product of poverty and high housing
costs with a lower prevalence of other issues like mental illness or addic-
tion that can be barriers to housing. Another segment, representing about
11 per cent of the population, is episodically homeless with repeated epi-
sodes of homelessness and housing instability over their lifetime as well
as longer stays in shelter. We know from experience across North America
that people with less complex needs will be able to resolve their own home-
lessness with little or no targeted services, beyond support for paying rent.
In another recent paper, Shrinking the need for homeless shelter spaces,
Kneebone and Wilkins studied housing affordability in 51 Canadian cities
to identify to what extent efforts at poverty reduction may enable closing
of emergency shelter beds. They showed that even a relatively modest in-
crease (as low as $1,500 per year for a single employable person) in the in-
comes of the very poor (those on social assistance) could shrink the need
for emergency shelter beds by over 20 per cent nationwide.
By bridging the gap between income for the very poor and the cost of
housing, Montreal has been relatively successful in moderating homeless-
ness by — at the very least — ensuring people who might become transition-
ally, or even episodically, homeless have the income to retain their housing.
A guaranteed annual income would also help to make it far less likely
that job loss, divorce, family conflict, domestic violence, injury, or illness
result in homelessness. And it would help the many homeless people who

do not now qualify for other forms of assistance. Furthermore, providing
income in a way that allows choice and some degree of autonomy has been
found to be critical to the effectiveness of the Housing First model demon-
strated by the Mental Health Commission of Canada,24
now deployed na-
tionally by the Government of Canada through the Homelessness Partner-
ing Strategy25
and central to strategies that have proven effective in reducing
homelessness across North America.
As was noted earlier, for 85 per cent of people who experience homeless-
ness, that experience is short and infrequent and principally the result of
poverty, while another 11 per cent are episodically homeless. The last seg-
ment are people who are considered chronically homeless. Chronic home-
lessness accounts for two to four per cent of all people experiencing home-
lessness, but includes those people who typically have multiple complex
needs, extensive barriers to housing, and require specialized support to leave
homelessness. Even though these people represent a minority of those ex-
periencing homelessness, they take up as much as two-thirds of all emer-
gency shelter spaces in Canada. Lifting people out of poverty, then, must
be a critical plank of any strategy to end homelessness.
Chronic homelessness also highlights a caution on a guaranteed annual
income — there are no silver bullets. Homelessness is the product of an in-
tricate interplay of primarily structural factors. Income is one of the most
important of these structural factors but it isn’t the only one. A guaranteed
annual income cannot and should not been seen as a replacement for in-
vestment in social housing and health care or essential improvement in co-
ordination of local homelessness systems.
A guaranteed annual income however, has the potential to prevent or
end the homelessness of thousands of Canadians. It could, if combined with
the right housing policies and public services, be transformational in Can-
ada’s response to homelessness. As renowned Canadian housing scholar
David Hulchanski says, homelessness is “about inadequate housing, inad-
equate income and a lack of appropriate social supports.” Current income
supports do not meet the needs of many homeless people in terms either of
access or adequacy. A guaranteed annual income, combined with adequate
social supports, ensures even those Canadians with the most complex needs
can be successfully housed. The long-term savings would be enormous, and
the benefits to human dignity incalculable.

Honourable intentions?
Dan Wilson
Plans by the Government of Ontario to test the viability of a guaranteed in-
come program hold the promise of eradicating poverty, but as the poorest
people in the province know well, promises can be broken.
By far the poorest people in Ontario are status First Nations People liv-
ing on reserve.
For Ontario, the child poverty rate on reserve is 48 per cent — more than
three times the child poverty rate for the province as a whole. That 48 per
cent average includes relatively wealthy southern communities and masks
even greater disparities between Ontarians as a whole and the much deep-
er poverty on reserves across the north of the province and along the James
Bay coastline.
Being a provincial pilot, however, it is unlikely that Ontario’s guaranteed
income project will provide any help to federally regulated reserves at all.
Off reserve and among those who might fall under the aegis of a prov-
incial project, Indigenous Peoples are still among the poorest, along with
newcomers and racialized families.
After decades of studies demonstrating what should be obvious to all,
these people are the poorest not because of personal or group characteris-
tics, but because they are systemically disadvantaged.
As such, a plan to guarantee a basic minimum income would seem a
welcome notion. It promises a systemic solution to a systemic problem.
There are those who point out that a guaranteed income only provides
money; that it does not address housing, health care or other social welfare
problems. While that is true, the fact is that an income above the poverty
line is the most concrete step out of poverty.
Relief from poverty is the promise of freedom from the constant strug-
gle for subsistence, to catch some air, look up, and perhaps pursue other
opportunities — whether education and training, relocation or new employ-
ment — that can provide more permanent solutions to the poverty trap. If
that promise was honoured, it is difficult to imagine serious objection to the
notion of a guaranteed income.
Nonetheless, critics remain.
Some feel the cost is too high. To that objection, one need only look at
the longer-term costs of poverty in increased health care, additional costs
in the criminal justice or social welfare systems, and most significantly in

lost opportunity costs. Over time, these invariably outweigh the cost of ad-
dressing poverty.
Inconveniently, however, they don’t do so within the four-year election
cycle.
Some feel that employers could use a minimum income to subsidize
low-wage employment, as Walmart in the United States does with their em-
ployees collecting food stamps. Others note that if people are paid wheth-
er or not they work, they may stay home drinking beer and eating popcorn.
What many other criticisms of a guaranteed income have in common is
a concern about the intentions of government, either at the time of imple-
mentation or at some later date. Those critics point out that a government
may use the existence of a basic minimum income as a reason to diminish
other social benefits such as housing or health care — to trade one dollar
off for another.
They also note that a plan may not cover everyone or that it may come
with conditions, so that those most in need are left out or inadequately cov-
ered. And, fundamentally, many worry that the income rate set may be sim-
ply too low to actually lift people out of poverty.
All of these concerns reflect distrust — a distrust that may well be justified.
While thoughtful planning and sincere implementation should be able
to overcome any or all of these objections, concerns remain. In part, con-
cerns remain because some people, acting as individuals or as corporations,
can be trusted to game whatever system is created.
More importantly, concerns remain because governments cannot be
trusted to plan carefully enough or to keep their word.
There is a history of broken promises to prove this. Indigenous Peoples
— those who have been here the longest yet remain the furthest away from
equality of opportunity and the freedom that relief from poverty can bring
— know this better than anyone.
But governments are a reflection of their voters, of those values and char-
acteristics. The real question is whether the people of Ontario can be trust-
ed to keep their governments accountable, now and in the future.
In the end, opinion on guaranteed income may be a litmus test on wheth-
er we trust our fellow citizens.

The devil’s in the details
Jennefer Laidley
Proponents from all points on the ideological spectrum posit a basic income
as the answer to many different problems, whether in income security bene-
fit programs or the labour market.
Virtually everyone, however, sees basic income as a replacement for
“welfare” programs and an answer to the problems they create.
Enforced poverty, intrusion and surveillance, eligibility policing and
asset stripping, conditionality and inadequate employment supports, and
punitive and degrading rules are endemic to Ontario Works (OW) and the
Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP), Ontario’s two social assistance
programs.
For those of us who want to resolve these particular problems, basic in-
come is often seen as the right response.
But we can’t lose sight of what might get lost in the shuffle. Basic in-
come could provide many opportunities, but it might pose significant risks.
Here are six key questions to help anti-poverty and social assistance ad-
vocates determine whether any proposed basic income program will meet
the test for improving life for those now getting OW or ODSP.
1) What’s the goal?
Basic income can supposedly do everything: from responding to a
low-quality labour market to making benefits easier to administer, and from
incentivizing work to getting government “out of the business” of providing
social programs. That’s why it gets support from so many different corners.
But will it resolve the problem of poverty? That’s an open question. But
it certainly won’t do the job unless it’s intended to.
People who get benefits through OW and ODSP don’t get enough in basic
benefits to live out of poverty. And they can’t earn their way out without
losing other important supports. The impacts of poverty on them are well
known: higher rates of preventable disease and death, lower quality of life,
higher housing instability, and more stress and despair.
To address these problems, basic income has to be built with a goal of
addressing poverty. It can’t be primarily about making benefits easier to
administer. It can’t focus solely on doing a better job of getting people into
work. And while achieving savings in other areas may well be a positive re-

sult of increasing people’s incomes, that shouldn’t drive the way the pro-
gram is designed.
When examining any basic income proposal, we first have to ask: is
eliminating poverty its primary goal? If there are multiple goals, what kind
of trade-offs might have to be made?
2) How “basic” is the income?
It makes sense that a basic income program that replaces social assist-
ance would set the basic income amount at a level higher than the lowest
welfare amount — about $8,000 per year, which is what single people on
OW get from all income sources.26
What about people with disabilities? If basic income replaces ODSP, it’ll
have to do better than the $14,000 per year that a single person with disabil-
ities currently gets from that program, especially given that people with dis-
abilities have more financial needs that arise from their disability.
Given that a commonly used Statistics Canada measurement current-
ly sets the “low income” line for an individual at about $21,000 per year,27
there’s a lot of room to move to improve things for people on OW and ODSP.
So how adequate would a basic income that replaces OW and ODSP be?
Would it provide enough to pay for all the things people now need but cur-
rently can’t afford?
Would it lift everyone out of poverty? Would it get at least part of the way?
3) How would it line up with work?
A basic income program can be set up to give everyone the same amount
of money, so the rich get the same amount as the poor. That amount can be
tax-free for all or taxed back from those with higher incomes.
Or the program can be targeted only to those with low or no incomes. In
this case, the amount people get typically decreases in proportion to how
much money is earned from work.
Two important questions then arise: at what point does the amount of
the benefit start to be reduced and by how much?
Right now, people who are on social assistance can and do work, but
their income is deducted from their benefits at a very high rate. And the de-
duction starts after earnings of only $200 each month. This means it’s im-
possible for people who work while on social assistance to actually earn
enough money to have an adequate income.
Other benefit programs, like the Canada Child Benefit, are set up dif-
ferently. Deductions don’t start until income is roughly at the poverty line.

And the proportion that’s deducted is set so the benefit decreases moder-
ately and gradually as income increases.
If a basic income were set up in a similar way, it could improve life for
people currently on social assistance who work. But would it also improve
life for people who don’t?
Many people in Ontario, like people with various types of disabilities,
face significant barriers to the labour market. Some may need long-term in-
come support at a fairly high level. Others need to be out of the labour mar-
ket to do other important work, like caring for young children, elderly par-
ents or sick relatives.
For many people in these situations, social assistance is the only alterna-
tive. But if social assistance is eliminated in favour of a basic income, their
need for an adequate income would also have to be addressed.
So how would a basic income program address poverty both for people
who work and for people who don’t? Would the benefit level be high enough,
and the deductions and phase-out levels reasonable enough, that it would
do the job for all?
4) What’s in and what’s out?
A central rationale for basic income is that it replaces existing publicly
provided income support programs. So which programs would be replaced
and which would remain?
This question is partly about where the money for a basic income pro-
gram would come from. How we pay for it depends, to some extent, on how
much we already spend on programs that would be replaced.
So current spending on basic social assistance benefits would prob-
ably be included. But what about funds for tax-delivered benefits like the
low-income Ontario Trillium Benefit? What about the Ontario Child Benefit
(OCB)? Housing subsidies? Child care subsidies? How much in total is al-
ready spent on important income supports? And, crucially, is it enough to
pay for the kind of basic income program we would want?
This is not just a math problem. It also gets to broader questions about
the kind of supports people need, how those needs get met and what we
expect our governments to do.
The public provision of public services is critically important for the
well-being of everyone in our communities. Just as poverty isn’t all about
how much money you have, income supports are only one important piece
of the bigger picture of how we address poverty and provide good quality
of life for all.

In the case of social assistance, people are eligible not only for basic bene-
fits to pay for things like food, clothing and shelter. They’re also eligible for
supplementary benefits, both direct cash payments and in-kind supports.
So would those benefits be rolled into the basic income? Would the Spe-
cial Diet Allowance be included? What about travel allowances to attend
medical appointments? Benefits for work-related expenses? Child care sup-
plements?
And what about OW and ODSP extended health benefits? What would
happen to coverage for prescription drugs, basic dental care, glasses or dis-
ability-related assistive devices?
Instead of eliminating these benefits, many advocates think they should
be improved and expanded so all low-income Ontarians get them, regardless
of their source of income. Doing this would not only protect people on so-
cial assistance, it would also support the growing number of people whose
jobs don’t provide these benefits.
In fact, in its 2014 Poverty Reduction Strategy, the provincial government
committed to creating just such a program. But so far it has taken no action.
Without a comprehensive low-income extended health benefit, a basic in-
come could leave people on social assistance without important supports.
All of this gets at the most dangerous aspect of basic income. At its most
extreme, basic income can be an excuse for governments to eliminate crit-
ically important public services and simply replace them with a cheque.
Whether or not that cheque is enough to allow people to buy those servi-
ces on the market (and whether those services even exist to be bought), the
quality and safety of those services are not guaranteed.
So which programs and services would be eliminated and which pro-
grams would remain? Would critically important benefits that people get
through social assistance — or other benefits and services that people de-
pend on — get lost in the shuffle?
5) Who would get it? And how?
Some current income security programs are intended to support chil-
dren. Some are for seniors. And some, like social assistance, are for adults
of working age. Would all these groups be eligible for a basic income? Or
would existing benefits be left intact for children and seniors — benefits
that, in many ways, already constitute basic income programs?
And would the program be targeted to individuals or households? Right
now, all household income is counted to determine whether or not people
are eligible for OW or ODSP. This means that many people, particularly

women and people with disabilities, are forced to be financially depend-
ent on their family members. It also makes it very difficult for people who
get social assistance to form relationships, because potential partners are
forced to take on financial responsibility for them after an inappropriately
short amount of time.
A basic income for individuals, rather than households, could help re-
solve these problems.
Another important question is whether everyone who is currently eli-
gible for social assistance would also be eligible for basic income.
Right now, people without regularized immigration status can get so-
cial assistance. These are not tourists or visitors, but often people waiting to
have their immigration status resolved. Many are not eligible for work per-
mits from the federal government, so without social assistance they have no
other means of support. Would a basic income ensure they don’t get left out?
And if the basic income is administered through the tax system, steps
would have to be taken to make sure that people who get OW or ODSP but
who don’t file income tax returns, for any number of reasons, aren’t forgotten.
And what would be the impact of a basic income for Indigenous Peoples
who live on reserves in Ontario? Right now, nearly all the funding for social
assistance benefits they get is provided by the federal government through
an agreement with the province. Indigenous Peoples had no input into that
agreement and have had very little say over how the programs work. Given
the provincial government’s commitment to improve relations with Indigen-
ous Peoples, how would a provincially funded basic income program work
for Indigenous Peoples on reserve? Would they be eligible? And would they
have jurisdiction and control?
6) What happens when things go wrong?
Access to justice is a critical part of addressing poverty. People need to
have recourse to legal structures and institutions that protect their rights
and interests in a way that is transparent, fair, and easy to access.
People who get OW and ODSP currently have the right to appeal deci-
sions to the Social Benefits Tribunal. This is a quasi-judicial body that has
clear rules of procedure, a body of case law, and processes designed to be
much more accessible than going to court.
If OW and ODSP were eliminated and income supports delivered through
basic income, would people still have the same appeal rights? Would they
go to the Social Benefits Tribunal, the courts, or some other body?

After the Ontario government moved benefits for kids out of OW and
ODSP and into the Ontario Child Benefit, people with disputes around eligi-
bility, benefit levels and other issues must now deal with a different system.
Because the OCB is delivered through the income tax system, appeals have
to go through the much more complex process set out by the Canada Rev-
enue Agency, which can ultimately lead to tax court. That’s a much harder
process to understand and get through. It’s an inappropriate mechanism to
resolve disputes around access to essential income supports.
Would a basic income program make provision for processes to resolve
disputes? Would it be easy to navigate and give low-income Ontarians the
access to justice they deserve?
And would a basic income program accommodate changes in circum-
stances that could impact the amount of benefits a person gets?
For example, if the amount you get depends on how much income you
reported on your tax return last year, which is how current tax-delivered
benefit programs like the Ontario Child Benefit work, what happens if your
income suddenly changes — like if you lose your job? Would a basic income
program have some way to respond to these kinds of part-year changes?
The takeaway
Basic income as a concept sounds great. But as always, the devil is in
the details.
Will basic income make life better for people on social assistance?
Until there’s a tangible proposal that answers these crucially important
questions, it’s impossible to know.
Basic income solutions in an era of slow growth
Armine Yalnizyan
As the Ontario and Quebec governments design their versions of a basic in-
come pilot program, Canadians find themselves engaged in a policy ques-
tion we haven’t grappled with in almost half a century: how should the wel-
fare state evolve?
At the heart of the basic income debate is a discussion about what’s re-
quired for everyone to have a basically decent life. Implicitly, it embraces a
conversation about the importance of markets in that pursuit.

A market-based approach stresses the importance of more money, which
buys more freedom and choice in the market. A health-based approach of-
fers more public services that are not contingent on income, which buys
more freedom from the market.
Governments improve lives by providing both income transfers and
public services. A basic income may improve lives by increasing income.
But governments can also reduce the need for spending on certain goods
and services by providing access to them regardless of income. For example,
care provided by publicly insured doctors and hospitals, and taxpayer fund-
ed public schools dramatically reduce poverty and inequality. They address
consumption inequality, not income inequality.
Neither put a penny in your pocket, but both directly improve your in-
dividual health, opportunity and mobility.
Essentially, public services de-commodify the basics, which helps those
struggling with low income the most by far.
The advantage of improved public services is that they also make things
cheaper for everyone (through scale and by eliminating for-profit exigen-
cies and tax obligations), while improving the quality of life and making in-
comes and markets matter less.
That’s the learning from decades of evolution of the welfare state, but
yet it is basic income — a centuries-old idea — which has galloped ahead
on the policy agenda in the past year. Perhaps it’s not that surprising, as it
is a familiar idea arriving in a particular policy context.
For the past 20 years or more, governments put a priority on tax cuts as
a way to put money in your pocket. A basic income does the same thing,
using an income transfer instead.
Like tax cuts, transfers can be broad-based or targeted; they can pro-
vide large or small amounts. But like tax cuts, more money in your pock-
et doesn’t change the status quo in the market. Your cash, received as an
individual, doesn’t create another unit of affordable housing or create one
new child care space.
Just as the calculation of a living wage depends on the range of public
services available in a particular community, the amount of money need-
ed to beat poverty or unleash potential depends on what governments do
other than put money in your pocket.
You need less cash if you’re not paying as much out of pocket for child
care, prescriptions, post-secondary education, public transit and dental
care. Basic needs are publicly subsidized to greater or lesser extents in each
community.

Whether more cash or more support is more effective depends on the
objective being pursued.
What’s the problem to which basic income is the solution? Basic income
is often portrayed as the remedy to a future where robots eat our jobs, or a
way to liberate people from wage labour and unleash their potential. This
was the approach taken by the Swiss in the June 2016 referendum on a pro-
posal to offer a universal stipend worth about CAN$35,000 annually, costing
about 30 per cent of GDP. Voters rejected the idea, with 77 per cent voting no.
More likely, Canada’s approach will be narrower, focused on reducing
public expenditures or reducing poverty — or possibly both. A poverty re-
duction focus could include the working poor or it could be restricted to so-
cial assistance recipients, as is the case with a pilot project about to begin in
the Dutch city of Utrecht, involving 250 people. One group will receive stan-
dard welfare benefits, while another will receive more — about CAN$17,000
per year. A third group can receive up to an additional $2,000 if they vol-
unteer. A fourth will receive the bonus but lose it if they don’t volunteer.
We could, alternatively, design a pilot project that prioritizes goals such
as increasing efficiencies and eliminating bureaucracy, thereby replacing
other income supports with a single, tax-based cash transfer.
Or we could use the exercise to reduce costs, as Finland’s pilot project
is expected to do. Current proposals target 2,000 unemployed people, pro-
viding 560 euros a month — about CAN$9,800 annually — whether they
work or not.
The critical questions regarding the design and cost of a basic income
policy are not just how much for whom but also: what else is in the mix?
Welfare recipients in Canada don’t get much cash, but most also receive
some level of access to drugs, dental and vision care, housing benefits and
other limited supports.
Of course, for virtually every income class, the single biggest house-
hold budget outlay is housing. Without rent control, most of a basic income
cheque would go in one pocket and out the other to pay the landlord, a com-
plex redistribution scheme involving large amounts of taxpayer dollars be-
ing transferred to people least likely to need financial support.
How much money could we be talking about? Across Canada, a uni-
versal basic income of $10,000 a year would cost $350 billion (17.5 per cent
of GDP), minus any reduction or elimination of existing income transfers.
A more modest and targeted goal of raising everyone’s income above the
poverty line costs an estimated $30 billion per year, over and above exist-
ing programs.

A new program worth $30 billion would require taxpayers to pay, for
example, about four percentage points more in sales taxes across Canada.
The majority of Canadians would pay but see no benefit, as they are not
poor. Even if a consensus developed around this kind of policy fix, how
long would it hold?
Contrast this with another possibility: The CCPA Alternative Federal
Budget shows that for half the annual cost of a poverty-eliminating basic
income ($15 billion), we could permanently expand the stock of affordable
housing, child care and public transit, as well as almost eliminate user costs
for pharmacare, dental care and post-secondary schooling.
After a decade, we would have greater access to more high quality, afford-
able necessities of life — not just for the poor but for everyone.
Spend a little more, and you could offer free access to community and
recreation centre programming, expanded mental health services, univer-
sal access to low-cost internet and more legal aid.
The net result: more participation, more mobility, more potential, more
health, more justice. Add to that list: less political friction and disenfran-
chisement, more solidarity.
Solidarity will be a key consideration as the economy evolves. The ac-
celerating automation of work; the growing precariousness of jobs for new-
comers and youth; and the mother of it all — slowth (long-term slow or no
growth, the result of population aging, technology and global instability)
— mean that while the status quo is not an option, change will be difficult.
As the largest cohort of retirees in history move into position, their fixed
or falling incomes add pressure to keep the cost of living down. Their anx-
iety is shared by workers who can barely make ends meet. In this environ-
ment, the next generation of workers in both the public and private sec-
tors may find it difficult to see wage gains despite potentially widespread
labour shortages.
That does not rule out progress and a better quality of life, but the new
prosperity may be less a result of higher income for the individual than a
higher social wage for all, through broader access and greater quality of
public services.
Broader access to services that enhance our individual health and oppor-
tunity builds a society’s health and resilience, and it builds potential. It’s
also a far easier sell in an era of slow growth.
The basic income exercise has fired imaginations across the globe. We
should use this moment to experiment with designs that can tell us if we’re
better off when we have more income, or need less of it.

Guaranteed Annual Income and the lone mother
Margot Young
Almost 50 years ago, the Royal Commission on the Status of Women in Can-
ada issued its report on gender inequality in Canada.
Among the report’s 167 recommendations was a call for a federal Guar-
anteed Annual Income (GAI).28
The commission proposed the program for
single parents and especially sole-support mothers: “a majority category
among the nation’s poor.”29
The report recommended a negative income tax model, along the lines
of the Guaranteed Income Supplement paid to old age pensioners, with the
Economic Council of Canada’s poverty lines as benchmark for benefit levels.30
The report is now dated (too much concern about the absence of a fath-
er from the home, for example) but its link to a more modern debate about
women’s poverty is clear. The poverty of lone mother households locates “an
important nexus of feminist concerns about women’s caregiving responsibil-
ities, economic resources and political and social citizenship.”31
And femin-
ist groups are engaged in lively debate about the desirability of a GAI, with
much support for the idea.
In 2006 the Women’s Livable Income Group lobbied for a Guaranteed
Livable Income32
and in 2004 a group of feminists issued the Pictou State-
ment,33
calling for an indexed Guaranteed Living Income.
Without a doubt, the idea of a guaranteed income for some of Canada’s
poorest household holds profound appeal.
Yet the simple appeal of the idea is misleading.34
This comment singles
out two concerns: complexities around women’s relationships to paid work
and the vision of citizenship GAI proposals employ. Both caution against
a rush to a GAI.
Women who have children have a more complicated relationship to work
than typical GAI analyses acknowledge. Decoupling income security from
paid employment, and allowing for recognition of the non-market caregiving
work and family sustenance work that women disproportionately do, is a
positive and liberating feature of many GAI programs. But a GAI does noth-
ing to disrupt the traditional gendered division of labour and the structural
inequality it instantiates for women both in and out of the labour force.
Indeed, an apparent economic liberty to stay out of the paid work force
may limit choices for many women, strengthening the very social assump-
tions that make paid work incompatible with women’s caregiving roles.

Recognizing the importance of care work to our society should not also fix
women within that role; therefore “social welfare reform must be careful
about what it is institutionalizing.”35
The irony is that emphasizing economic citizenship for mothers outside
of the paid work force risks reinforcing the separation of women from the
public realm. The Royal Commission ducked this issue with the aside that
lone mothers have a “tenuous relationship with the labour market and the
question of work incentives for them is of little concern to society.”36
This is no longer an adequate response to the more traditional critique
that a GAI allows work avoidance in socially destructive ways.37
Nor is it true
that workplace involvement is not an issue for lone mothers. In societies
such as ours, where an important public arena is the paid workplace, pub-
lic policy must be calibrated to increase women’s access to this sphere, not
simply legitimate or facilitate women’s absence.
So we cannot neglect other labour policies that focus on things like em-
ployment standards, wage levels and workplace discrimination as key foci for
reform. Critically, access to adequate and affordable child care must be part
of any policy reform. The best GAI proposals are too often silent on this front.
Other broader citizenship issues are also implicated by GAI proposals.
GAI proponents typically emphasize the importance of private purchas-
ing power. This individualizes benefits and underplays public responsibil-
ity for and provision of social welfare goods. It reinforces classical liberal
divides between the public, the market and the private family — bound-
aries that, when traditionally drawn, perpetuate women’s economic and
civic inequality and marginalization.
True, a GAI enlarges the public sphere, extending public economic re-
distribution. But it does nothing to address an increasing “marketization”
of private life opportunities. The individual, GAI cash in hand, fits too well
the model of “citizen as consumer.”38
This is to say that, typically, GAI proposals miss what substantive equal-
ity requires by way of public policy. Insisting that women’s economic and
social needs can be met by a basic income that delivers the same amount
to everyone ignores the reality that different individuals and differently so-
cially situated groups have different needs.
Not all social welfare goods can be left to market provision, no matter
how large a GAI might reasonably be. The programs women need, especial-
ly lone mothers, will stay unaffordable.
Policy that comprehends substantive equality will recognize that key
areas of human welfare require more than individualized, equal allotments

of cash. Thus, an important feature of any GAI proposal must be retention
of, and expansion of, social program delivery alongside implementation of
a GAI. Adequate child care, post-secondary education and health care are
some examples of goods that must be publicly and universally provided for
women’s inequality to be effectively addressed.
The Royal Commission did acknowledge this, somewhat:
But many other reforms are also needed in the realm of preventive welfare.
The deserted spouse or parent should be helped to become self-supporting.
Solutions involving better opportunities for paid work outside the home,
the establishment of more daycare centres, the promotion of training facili-
ties and manpower services and many other measures, are all part of the
answer to this problem.39
But its discussion fails to make this point adequately and recent GAI
proposals too often miss this point completely.
Of course, to say that one policy won’t fix everything is not necessarily
damning criticism. But to say that a policy risks overlooking, obfuscating
or exacerbating important issues is a worthwhile observation.
Progressive policy advocates have few political chits to play; we need to
be thoughtful and nuanced in the policies we put them down on.
Basic income shouldn’t upend the
goal of full employment
Louis-Philippe Rochon
There is no doubt basic income or minimum guaranteed income policies
have gained considerable attention in the last few years, not only in Can-
ada but around the world.
In many respects, it is the next great economic frontier, with high hopes
of alleviating poverty.
Moreover, such a policy seems to enjoy a consensus on both the polit-
ical right and the left, having been defended and even promoted, albeit per-
haps in different forms, by Milton Friedman and John Kenneth Galbraith,
among a great many economists.
When such a policy enjoys such support it is natural to imagine that it
is the right policy. After all, what is not to admire of a program that is sup-

ported across the political spectrum and the aim of which is to bring good
to those who need it most?
In Canada, we have been discussing a basic income since at least the
1930s, with William Aberhart’s government in Alberta. In 1971, the Senate
Poverty Report discussed it, followed by the Orange Paper in 1973, the Mac-
Donald Report in 1985, and the Forget Report in 1986. And of course, the
famous MINCOME program in Manitoba between 1974 and 1979.
While the objective of such a scheme is laudable, my objection to the
adoption of a basic income program on its own — an objection very much
rooted in the left of the political spectrum — is on two levels: 1) criticism of
the program itself, and 2) failure to discuss this policy in tandem with a full
employment policy and the associated role of the state in bringing about
full employment.
Regarding the first point, let’s stop calling it a basic “income” scheme,
as it really is not an income at all.
In accounting, as in economics, income derives from employment.
Yet we are not really offering anyone a job. By calling it an income, we are
obscuring the nature of the program, which is to deliver social assistance
to those in needs.
If this is the case, then why not simply make existing programs more
efficient and more generous? Energy should be spent on this approach. In
that sense, there is no need for a comprehensive basic income and propon-
ents of such a programs must make the case that it is preferable than en-
hancing existing social programs.
Second, because of the existence of various genres of basic income pro-
grams, it is difficult to agree on the general concept of such a program with-
out first knowing the specifics of what is proposed. Important details could
be instrumental in determining the nature of the basic income scheme.
Third, there could be an important disincentive effect, although not from
the labour supply side but, rather, from the labour demand side, which would
amount to a sort of government subsidy to the private sector.
The fear is that private sector firms would willingly offer more low-pay-
ing jobs (or even part-time jobs), knowing that the basic income would top
up the proposed wages. In other words, we must be careful not to encourage
labour market flexibility that would encourage the proliferation of low-pay-
ing, part-time jobs with obvious macroeconomic implications, and may end
up creating more unemployment and more cyclical instability.

Moreover, women would be disproportionately victim to this employ-
ment abuse as more women are in low-paying jobs. Hence, a program that
purports to help women could end up hurting them even more.
Moving on to the second argument, discussion of adopting a basic in-
come scheme without simultaneously committing to a full employment
policy can set a dangerous precedent.
First of all, if the purpose of basic income is to alleviate poverty, then
creating jobs is a far better solution. One of the main causes of poverty is a
lack of good, well-paying jobs.
Moreover, jobs would inevitably pay more than what would be offered
under a basic income scheme.
And we cannot deny the dignity associated with work rather than with
social assistance.
Second, job creation is not a top political priority. Indeed, the emphasis
on job creation and the important role the state plays in this narrative has
been slowly disappearing from public discourse over the last four decades.
Governments today seldom speak of direct job creation. Rather, cre-
ating jobs is seen as something that results from certain policies, usual-
ly market-friendly policies like lower corporate taxes. So the real danger is
that governments may see even less urgency in creating jobs once a basic
income program is in place.
Third, basic income is essentially accepting the argument that there is
nothing we can do to create jobs, given the forces of globalization. There
seems to be a reluctant acceptance that globalization forces the hand of gov-
ernment in creating employment. The argument now seems to be: since mar-
kets cannot create sufficient jobs, let’s offer a basic income.
This is essentially giving up on Keynesian policies of active government
involvement in labour markets.
In conclusion, I am not against a basic income scheme but it must be
discussed alongside the creation of meaningful jobs, or it amounts to down-
playing the importance and dignity of work.
So if a basic income scheme is to be adopted, it must be done in tan-
dem with a number of programs to prevent employers from short-changing
the labour market.
This can be achieved through the enforcement of a full employment pro-
gram. We must not give in to the argument that the state cannot create jobs
or that the forces of globalization prevent us from pursuing full employment.
As we are now nearing the 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis,
and as many institutions and academics seem to be questioning the estab-

lished wisdom of free market economics and austerity, we must question
and rethink a panoply of programs and discuss the best way in which the
state can eliminate poverty.
In the end, a basic income program is not as revolutionary as defenders
would like us to believe. It is at best a second-best solution.
What is needed, first and foremost, is a commitment to the creation of
jobs and, even better, to the notion of full employment.
How progressive is a basic income? Labour perspectives
Toby Sanger
While labour unions have sometimes been criticized for opposing basic in-
come proposals, Canadian labour unions and federations, including the Can-
adian Labour Congress (CLC) and the Canadian Union of Public Employees
(CUPE), actually frequently passed resolutions in support of basic income
proposals during the 1970s and 80s when it was last a hot topic.
Initial resolutions in support of guaranteed annual income were passed
shortly after the now well known MINCOME pilot program was introduced
in Dauphin, Manitoba in the 1970s. These tended to be simple and unquali-
fied statements in support, in some instances connected to increased em-
ployment, but not always.
However, after the 1985 MacDonald Commission proposed a Universal
Income Supplement to replace nearly all social programs with a minimal
income supplement, as had been recommended by the Canadian Manufac-
turers Association, the discussion and positions taken by labour in Canada
became more developed.
At its 1988 convention, the CLC discussed and approved a policy paper
on a Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) called Adequate Incomes for All Can-
adians: A Working Future. The CLC paper strongly opposed the MacDon-
ald Commission’s corporate proposal for a poverty level GAI and put it in
the context of the failure of their economic system to provide decent, well-
paid jobs for all and the Conservative government’s erosion of social pro-
grams and benefits.
It stated “a GAI must be part of an integrated and comprehensive ap-
proach to the question of poverty and low incomes that attacks the root
causes of these problems.”

It affirmed support for a GAI but only one that provided adequate incomes
and was part of a comprehensive and integrated program that included: re-
storing and maintaining full employment, increased minimum wages and
non-wage benefits, strengthened collective bargaining relationships, end-
ing discrimination, pay equity, improvements to social assistance programs
including Employment Insurance and the Canada Pension Plan, workers’
compensation, benefits to disabled workers and child benefits, and expan-
sion of public services including universal medicare, affordable housing
and a universal child care system, and fundamental progressive tax reform.
The CLC paper identified some specific criteria, including that benefits
must be: set above the poverty line; indexed to the cost of living; based on
an income test rather than a needs test; fully portable throughout Canada;
financed from federal and provincial as opposed to municipal revenues;
not discriminate on the basis on gender or age; and not result in subsidies
to employers who pay low wages.
We should be just as concerned now about basic income schemes that
serve to dismantle the social welfare state and public services, or to drive
down wages.
The 2016 Ontario budget announcement reveals their interest behind
this proposal:
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 increas-
es in child benefits by providing more consistent and predictable support
in the context of today’s dynamic labour market. The pilot would also test
whether a basic income would provide a more efficient way of delivering in-
come support, strengthen the attachment to the labour force, and achieve
savings in other areas, such as health care and housing supports.40
This suggests they may be considering providing cash or vouchers as a
substitute for public services provided to social assistance recipients (such
as affordable housing and health and drug benefits) as a way to confront
the “welfare wall.”
This could lead to an erosion of public services, greater privatization and
the replacement of existing decent public sector jobs with lower paid and
more precarious private sector jobs — thereby further fuelling more need
for basic income supports.
There’s a fundamental difference between basic income guarantees and
universal public services. The former represents a relatively uniform cash
transfer used to purchase goods in a private market system while public ser-

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