A combination of economic uncertainty and political possibility is giving new life to an old policy idea
A basic income policy could replace existing welfare programs by providing citizens with a guaranteed monthly paycheque. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)
Ontario’s provincial budget announced a pilot program to try it out. In Quebec, a cabinet minister has been assigned to study the topic.
The mayors of Calgary and Edmonton are both on board. And the Manitoba Liberals are promising their own trial if they win the April 19 provincial election.
Basic income is capturing political imaginations in Canada.
Also known as guaranteed minimum income, universal income, guaranteed annual income, or a negative income tax, basic income is a social policy that would supplant various welfare programs by providing a baseline amount of money to all citizens, regardless of whether they work or meet a means test.
‘I think part of it is the need to set up social programs for a very different kind of labour force than existed in the past.’– Evelyn Forget, professor, University of Manitoba
The idea is far from new, and it has even been tried in Canada before, in the town of Dauphin, Man., during the 1970s. Google Trends, which tracks the volume of inquiries on the Google search engine, shows an increased number of searches for “basic income” and related terms in the past three years — and especially in recent months.
A world without guarantees
Evelyn Forget, a professor with the department of community health services at the University of Manitoba who researched the Dauphin experiment, recently testified before federal pre-budget hearings on the topic of basic income.
She says the idea’s resurgent popularity may have to do with an uncertain global economy.
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