Yes, I believe you’re correct the Pirate Party announced its Basic Income policy before the Greens, at least the PPoC was where I first heard of Mincome. The GPC had an excellent suite of interconnected policy, with Guaranteed Livable Income (the GPC version of basic income) at it’s heart (re-commitment to (truly) Universal Health Care, Universal Pharma Care, Universal Post Secondary Education, National Housing Strategy) which enough Canadians didn’t vote for in the 2015 election.
Instead, those voters who voted failed to empower the GPC beyond re-electing Elizabeth May. Similarly, voters withdrew a great deal of support from the NDP, decimating the party’s presence in Parliament. And sadly, no PPoC candidates have yet been elected to Parliament. There are a great many issues before Canadians, and the smaller parties have more limited resources than is good for Canada. I appreciate that the Green Party has a better opportunity than the PPoC to raise issues in the House and even the press with a sitting MP, but at the same time Ms. May has an extraordinary amount of work on her plate, not just as the MP for Saanich Gulf Islands, but as the leader (and only representative for) the entire Green Party across Canada, and what she does accomplish is pretty incredible. Seems to me both Ms. May and the NDP have applied themselves quite strenuously to the issue I think most important: electoral reform.
Since Confederation, the big parties have rigged the rules against small parties; even when elected, small parties and Independents are routinely excluded from full Parliamentary participation. This is unlikely to change substantially unless Canadians catch onto the fact we don’t have to vote for the usual suspects, we just need to forget about strategic voting, and get the other 40% of eligible voters out to the polls. My own thinking is that the most important issue before Parliament continues to be electoral reform. As we’ve seen today, one of the worst things about winner-take-all politics is policy lurch. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/315284-white-house-climate-change-webpage-disappears-after-trumps
Until the smaller parties at least get a level playing field that they might have the wherewithal to represent their constituents properly, how they choose to allocate the limited resources at their disposal is up to them. At this point Basic Income is not a priority for the Federal Liberals. If the Ontario Provincial Liberals go ahead with it, they might just rehabilitate the Wynne Government enough to get re-elected; if that’s the case, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Feds follow suit.
But there were at least 2 past (and possibly future) Green candidates at the Waterloo Region Basic Income Pilot Consulation, including Bob Jonkman here: