Category: Canada

#CERB to UBI Fact Check

An NDP advocate org is suggesting Universal Basic Income was somehow first introduced into the Canadian political conversation by the NDP. But that’s not the case at all. The first time I heard any public NDP discussion about UBI was when it was brought forward by NDP leadership candidate Guy Caron. Who didn’t win. At that time UBI was *not* NDP policy. Is it now? 👀

It certainly wasn’t NDP policy during the 2019 federal election. 🌻 Only Green Party of Canada candidates were actively advocating for UBI in 2019.

As they’ve done for years. I always thought the strongest resistance to NDP UBI were Unions worried they would become redundant if workers didn’t need to work.

🌻The GPC version of UBI is called Guaranteed Livable Income or #GLI. The idea is to provide not just a bare basic income, but enough to live reasonably on. (Like CERB.)

The GPC’s GLI wouldn’t just eliminate poverty. Nor would it be only a temporary means to allow the most vulnerable to stay home without during a pandemic. GLI would do much more than fill the economic gap left by ever increasing elimination of jobs by Artificial Intelligence (AI) automation.

GLI will provide the economic means that will free Canadians up so we can experiment while still feeding our families. Some of us will innovate and invent. Others will create music or sculpture or books or paintings or movies or games. Some will volunteer for the causes we find worthy. Many will be able to concentrate on education or take the time we needed to raise children. Those who work for others will be better positioned to achieve equity. Social workers won’t need to police the poor, and will finally be able to practice social work.

The one thing we have learned from the growing number of UBI studies and pilot programs from around the world is that Basic Income won’t turn us into a nation of lazy bums. People will work because we want to work. We need to work — it’s in our DNA.

Basic Income— especially if it’s a GLI— means we won’t have to work for other people, doing mindless soul sucking work better done by machines, for companies whose executives will loot our pension funds before driving the company into bankruptcy on the eve of our retirement.

GLI will free Canadians to follow our dreams.

It’s part of the excellent suite of social programs the Greens campaigned on way back in 2015. Programs like Universal Pharmacare.

And Universal Education.

I first learned this was Green Party policy when pretty much the only thing I could find about basic income on the internet was an article about https://m.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/12/23/mincome-in-dauphin-manitoba_n_6335682.html.

A Canadian City Once Eliminated Poverty And Nearly Everyone Forgot

The Mincome Basic Income Pilot Program was a joint effort by the federal Liberals under Pierre Trudeau and Ed Schreyer’s Manitoba NDP. Unfortunately both of those governments fell, as often happens under our First Past The Post winner-take-all voting systems, and the pilot project was allowed to finish, but neither of the succeeding federal or provincial Progressive Conservative parties cared to do anything with the data, so much like Indiana Jones’ Lost Ark it was packed off to a warehouse to be forgotten.

And none of the succeeding majority federal Liberal governments (1980, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2015) or Manitoba majority NDP governments (1981, 1986, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011) ever considered even looking at, much less implementing even a modest Basic Income like Mincome.)

In a last ditch effort to appear progressive to stave off losing power, the Ontario Liberals put forward their own #BasicIncome pilot program designed to continue into the next electoral term. However the Ontario Greens pointed out the OLP’s pre-election budget failed to provide funding to continue the pilot, much less implement it.

The other parties often shy away from policies they are afraid they can’t sell, especially if other parties have been associated with them.

Only the Green Party consistently champions basic income policy. Not because it’s politically expedient, but because it is the right thing to do.

As Annamie Paul says, the Green Party is the Party of Daring.

#COVID19 Changes Everything

Arguments against UBI suggested such a policy was too expensive, or that it would transform Canadians into lazy bums who would not work.

Both of those arguments were thoroughly debunked by the #CERB (Canadian Emergency Response Benefit) which provided weekly payments of $500 a week to enable people to stay home during the height of the pandemic. The program demonstrated that political will was the only real barrier to funding thus basic Income program, and it quickly became clear that CERB benefuciaries couldn’t wait to get back to work.

It is true that Mr Singh advocated for the expansion of #CERB, so if could function as a UBI. But his initial caveat was that his recommendation was only for a temporary emergency measure.

So we are happy to see the positive response to CERB has helped the NDP join us in advocacy for a truly Universal Basic Income for all Canadians.

We’re always happy to see other parties adopt Green policies addressing problems that require equitable solutions.

https://www.annamiepaul.ca/guaranteed_liveable_income

Images included were 2019 GPC campaign graphics.

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