Basic Income Guarantee Has Champions, and Momentum

Dec 07, 2016

Slowly, quietly and with care, the idea of a Basic Income Guarantee, with the appropriate acronym BIG, has been gaining momentum. Advocates are now aiming for the implementation of a pilot project in Ontario to be instituted by the Wynne government in Ontario.

A lunch speaking event was hosted by the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston and Area on Monday (December 5). Toni Pickard, the founder and co-ordinator of the Kingston Action Group for a Basic income Guarantee spoke first. She described herself as “a bit like the opening act for the stars” in reference to the other speakers, former Senator and Master of Massey College Hugh Segal, and retired Judge and Deputy Minister at the Federal and Provincial Level George Thomson.

Before Thomson and Segal talked about the specific tasks they have undertaken on behalf of the Ontario government in recent months, Pickard described the role of the Kingston Action Group as two-fold. One is to raise awareness in the local community about the concept and history of a Basic Income Guarantee in Canada, and the other is working to keep governments, at all levels, focused on issues of poverty.

The idea of instituting a Basic Income Guarantee in Canada had a certain momentum in the 1970's, culminating in a pilot program in Dauphin, Manitoba. It then faded from consideration for almost 25 years in Canada, although it has been active elsewhere, and has been building, thanks in part to the efforts of the three people who spoke in Kingston on Monday.

A Basic Income Guarantee is just that, a guaranteed level of income for all, enough to pay for food, shelter, clothing, healthcare and necessities. Mechanism for achieving that are diverse and each has social and economic implications.

Toni Pickard talked about how Big has gained momentum in Ontario over the last three years. When the Kingston Action Group was founded, “it was one of four such groups in Ontario, and there are now 27, so you can see where this has gone. There are about 23 groups in the rest of the country so you can see that Ontario is leading the push for BIG in Canada.”

Among the accomplishments of the Kingston Action Group, which has membership from South Frontenac as well, have been calls for the provincial and federal governments to explore basic income from the the City of Kingston and the Township of South Frontenac. When Hugh Segal spoke, he talked first about an effort that he has been involved in for the past ten years and about how important public participation has been.
“Presentations in the legislature and meetings with government officials have been important, but so are the meetings that I’ve been to in church basements across the province, including the one at Sydenham Street United,” he said.

Last spring, Segal was approached by the government of Ontario and asked to develop a report outlining the necessary steps to develop a pilot project in Ontario.  The report which he delivered to them at the end of August, and was released to the public in September, is called Finding a Better Way:
A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario.

One of  the key points in the Segal report is that the pilot gauge the impact of eliminating Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) payments and replacing them with an income guarantee.

As he said in the Executive Summary to the report: “The main purpose of the Basic Income Pilot must be to test the broad policing, control, and monitoring now present in OW and ODSP with a modestly more generous basic income, disbursed automatically to those living below a certain income threshold.”
What Segal wants the pilot project to evaluate, is the impact of this change on poverty reduction among OW and ODSP recipients, and to determine whether it will encourage work, reduce stigmatization, and produce better health and life outcomes for them.

“There are many, many good people, trained social workers spending their time confirming eligibility of recipients for OW or ODSP benefits who could be doing what they are trained to do, helping and counselling people,” he said on Monday.

By replacing OW and ODSP with BIG, the distinction between program recipients and working people who are also below the income level of the BIG, which is essentially the poverty line as determined at any given time, would be diminished.

Segal says that the pilot should be a test of the financial impact of a Basic Income Guarantee on the “net fiscal position of the province, on labour market/workplace behaviour, and on net health and educational outcomes in the pilot area.”
He envisions two different kinds of pilot projects. One would take place in an urban setting, in which participants would receive different levels of basic income supports to test the impact of a change on their lives.

“Testing different parameters should help to identify the best combination to reduce poverty, while not discouraging people from improving their incomes through labour force participation,” the report said.
Participation in the pilot would be voluntary and none of the participants are to see a decrease in the supports they currently receive.

A second pilot would be similar to the one done in Dauphin, Manitoba 30 years ago. It is to take place in small communities, and will cover the entire population with the same payment system. The idea is to test the community level impact of the BIG. The report calls for three sites to be chosen, one each in Southern and Northern Ontario, and one to be chosen and planned in close collaboration with First Nations Communities.
There is one major proviso in the report. It does not want to see what Segal termed a “BIG Bang approach, in which all social supports not specifically related to poverty are replaced with a single monthly cheque.”
Also, the idea of all Ontarians receiving a fixed payment, which is then paid back through taxation, is not being recommended.

The report wants the planning for site selection, and other background work for the pilot studies to commence by March 1st of 2017, with pilots to follow after that and run for three years.
The final speaker was George Thomson. He was appointed on June 29th of this year to head the Income Security Working Reform Group by the Ontario Minister of Community and Social Services (MCSS) Dr. Helena Jaczek.

Thomson’s 15 member group is tasked with working in concert with the BIG Pilot initiative to look in detail at income security systems in Ontario, make proposals reform and provide a multi-year implementation plan for income security reform.

Thomson gave a power point demonstration outlining some of the work his group has been doing.

“We are looking at income security with or without a Basic Income Guarantee. We deal with all of the details of phasing in reforms to a system that currently delivers $153 billion in payments each year” he said, adding that his group is 1/3 of the way through its task, which they plan to complete by July.

“We have a focus on low income individuals, not only those on social assistance. We are learning from the experience of reforms that are already in place to benefits for seniors and children, identifying benefits that should be paid outside of social assistance,” he added.

Thomson echoed Segal’s assertion that there is momentum at the provincial level, with support from the federal level, for some real changes to be made in the way income supports are delivered in Ontario, but that optimism is tempered by the deadline of the next election. With the Wynne government mired in controversy over a number of issues, including electricity costs which impact those who would benefit from a Basic Income Guarantee more than other Ontarians, all three of the speakers in Kingston on Monday indicated that the BIG movement needs major momentum behind it sooner rather than later.

Toni Pickard encouraged everyone in attendance to get active.

“Help us to initiate a nationwide conversation ...  talk to your MP and MPP,  join the consultation that is taking place in Kingston on January 9,” she said.

The questions that followed the presentations were all from supporters of BIG. They were concerned with it being brought in sooner than later and being as inclusive as possible. The general feeling was that when the general public learns about the proposals that come with it, opposition disappears.

“People worry about cheats,” said Hugh Segal, “but most people will use the extra money that will come from this to move to better housing or buy more and better food. Likely 5% or 10% will game the system. In 2008, 5% to 10% of traders on Wall Street were gaming the system and look what happened. I’ll take my chances with this modest increase in payments coupled with a decrease in the stigma of poverty.”