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Media coverage

Make CERB a permanent basic income

MP submits motion to make CERB a permanent basic income

By Amber McGuckin
Global News (August 16, 2020)

A Winnipeg MP is looking to convert the Canada Emergency Response Benefit into a permanent fixture.

Winnipeg Centre MP Leah Gazan tabled a motion in the House of Commons to convert CERB into a permanent guaranteed liveable basic income.

“COVID-19 has demonstrated that we do have the resources. We must ensure all individuals in Canada can thrive in dignity and that means making investments to ensure basic human rights for all,” she said.

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Media coverage

‘Do our lives count for less?’

COVID-19 exposes cracks in disability aid

By Adina Bresge
Victoria Times Colonist (July 17, 2020)

Karyn Keith says she isn’t asking for much. All she wants is the same support she’d receive if she was out of a job because of the pandemic, rather than unable to work because of her disabilities.

The 44-year-old mother in Brampton, Ont., said she lives with constant pain and fatigue from multiple chronic conditions, including trigeminal neuralgia, a debilitating nerve disorder characterized by searing spasms through the face.

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National News

National Town Hall on Basic Income

View this town hall co-hosted by Coalition Canada: basic income – revenu de base and the Green Party of Canada, now up on Youtube. Over 550 people tuned into this town hall held on September 17, 2020.

Facilitated by Green MP Paul Manly, this town hall featured guest speakers Senator Kim Pate, Dr. Evelyn Forget (on the economics of Basic Income), Monika Ciolek (on her experience participating in Ontario’s Basic Income Pilot), Dr. Robert Case (on basic Income and social and environmental disruption) and Dr. Tracy Smith-Carrier (Basic Income and gender equity and the deserving and undeserving poor).

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Media coverage Youth For Basic Income

‘Ontario youth need a guaranteed basic income’

By Johannah Brockie, Erick Carreras, Christina Muia and Farrah K. Seucharan
Hamilton Spectator (August 12, 2020)

Ask youth what they would do with an extra $2,000 a month and the answers might surprise you.

Young people disproportionately struggle with mental health issues and undertake increasing student debts, all while facing a daunting post-pandemic-era job market at a time when many jobs are precarious, underpaid, or part of the gig economy.

Johannah Brockie, Erick Carreras, Christina Muia, Farrah K. Seucharan, Safa Shahkhalili and Argerie Tzouras are members of the Basic Income Organizing Committee, part of OCIC’s Youth Policy-Makers Hub.

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British Columbia Media coverage

‘Here’s who needs support’

‘Here’s who lost jobs in the pandemic, and who needs support’

By Iglika Ivanova
The Tyee (July 17, 2020)

The COVID-19 crisis has caused unprecedented job losses across Canada, and B.C. has not been spared. Between February and May almost 590,000 B.C. workers lost their jobs or more than half their hours — 23 per cent of all workers employed in February. Despite a slight recovery of jobs in May and June, the scale of job losses and disruptions far exceed those seen in typical recessions.

While all sectors of the economy have been affected, the labor market hit has worsened existing inequalities. Lower paid workers in part-time, temporary and more precarious jobs where much more likely to lose their jobs or the majority of their hours than those in higher paid, more secure jobs.

Iglika Ivanova is a senior economist and the public interest researcher at the B.C. office of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

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Media coverage Youth For Basic Income

‘Youth voices are needed in the basic income debate’

By Chloe Halpenny
Ottawa Citizen (July 3, 2020). 

The logic behind supporting a basic income is straightforward. It could provide a much-needed foothold in housing and rental markets that feel increasingly inaccessible.

With collective Canadian student debt a whopping $28 billion as of 2018, it would make it easier to enter and remain in post-secondary education. And given that young people are disproportionately concentrated in precarious work, a basic income responds to the reality that having a job doesn’t necessarily mean being able to put food on the table.

Chloe Halpenny is the vice-chair of the Basic Income Canada Youth Network.

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Media coverage Prince Edward Island

PEI special committee on poverty a ‘beacon of hope’

By Senator Kim Pate
PEI’s The Guardian (May 26, 2020).  

Cradled in the reverberating waves of COVID-19, P.E.I.’s special committee on poverty is a beacon of hope to Canadians. At the conclusion of its work, P.E.I. could be poised to lead the way by being the first province or territory to forge a plan to implement a basic income guarantee (BIG) for all whose income falls below an established level.

COVID-19 has spurred a renewed interest in BIG. Now more than ever, most Canadians understand the need for support sufficient for an individual to live in dignity. Despite feeling relatively secure prior to the pandemic, too many are now painfully aware of how precarious seemingly secure jobs and businesses can be and how easy it is to fall through the cracks of current income supports.

Senator Kim Pate is one of the co-authors of a recent letter from 50 senators calling for guaranteed livable income/basic income.