It’s time for a basic income
Today, artists, writers, technicians and performers are calling on Prime Minister Trudeau to create a permanent basic income guarantee.
“A Public Letter from the Arts Community
for a Basic Income Guarantee”
For the song taken from Massive Attack‘s Eutopia EP, this video features Professor Guy Standing in a striking advocacy for universal basic income, produced by Robert Del Naja and Euan Dickinson on the 22nd April 2020.
Formed in July 2019, this all-party committee of the PEI Legislative Assembly was asked to “report back to the Legislative Assembly within twelve months with fully costed recommendations regarding the creation of a Basic Income Guarantee pilot for Prince Edward Island.”
Read the Committee’s Interim Report submitted July 8, 2020, which recommended that the provincial government adopt a market-basket measure as its official measure of poverty when making changes to legislation, regulations and policy.
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Clayton Windatt’s video
Hi All,
I have been working with a lot of artists and arts professionals from across the country all trying to formalize a pathway forward for a Basic Income Guarantee in Canada. I feel strongly that this program can benefit artists very much, as a result I have committed time and effort in supporting this initiative.
Published initially on Clayton Windatt’s blog:
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.
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.
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Livable Income Vancouver Podcast
A guaranteed livable income would prevent people from having their lives shortened and made miserable from poverty and poverty-related ill health.
– C.A. L’Hirondelle, Livable4All
A women-led group of volunteers in Vancouver, BC bringing the voices of the feminist, racial equality, and anti-poverty movements to the campaign for Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), an income guaranteed to all set at a rate that meets the cost of living.
They want a non-taxable Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI) to replace our current exploitative and paternalistic welfare system, and reduce inequality in the labour market, without leaving anyone worse off.
They have developed a set of principles for a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI).
2019-2020
Supported by a federal New Horizons for Seniors project, a group of seniors participated in a series of workshops designed to explore and develop an understanding of BIG. At the end of the project, they organized a very well-attended community event in Charlottetown.