The PEI Working Group for a Livable Income asked five of their members to each write an op ed, which were all published as a series in the Saltwire. The group published these 5 op-eds as a booklet, which can be found here on Coalition Canada’s website.
Category: Prince Edward Island
Charlottetown – The Guardian (10 Dec, 2020): PEI’s Report from the all-party Special Committee on Poverty recommended implementing a Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) in PEI as a test case for all of Canada – but it also included a backup plan if the federal government declines to partner with PEI to deliver a province-wide program. Plan B is another pilot reaching one-tenth of the people who need a basic income in PEI. BIG advocates say no to Plan B.
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.
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.
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.