Basic income is needed to underpin a fairer society
Jamie Cooke
The year 2020 has demonstrated why the expression “May you live in interesting times” is seen as a curse. As the world reeled under the loss of life, economic impacts and the removal of opportunities many of us have taken for granted, the desire to move back to more stable times has appeared attractive.
Yet the chaos we continue to live through also offers us a chance to reimagine the world we live in — to challenge the dominant presumptions we entered the pandemic with, and to implement new policies to ensure we build forward better.
Read moreBasic income hailed as key in kickstarting the economy in a post-pandemic Canada
The Star
A universal basic income would not only lift more than 3.2 million Canadians out of poverty, it would also create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, grow the economy by tens of billions of dollars and eventually pay for itself with increased tax revenues.
That’s according to a new report by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis (CANCEA), which was commissioned by basic income advocacy group UBI Works to look at the potential economic impacts of Canada implementing two different kinds of basic income programs.
“I think the biggest message coming out of this (report) is that a basic income program can be designed in a sustainable way,” said Paul Smetanin, CANCEA president and one of the report’s authors. “It can be thought of as an investment as opposed to a cost.”
Read moreThe time has never been better for universal basic income
Alberni Valley News
The provincial election is over and it is now time to look ahead to how this strong NDP majority can truly do the most good for all British Columbians no matter their station or political persuasion.
How do they, and all levels of government, deal with the pandemic, housing, opioid and climate crisis, and a contorted and weak economy and labour market?
We need to pull together. We need a Guaranteed Liveable Universal Basic Income.
Read moreNew Book: Basic Income for Canadians
A new book is out by Evelyn Forget called Basic Income for Canadians: From the COVID-19 Emergency to Financial Security for All.
An update to her 2018 book in the wake of the worldwide pandemic, this book is an eminently readable manifesto that will undoubtedly help move the needle from discussing basic income to its eventual adoption.
From the publisher’s site:
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of providing a basic income to everyone in Canada who needs it was already gaining broad support. Then, in response to a crisis that threatened to put millions out of work, the federal government implemented new measures which constituted Canada?s largest ever experiment with a basic income for almost everyone.
In this new and revised edition, Evelyn L. Forget offers a clear-eyed look at how these emergency measures could be transformed into a program that ensures an adequate basic income for every Canadian.
Forget details what we can learn from earlier basic income experiments in Canada and internationally. She weighs the options, investigates whether Canadians can afford a permanent basic income program and describes how it could best be implemented across the country.
Read morePandemic making the case for basic income
CBC News
As every schoolchild knows, it was the First World War that brought Canadian women into the workplace (though of course, they had always been working). Even after the men returned from the front, women continued to work — and what was a temporary change turned into a new societal norm.
The Great War left us with another supposedly temporary measure: income tax. "I have placed no time limit upon this measure," said then finance minister Thomas White in 1917. "A year or two after the war is over, the measure should be reviewed."
We all know how that turned out.
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