Basic Income Earth Network

Gaspesie and Îles-de-la-Madeleine regional public health director Yv Bonnier Viger is convinced that basic income can have dramatic positive effects on people’s health. So much so that the local public health sector, plus other regional organizations focused on health, well-being and poverty alleviation, are pushing for a 20-year long experiment in these two localities, also including Bas-Saint-Laurent.

Basic Income Today

Organizations are coming together in a common alliance for all of Bas-Saint-Laurent, Gaspesie, and Îles-de-la-Madeleine, and are wanting to test a basic income guarantee in all of these regions for 20 years.

They would like to know if the health of the inhabitants will improve if everyone has access to a guaranteed basic income. It would replace social aid and would stack on top of retirement income for the elderly.

CBC News

The Quebec government has taken a "positive first step" toward a universal basic income with its commitment to provide a set amount of money to those unable to work, says a proponent of the idea. 

"I think it's a move in the right direction," said Jonathan Brun, co-founder of Revenu de base Québec.

It also, Brun said, "puts the terminology square and centre within government policy."

The new measure is part of a larger $3-billion anti-poverty planannounced Sunday. An estimated 84,000 Quebecers would qualify for the minimum income, largely those with physical and intellectual disabilities.

CBC News

Quebecers who have a severely limited capacity to work will gradually be able to access a guaranteed minimum income beginning next year, Premier Philippe Couillard's government announced Sunday.  

The measure is part of a $3-billion action plan to fight poverty and promote "economic inclusion," but falls short of offering a basic income for all Quebecers, a demand of many anti-poverty groups. 

By Pierre Madden

Basic Income Earth Network

On November 12 and 13 I attended a congress of the Liberal Party of Quebec, which is currently in power in the province.

The Minister of Employment and Social Solidarity, François Blais, confirmed that a joint working group, with his colleague in Finance, will issue a preliminary report on Basic Income in the Spring. Our neighbouring province of Ontario (which, together with Quebec accounts for 62 percent of the population of Canada) was just released a working paper on a pilot project to begin in April 2017. Quebec does not seem to be leaning towards a pilot project.

In his talk, Minister Blais placed much emphasis on the principles underlying the development of the government’s project:

By PETER WHEELAND

Ironically, Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard may have finally found a way to get his name in the history books with his decision last week to switch milquetoast education minister François Blais to the Employment and Social Solidarity portfolio.

Blais, who was singularly unimpressive and maladroit in education, was given the mandate of piloting Quebec towards becoming one of the first guaranteed minimum income states in the world. But that’s a subject that Blais has mastered, as the author of  Un revenu garanti pour tous, a 2001 tome that explores exactly how such a system might work.