Livable Basic Income Bill

If it's possible to ensure that everyone has the necessary conditions of live, sign me up!

I watched a video on the Pacific Gyre years ago. This post isn't about all the horrible garbage in the ocean, but about the documentarians who made the film. They had never been on a ship for a lengthy time before. This wasn't a cruise ship, but a much smaller boat, and the expectation was all hands on deck when the water starts coming over the sides. 

When they started their weeks-long journey, a couple of them were sick for days before they "got their sea legs" and were able to manage the constant motion.

But something they didn't expect came at the very end. As they got off the boat, back on solid ground, they had to readjust to the ground being relatively still. 

We all expect a new situation to take some adjustment, but we forget that we need to manage a change back to what we had.  

Of course this has to do with Covid, sort of!

We had many years of our typical lives, trying to stay on the better side of the division between haves and have nots. Then the pandemic released a ton of emergency money. People could afford rent and maybe take a chunk of their debts. A dental hygienist friend told me of all the people without benefits who were flooding their office because they finally had enough money to fix their teeth, many of whom had very painful dental conditions that had been festering while they waited for this respite in our indifference to their struggle. 

And then we all went back to the way it was. 

We think that going back to "normal" means it's all the same, but there's a huge adjustment that we're trying to ignore. We're running off the boat pretending that our legs don't feel like jelly.

There have been people struggling for housing and food and for access to healthcare. It's been getting worse and worse year after years, so after a stay on the pandemic-relief boat, it's like the land was even more still than it had been. The level of poverty in my city feels so much worse. 

It's not just that it seems worse, but everything is taking a toll at once: Covid effects, stagnant minimum wage against a deregulated housing market and a lack of rent controls allowing the cost of an apartment to skyrocket, not to mention the profit-seeking empires raising the cost of food because they can.  This is all the result of neoliberal policies taking effect. 

We know there's money out there when it's needed. And now we've had a taste for what it's like when people can have enough to help themselves, just a basic income to help people survive. So how is it possible to ignore the problem after we've seen that we have solutions that work??

There are two identical bills currently on the table about this that need more publicity: S-233 and C-223. It's a coordinated house/senate effort to get this passed. It's a private member's bill (from Leah Gazan, NDP) in the house (which rarely get through), but, from the other end, it's in committee after a second reading from the Senate, which might make it to the floor of the House. This might get through with Trudeau's liberals, but it definitely won't if Poilievre gets in (yikes!) in October 2025 (or earlier). So a push right now would help. 

If passed, the law would give the Minister of Finance a year to create a Canada-wide framework for the implementation of a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income based on determining what constitutes a livable basic income for each region across the country. That sentence almost takes my breath away. This could really help dramatically reduce so many problems people are facing right now. 

There's more information, videos, and a mass email to Senators at UBI Works, with suggested social media posts that makes it really easy to show support for the bill. The full text of the bill is here, and Open Parliament has a rundown of the discussion in the house. I wrote about the desperate need for this in November 2022, with an indication of how it might possibly be paid for:

"Some analysts calculate a net cost of about $43-48 billion to eradicate poverty in Canada (Scotti, Hemmadi, Lum), which could be paid for with a 3% increase in sales tax OR crack down on money hidden abroad, OR add another tax bracket of 65% on income over $300,000, OR just add an 8% increase on income tax on income over $20 million /year. One study found that providing money for the poor in a cash lump sum dramatically increased the chance people would move into stable housing and dramatically decreased spending on substances."

I'd guess most of those taxes would have zero effect on anyone reading this blog. I don't actually, personally, know anyone who makes over $300,000 annually, must less $20 million! 

It was in the Toronto Star last October too, explaining that it would apply to anyone over 17. A potential amount that's been priced out in the past, $17,000/year - or $1,400/month, is higher than the current ODSP maximum, and this proposed frame would "wouldn't replace or decrease existing health or disability benefits". That's not a livable income right now, but it could be if rents and food prices were re-regulated.

The only problem with the clause that it wouldn't replace other programs is that one way to lower the cost of providing it is to consolidate all welfare and disability payments into one structure that no longer requires a paper trail of requests and doctor's notes and proof on top of proof of need. Just give a real livable income to everyone who makes less that the base amount. People want to work and most will definitely want to make more than the basic amount, and, in every single example of this being piloted, people didn't quit their jobs with the exception of university students and moms of little ones. 

If you're all in, consider sending an email and social media post about it!