Translator: Michele Gianella
Reviewer: Elisabeth Buffard Good afternoon, Bonjour, Tansi.
[English, French, Cree] I'm with the Faculty of Social Work, and I'm here to talk to you
about an idea I'm very excited about. I think, as the host mentioned, something we've talked about
in Canada for a long time, but it's really been coming
to the forefront very recently. It's called basic income, and the place to start
is with the definition. It's an income unconditionally
granted to each individual without a means test or other conditions. And it actually differs
in very substantial ways, very important ways, from existing
income security programs. It's paid to individuals,
rather than households. It's paid irrespective
of any income from other sources. So people will,
in the vast majority of cases, continue to work for wages and salaries,
will start small businesses, will farm. But it provides a floor for everyone for a very important form
of economic security. And it's paid without regard
to performance of any paid work. It differs very greatly from the kind of workfare, and punitive,
income security programs, which have come into place
in recent years. There's two delivery mechanisms
for basic income, two general ways
in which it can be paid out, and gotten into the hands
of all the people in society. The first one's called "a demogrant". This is where a certain amount of money is paid on a regular basis
to everybody in society. It could be a check in the mail, it could be deposited
in your bank account or credit union account, it can be, if it's designed in this way,
taxed back from high-income earners who perhaps need it less. But it does go to everyone in society. The second general way to deliver it
is called "the negative income tax", also called "a refundable tax credit". And in this case,
a threshold of adequacy is set, an income that everybody needs in order to live
a comfortable and dignified life. If you fall below that threshold,
then your benefit kicks in. The further you're below the threshold, the more benefit you get
to bring you up to the threshold. In that sense it's targeted to those
most in need, and it's also perhaps a cheaper way in which to deliver it. We actually have examples of both
of these mechanisms still in place, in relation to current
benefits for children. Those of you who are old enough
to remember the old family benefits, - the baby bonus, in 1995, and previous - it was a demogrant. The current child tax benefit is delivered as a refundable tax credit,
or a negative income tax. What I'm going to do
for the rest of my talk is give an overview of what I think are
the five key reasons we need to implement an effective basic income
program in this country. I'll go through each one individually. First of all, it's really important in Canada that we address, reduce, and, one would hope,
eventually eliminate poverty. This is an important reason
on two counts. First of all, in a wealthy country
like Canada, with bountiful resources and one of the highest qualities
of life in the world, it's a moral obscenity that we have
the high rates of poverty that we have. So there's a moral imperative. The second reason we need
to reduce poverty in this country is because it's the smart thing to do. I'll talk briefly about both. First of all, on the moral side,
why we need to address poverty. These are some quick statistics. One in seven, 4.9 million, Canadians
live in a state of poverty. So it's a general problem. It hits certain vulnerable groups
particularly hard. Racialized families, single mothers. The two shocking statistics for me here are 50 percent of status
first nations' children live in poverty. Almost 60 percent
of women with disabilities. So it's a general problem and it hits particular groups
in very hard ways. The second reason
we need to reduce poverty, and basic income is a means
to do this, I would argue, is that poverty costs us. The combined public and private costs
of alleviating poverty or addressing the problems
that result from poverty, we get into staggering figures
in the 70 and 80 billion dollar range. Remedial cost, this means
there's a tremendous relationship between living in poverty
and bad health outcomes; disease, hospitalization,
heavy reliance on the healthcare system. So if we can reduce poverty, it make sense that we could also
reduce costs in the healthcare system. There's other negative effects
of poverty that cost us, including children
that don't do well in school and need more help, child welfare costs,
cost in the criminal justice system. All of these problems are related
with high rates of poverty. The second point here
relates with poverty, there are costs related
to loss of revenues. When you're living in poverty you have many barriers to surmount in order to join the labor market
and have a good job. For instance, if you talk to people
who live in poverty and have to navigate
the labyrinth, the maze, of benefits, conditions,
and eligibility criteria, people in poverty often say, "It's a full-time job,
trying to be a poor person and trying to get enough money to live." Even if you get some benefits, you're still below
any degree of adequacy. So if we had a basic income
to eliminate that bureaucracy, that maze, people that are currently
living in poverty might actually have the opportunity to get job training,
to reorganize their lives, to get a job, and become taxpaying citizens
in the labor force. I'd like to move on to the second reason that we need to implement an effective basic income
program in Canada. And that relates to equality. There's a relationship
between equality and poverty, but they're also distinct reasons, and give us different reasons
to think about implementing basic income. This chart here,
just to orient you for a minute, this comes from the work
of Wilkinson and Pickett, and the Equality Trust in Britain, which has done great work over the years on talking about the effects
of inequality in society. Just to explain this chart, the axis on the bottom,
going from left to right, tracks increasing levels
of income inequality in various societies. Those dots are specific countries. The axis going up and down
relates to health and social problems that are related to measures
of different health and social problems such as infant mortality,
low life expectancy, health problems, high rates of imprisonment, etc. You'll see on the scattergram here that it's good to live in a country
that's on the lower left of the diagram. And it's not so good to live in a country
that's in the upper right. I don't know how clearly you can see it, but far in the upper-right
is the United States, which has high levels
of income inequality, and comes out poorly on all
these measures of social problems. Down on the lower left are countries where there's
a large redistribution of income: Norway, Sweden, Finland,
the Nordic countries, and some others. Canada's about in the middle. But what this chart demonstrates, I think, is that the more inequality you have the poorer the quality of life
is in a given society. I would argue that basic income
can increase equality and lower those kinds
of poor social outcomes. The third reason to think about
implementing basic income in Canada has to do with enabling human freedom
and individual choices. Sometimes basic income is called
"a left libertarian idea". It borrows from left political thinking, because it's about
looking after one another, and collective responsibility,
and helping each other out. But it's libertarian,
or relates to freedom, because it also looks at what individuals
want to do with their lives, and how they want to chart their course. And one thing that basic income can do is first of all, in a negative sense, give us an exit option. If we have a bad job with a bad boss, or we live with an abusive spouse,
or we live in an oppressive community, having an economic floor, a regular income upon which we can depend, it gives us a chance
to leave those bad situations and start a new life for ourself. On the more positive side, basic income can enable us
to pursue an education, spend more time with our families,
take a career sabbatical. Those kinds of choices. The fourth reason that we need
basic income in Canada relates to recognizing and supporting
all the work that we do, both paid work and unpaid work. First of all, in our society today we have a tremendous problem
with precarious employment, increasing numbers of people
who work part-time, work on short-term contracts, don't have security
of tenure in their jobs. And this is particularly
affecting young people. Basic income provides those folks
with, once again, a floor upon which to pursue opportunities
in the labor market without worry that they're going to... First of all, gives them chances to think about the long term,
think about retirement, buying a home, but also gets them out
of the day-to-day grind of just trying to make ends meet. There's also increasing attention
to changes in the labor market, with information technology and what I would call
the relatively jobless future. I don't think paid work
is going to disappear. But on the other hand, we can think about
automobile assembly line workers. Their work is now done by robots. We can think about bank employees
who are increasingly displaced by online banking
and automatic teller machines. I was reading recently
that even highly skilled occupations like anesthesiology, doctors that work in operating rooms
to keep people sedated, they now have machines
that can handle all that. So I think the reality is, looking into the years ahead
there's going to be fewer good jobs, so we have to think about
how everybody's going to have enough money to live on. And lastly, what basic income does is recognize unpaid work,
caring work in the home, and work that people do in the community, and expands their definition of work. The last and fifth reason on the list is that I think basic income will move us towards a more sustainable
economy and society. I would argue that basic
income is necessary: it's not sufficient by itself,
it's not going to do the job. We need to think about other
things like carbon taxes, lowering consumption,
and clean technologies, and so on. But basic income
is one necessary ingredient in leaving a habitable planet,
an environmentally sustainable planet, for our children and our grandchildren. It talks about redistribution;
it's not premised on economic growth. Our welfare state programs
as they've developed have really been premised
on a growing economy, where everybody gets a slightly
bigger piece of the pie. Those days are over. We have to think about
steady state economics, and we have to think about redistribution
of wealth and society. I think basic income gets us
partway towards that goal. And I think basic income can be one of these ingredients
in an environmentally sustainable future, that helps us focus more on human relationships
and local community life, and really connects us
with those around us. It's not about more stuff, it's not about greater levels
of consumption; it's about quality of life, and working
and living in a communal setting. There's different examples
of basic income-like programs that exist in other parts of the world. In the country of Brazil
there is a program called "Bolsa Familia". It resembles closely a basic income. It's been in place for years. It's reached millions of Brazilians,
and has had a tremendous impact on lowering the depth and breadth
of poverty in that country. There's a partial basic income
paid out in all places, of all places, the state
of Alaska, in the US. The state of Alaska uses part
of its oil and gas revenues, puts it away in a separate fund, and pays out a dividend on a yearly basis to every single resident of Alaska. In Europe right now,
there's great interest in basic income. Finland recently decided it's going to experiment
with this model nationally, and think about
setting in place a program. There's local community cities
in the Netherlands that are experimenting
with basic income at the local level. Similarly, in the country of India, there's actually
a very sophisticated study using randomized control trials. Villages, where basic income is given compared to villages
were basic income is not given, to measure the effects,
and see how it might work. And the initial results
are very very encouraging. Right here in Canada, you've probably seen this
in the media lately, there's been all kinds
of interesti in basic income, just in the last three or four months. Partly due to the change
in the federal government. At the provincial level, very recently, both the government of Ontario
and the government of Québec have talked about their interest in moving ahead with a guaranteed
or basic income model to refashion their income
security programs. The Green Party of Canada has been a proponent
of basic income for many years. The Green Party of Manitoba is talking about implementing
basic income here in Manitoba at the provincial level. And the Liberal Party of Manitoba is talking about experimenting with it
and seeing how it might work. It's an interesting idea
because it really attracts support from across the political spectrum. It attracts what you
might call "Red Tories" like former senator Hugh Segal;
he's been a proponent for many years. It attracts thoughtful people
in organized labor, on the democratic left, in the Social Democratic
wing of our politics who are thinking about it, too. Just one example: the new Minister
of Social Development, Jean-Yves Duclos,
has signaled his interest in this. We'll see what happens
at the federal level. There's a global and grassroots movement
supporting basic income approaches. The Basic Income Earth Network
[BIEN] is a global body that brings together people
interested in basic income from around the world. They're having a conference
in Korea at the end of June. The Basic Income Canada Network's
[BICN] been around for a while. It's a national body affiliated with BIEN. We've been very busy lately at BICN
because of all the interest. Very recently a network has emerged
here in Manitoba, Basic Income Manitoba. Just in May, a couple months from now,
less than two months from now, we're going to have
a congress on basic income. So if anybody is interested
in what's happening on the basic income front,
might like to come to this congress. Just go on the Faculty
of Social Work website and you can find out more about it. So I hope you'll think about it,
I hope you'll be interested in this idea, and I really want to thank you
for your attention today. Merci, Meegwetch. (Applause)
Don't let it be a pacifier. (other thread edit: mean /u/Glucksberg comment in particular)
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