Basic income: New life for an old idea

In Ottawa, a federal MP is pushing for governmentresearch on the subject.

Ontario'sprovincial budget announced a pilot program to try it out. In Quebec, a cabinet minister has been assigned to study the topic.

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The mayors of Calgary and Edmonton are both on board. And the Manitoba Liberalsare promisingtheir own trialif they win the April 19 provincial election.

Basic income is capturing political imaginations in Canada.

Also known as guaranteed minimumincome, universal income, guaranteed annual income, or a negative income tax, basicincomeisa social policy that would supplant various welfare programs by providing a baseline amount of money to all citizens, regardless of whether they work or meet a means test.

I think part of it is the need to set up social programs for a very different kind of labour force than existed in the past.- Evelyn Forget, professor, University of Manitoba

The idea is far from new, and it has evenbeen tried in Canada before, in the town of Dauphin, Man.,during the 1970s. Google Trends, which tracks the volume ofinquiries on the Googlesearch engine, showsan increased number of searches for "basic income" and related terms in the past three years and especially in recent months.

A world without guarantees

Evelyn Forget, a professor with the department of community health services at the University of Manitoba who researched the Dauphin experiment, recently testified before federal pre-budget hearings on the topic of basic income.

Shesays the idea's resurgent popularitymay have to do with an uncertain global economy.

"I think we've seen a huge increase in precarious employment," says Forget. "Looking forward, I think people are concerned about increasing mechanization of jobsI think part of it is the need to set up social programs for a very different kind of labour force than existed in the past."

Dissatisfaction with the way current welfare programs are administered might also be leading to renewed interest in basic income, says Forget.

"The nice thing about a guaranteed income is it offers tolow-income families the same kind of privacy that the rest of us take for granted when we fill out our income tax or interact with the system in one way or another."

Former senator Hugh Segal says he hasbeen interested in basic income since 1969, when he heard about the idea at a Conservative Party policy conference.

He agrees that the idea has been resurgent in the public consciousnesslately, citing "the need to do something different and better" than current poverty-reduction efforts, which he describes as "freezing people in poverty, not liberating them from poverty."

Primarily, Segal believesa renewed understanding of demographics is behind the new rise of basic income.

"People are looking at the various demographic and other pressures on the healthcare system," says Segal, now master at MasseyCollege in Toronto. "Dealing with poverty is one way to take some of the pressures off that system."

New government, new policies

A new government might be another reason that people are willing to entertain the basic income idea. At the party's 2014 policy convention, the federal Liberal Party adopted a resolution to create a basic annual income. Liberal-appointed Senator Art Eggletonrecently put forward a motioncalling on the federal government to sponsor a pilot project to study the idea.

"Given the past federal election, you see a completely different mood in Canada now," says BasicIncome Canada Network chair Sheila Regehr, whose organization advocates for a basicincome.

"I think a lot of people have been interested, but lying low and it's just bubbling up now, all over."

Regehrsays an increasing number of people have declared their support for basic income via the Basic Income Canada Network website recently. She's also seen more interest from potential volunteers.

Not just politicos

It's not just politicians and policy wonks who are interested in basic income. The idea has also found traction among the tech crowd, in Silicon Valley as well as closer to Canada.

Paul Valleis the founder and CEO of Ottawa-basedPythian, an IT management firm. He also sits on the board of the Basic Income Canada Network, and advocates for the policy. He says his peers in the tech world are particularly keen onbasic income.

"Anybody who's involved in computer science or information technology at all is essentially in the business of replacing people with software," saysValle. "I want to feel like my work is building towards a future vision for our society that is positive and constructive."

Charles Lammam, director of fiscal policy at the Fraser Institute, co-authored a paper highlighting some of the practical challenges of implementing a basic income program. Lammamsaysthe idea ofbasic income appealsto players across the political spectrum. But, he warns, thatmay be because it's still a nebulous idea soit's easyfor thinkers of all political stripesto imagine the program structured in a way they like.

"Part of the reason for whythere is agreement is that people don't spend too much time going into the details of what they mean."