Lack of information this summer over basic income cancellation put recipients in 'difficult position'

A community meeting is scheduled in Thunder Bay, Ont., this week for recipients and supporters of Ontario's basic income pilot project.

The meeting comes almost a week after the Ford government announced that recipients will receive their final payments under the pilot in March, 2019. People in the program have effectively been in limbo for the past month after the province announced it was phasing the program out, but didn't provide details as to how or when, until the end of August.

• Ontario's basic income pilot to end March 2019

• PC's plan to scrap Ontario basic income pilot project called 'shameful' by NDP leader

Until Friday's announcement, Sally Colquhoun, the coordinator of legal services with Thunder Bay's Kinna-aweya Legal Clinic,saidthere had been no communication from the government after it announced the end of the pilot earlier this summer. Many of the clinic's clients are basic income pilot participants.

"People are really in a very, very difficult position," Colquhoun told CBC News on Friday, before the March 2019 end date was publicly announced.

Thursday's meeting at Roots To Harvest is scheduled to feature Hamilton photographer Jessie Golem, and her project, Humans Of Basic Income, and its efforts to document the people affected by the program's cancellation.

• 'Shocked and devastated' photo series to reveal faces of cancelled basic income project

'There are lots of issues'

The program began in April 2017, and was supposed to run for three years.

The month-long uncertainty about its termination has been a problem for people taking part in the pilot,Colquhounsaid, as those participating have had to try and plan for when the income stops.

"There are lots of issues," she said. "Should they be giving notice to their landlord if they are in housing that they're not going to be able to afford if they're not in the basic income?"

"I spoke to somebody who went in to the financial aid office at the college to say 'can you reassess my OSAP?' And they said 'no, we can't, because we haven't been told that your basic income is going to end.'"

• 'My life has changed so much': One woman's experience with Ontario's basic income program

Traditional social services also aren't a substitute, Colquhoun added. Anecdotally, she said she's seen the program working.

"The amounts that people get on social assistance are so low, that anybody who was on social assistance who got into basic income was feeling much more secure," she said.

"They were able to buy more healthy food, they were able to pay a bit more rent."

CBC Thunder Bay spoke with Colquhoun before the Aug. 31 announcement that made public the program's end date.