Oddly enough, this is not at all a new thing. The Canadian Government partnered with the Manitoba Government to run a guaranteed annual income pilot project they called Mincome in Dauphin ~ A Town Without Poverty? ~ back in the 1970s. As often happens with long term projects in countries using winner-take-all voting systems, the government changed and the new lot boxed up all the data and stored it away.
This is becoming a hot topic worldwide, and here at home we’re hearing about this from all levels of government:
FEDERAL
The Trudeau Liberals just prioritized one of Richard Nixon’s favourite conservative policies: ‘mincome’
PROVINCIAL
A Basic Income For Ontario? Province Plans Pilot Project As Part Of Budget
MUNICIPAL
Waterloo Regional Council to Vote on Endorsing Basic Income Pilot
The Waterloo Green Party had is hosting the second Guaranteed Livable Income Green Learning Community event on Saturday to help get a handle on what this social policy is all about.
As a learning community, we’ve met once already to develop a set of questions we’d like to explore. When we meet on the 18th, we’ll dig deeper, sharing what we’ve learned and discussing more. All are welcome, no need to have attended our first session.
You can join the Green Learning Community Event
- on The Mighty Bell or
- on Facebook or you can
- just show up!
Guaranteed Livable Income
Learning Community ~ Session 2
Saturday
1:30 PM – 3 PM
The Journey ~ A Christian Church
16 Eby St. N.
Kitchener, ON
*note: although the venue this time is a church, it is a non-secular event
Further Reading:
The Manitoba Mincome Study; Even a small Guaranteed Income has dramatic positive effects on society
A Way to Get Healthy: Basic Income Experiments in Canada
Download the 39 page PDF file:
THE TOWN WITH NO POVERTY Using Health Administration Data to Revisit Outcomes of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment
You can get more information from our awesome local advocacy group, Basic Income Waterloo Region