by Kate McFarland | Oct 27, 2016 | News
Basic Income Manitoba has launched a new website: basicincomemanitoba.ca
The group can also be followed on Facebook: www.facebook.com/basicincomemanitoba
Basic Income Manitoba, a volunteer-run organization based in Winnipeg, describes its goals and activities as follows: “educates Manitobans about basic income, its benefits and effects; promotes and develops public support for basic income in Manitoba and across Canada; seeks to influence public policy with regard to basic income; and encourages and shares research on basic income.”
Manitoba has a distinguished history in the basic income movement: from 1974 to 1978, the “Mincome” experiment–one of the most discussed trials of a basic income guarantee–was held in Dauphin.
The province was also the site of the most recent North American Basic Income Guarantee (NABIG) Congress, held in May 2016 in Winnipeg.
Basic Income Manitoba is currently led by its two co-chairs: Donald Benham, who has experience in municipal politics and is currently the Hunger and Poverty Awareness Manager at Winnipeg Harvest, and Ursule Critoph, who has decades of work in the Canadian union movement.
The organization receives support from local organizations including Bounce Design, Winnipeg Harvest, and the University of Manitoba.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Manitoba photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Valerie
by BIEN | Oct 13, 2016 | News, Testimonies
Interview by Scott Jacobsen
*Transcribed from informal Skype chat, content not quoted in full.*
How’d you get an interest, and how’d you get involved, in basic income?
There were two phases. My initial interest came from early on, when I was in my late teens. My involvement started one year ago.
As a teenager, I was interested in Ayn Rand and Libertarianism. I believed in freedom, free markets, no restrictions on the pursuit of self-interest –but I noticed a tension between this view and other things, as a teenager, such as underground music.
I was into certain bands at that time. If bands went to make money in the marketplace, it wasn’t something for them to do without becoming ‘sellouts’. If you want music artists to pursue their own interest, you expect them to not really ‘give a rat’s ass’ and to make great music. This conflicts with selling to the public.
In this one area, I was concerned about it [Libertarianism]. I could see places for people to not make a profit. These ideas conflicted with the Libertarian ideals –this free-market framework.
For a while, I had cognitive dissonance and unresolved tension. That is, a conflict between a ‘morally correct economy’ and my deeply held conviction of people pursuing art and knowledge for its own sake. They shouldn’t have to worry about profit.
At some point, in a random Libertarian publication, I learned about the basic income experiment in Manitoba –the Mincome experiments. This didn’t seem like a bad idea: give people enough money for their basic needs, and with these met, people have the freedom to pursue whatever they want to pursue.
I stuck with this for a while. This fulfilled the need for believing in something morally decent to me. It wasn’t relevant to college or graduate work. I wasn’t politically active at all during my 20s. However, I had this shoved away in the back of my head.
My involvement came about a year ago. The circumstances of this were finishing my PhD in early 2015. I became involved in late 2015. One thing that influenced me was not having a basic income. For the first time in my life, I did not have economic security.
All through college and graduate school, I was paid through stipends from scholarships and fellowships, and graduate assistant positions. There were either no work requirements or the connections to jobs (like teaching and grading) were at best rather nebulously defined.
All of a sudden, without ever thinking of education as job training or working a normal job, I was left on my own post-graduation. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. I very much did not want to look for a standard job. Obviously, a basic income would have helped me.
At the same time, we have the rise of the Bernie Sanders movement. Many friends were followers and part of the Fight for ’15 Movement. I didn’t understand how a living wage would help someone like me.
That is, I work on things that interest me; it seems like a good idea. [But] a $15/hr minimum wage does not help if you’re not in a waged position. There is plenty of good work that needs to get done which is not necessarily suitable for wage labour.
I began thinking again about basic income. It accomplishes the basic goal of eliminating poverty. So, I started mentioning it to people. And it turned out I had friends who had heard of it. I started researching what had been written on it. As it turns out, there were some articles being written, and groups and individuals working on it.
I started subscribing and following these articles and people, respectively. Later in the year, I started following Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) on Facebook. They started putting out calls for reviewers. I reviewed for them and then began writing for them.
From this work from PhD to basic income, it is a passion for you. It takes a lot of time. What is the main passion in this initiative for you to become an activist and devote a tremendous amount time to it? I can look at the number of publications alone.
(Laugh)
There are a few motivations. So, one thing is I enjoy the type of work. It’s challenging. I’ve done work writing for newsletters before. I am continuing to do this. I am doing an annual newsletter for my academic department.
What I do with BIEN is so much more challenging. I learned a couple different software platforms. In addition, I have to keep up on the day-to-day research. I have to do a lot of investigation. I have to find a lead about some topic, new announcement, or new study.
I am coming into this as a non-expert by any means. However, I want to present the information in an accurate way. There is a demand to do research and figure out things that I’m learning for the first time.
Also, I want to represent information without leading readers astray.
(Laugh)
I do not want them to have false inferences or beliefs. I want them to have true beliefs via true information.
I [also] really like the fact that this work is something I can do on my own time in my own place. I don’t have to go into an office. I don’t have bosses looking over my shoulders, at least directly. If I were to have a job, this is embodying my own ideal. I can sit and write. It is variety and a challenge. It is for a good cause. I deeply believe in this. I work with cool people.
I do not work in an office. I interact via Skype and email. I am totally independent. I can work from my apartment, a coffee shop, and at the bar, whatever. It’s like the perfect job, even though it doesn’t pay.
I have multiple aspects of work that align with my values, personality, and work preferences. It seems like the perfect fit. If I can continue to afford doing this without relying on a job, and if I keep doing this for the sake of the movement and myself, and if I stick with this, I want to see where this goes.
I’ll at least do something that I tremendously enjoy that is a fit for a while.
This interview is continued in Part Two, where McFarland discusses her values in news reporting.
by Kate McFarland | Oct 3, 2016 | Research
The Government of Ontario plans to move forward with a pilot study of a basic income guarantee, to begin by April 2017.
On September 20, four researchers — Evelyn L. Forget (Professor of Economics at the University of Manitoba), Dylan Marando (PhD Student at the University of Toronto), Tonya Surman (founding CEO of the Centre for Social Innovation), and Michael Crawford Urban (Policy Associate at the Mowat Centre) — released a report called “Pilot Lessons: How to design a basic income pilot project for Ontario”. “Pilot Lessons” offers recommendations to the Ontario government on the basis of previous trials of basic income guarantee programs. It also calls for a greater focus on the impact of a guaranteed income on innovation and entrepreneurship.
The report begins by glossing the meaning of the term ‘basic income’ as it is used by the authors (“basic income is best conceptualized as a policy whereby a government guarantees, to all of its citizens, a regular predictable income sufficient to live a basic but dignified life”), distinguishing between the “demogrant” and “negative income tax” models.
The authors go on to overview past experiments on basic income, especially those conducted in the United States and Canada during the 1970s.
Based on this review of past experience, they identify four lessons:
1. Vary the parameters (e.g. eligibility conditions, amount of income guarantee, tax-back rates), but don’t vary them too much.
2. Communicate the results of experiments through scientific, not political, channels. The authors state that “science and politics don’t mix well”. For example, they point to the politically-driven promulgation of the alleged correlation between receipt of a basic income and increased divorce rates following the United States experiments in the 1970s. This contributed to the deterioration of interest in the policy, especially among Republicans.
3. Don’t overlook indirect benefits of basic income that might be observed in experiments. For example, the authors note Evelyn Forget’s investigation of Manitoba’s “Mincome” experiment: Forget demonstrated that the basic income guarantee in Dauphine corresponded to lower hospitalization rates and increased high school graduation rates.
4. Don’t assume that a decline in the time spent in paid employment implies a decline in the time spent in socially valuable work (e.g. consider whether the time is spent instead in childcare, continued education, volunteer work, etc).
In the next chapter, the authors describe major changes in the labor market that pose important differences between the present context and that of the past experiments, such as the increase in precarious labor and rise of automation. They also argue that, by decreasing the risk associated with leaving a job or starting a business, a basic income could facilitate entrepreneurship and innovation.
The report concludes with 14 recommendations for the design of a pilot study.
The full report is available for download.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo: Vancouver Science World CC BY 2.0 Franco Ng
by Kate McFarland | Sep 18, 2016 | News
The fourth Forum des Idées Pour le Québec (“Forum for Ideas for Québec”) will take place at Champlain College from September 23 through 25. It will focus on social policies–including a special session devoted to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income (GMI) for Canada and Québec.
Organized by the provincial Liberal Party, Parti libéral du Québec, the Forum des Idées Pour le Québec is an annual nonpartisan gathering, featuring lectures and panel discussions on major social and political issues facing the province.
Philippe Couillard CC BY-SA 3.0 Asclepias
The head of the provincial government, Premier Philippe Couillard, will be present for the event. Couillard has made a promotional video for the event, which highlights its attention to the GMI.
The session on GMI, which is scheduled for September 24, will feature four highly prominent basic income researchers and advocates:
- Yannick Vanderborght, Professor at Université de Louvain and Université de Bruxelles, associate editor of Basic Income Studies and founding editor of Basic Income News.
- Jurgen de Wispelaere, a visiting researcher at the University of Tampere who has worked on the design of Finland’s basic income experiment and written extensively on basic income.
This session will be chaired by Jean-Marie Bézard, vice-president of the Forum Scientific committee and Director of Plénitudes, Prospective & Management.
Other issues to be addressed include poverty, inequality, pay equity, and coordinating social interventions across a territory.
Visit the event page for more information. Registration is limited, and typically sells out weeks before the event.
Two public discussions of guaranteed minimum income and universal basic income will take place in Québec in the following week (September 27 and 28).
Reviewed by Jenna van Draanen
Québec flag photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Mathieu Thouvenin
Thanks also to my supporters on Patreon
