by Kate McFarland | Jan 25, 2017 | News
In a reversal of a decision last December, the council of the Eastern Ontario town Smiths Falls has voted to send a delegate to an upcoming convention of municipalities to lobby for the town’s selection in Ontario’s basic income pilot study.
Background: Ontario’s Pilot Plans
The Canadian province of Ontario is currently in the consultation phase of the design of a pilot study of a basic income guarantee. According to the recommendations of the project adviser Hugh Segal, the pilot should test a guaranteed minimum income of approximately $1320 per month, plus an additional $500 for those with disabilities, which would replace the province’s current welfare and disability programs (Ontario Works and Ontario Disability Support Program) for at least three years. Segal proposes that this basic income guarantee take the form of a negative income tax, in which participants with no income would receive the full $1320 cash transfer, with no strings attached. The amount of the transfer would be gradually clawed back with additional earnings, with the result that participants whose income remains sufficiently high would receive no money as a result of participation in the pilot. The pilot will likely be designed to assess a variety of outcomes, such as health, food security, education, and employment.
While the final design of the pilot has not yet been announced, Segal has recommended that it include the selection of three saturation sites: communities in which every adult resident would be assured of the guaranteed minimum income. Saturation sites allow the province to investigate the effects of a basic income guarantee at a community level (such as effects on crime, utilization of public services, and civic participation), as well as to examine the process of administering the program within an entire municipality. (Segal advises that government test the basic income guarantee in such saturation in addition to conducting a randomized control trial in a large urban area.)
Segal further suggests that three saturation sites be chosen to represent three different “faces” of the province: Southern Ontario, Northern Ontario, and indigenous communities. He recommends that the communities be relatively geographically isolated, to limit “contagion” effects from surrounding communities, and to have stable populations. (For more discussion of the desired characteristics of saturation sites, see “Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario”.)
The final design of the study is expected to be announced in April 2017, after which the pilot will enter its implementation phase.
New Support from Smiths Falls Council
Smiths Falls, an Eastern Ontario town of around 9,000 residents, now plans to lobby the provincial government for selection as one of the saturation sites. On January 16, 2017, the town’s council voted to send a delegate to the Rural Ontario Municipal Association (ROMA) Conference, which will take place at the end of the month in Toronto. At the conference, municipal delegates will have an opportunity to present their cases before Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Services (MCSS).
The council’s vote reversed a decision of December 19, 2016, when it voted 3-2 against sending a delegate to ROMA to lobby for the town’s selection in the pilot — a decision that defied the wishes of Mayor Shawn Pankow and incited protests among the Smiths Falls residents.
Prior to the December 19 meeting, Pankow had written to MCSS, expressing a desire that the provincial government consider Smiths Falls as a site for its basic income pilot. This action was taken without the knowledge of full council, leading some councillors to hesitate endorsing the proposal (with one later stating that he had felt “blindsided” by the mayor’s action). Pankow himself was unable to attend the meeting during which the council voted down the motion to lobby in favor of the pilot, having been stuck in holiday traffic en route from Ottawa.
The December 19 vote was not a vote against participation in the pilot per se (as the provincial government could still select Smith Falls for the pilot, even if the town itself does not produce a delegate lobby for it), and not all councillors who cast negative votes were themselves opposed to the idea of a basic income guarantee (or even, necessarily, its implementation in Smiths Falls). Nonetheless, some councillors did use the opportunity to voice their general opposition to basic income. Councillor Dawn Quinn, for example, was widely cited in the press for her assertions that the distribution of unconditional cash transfers is the wrong approach to poverty and that, instead, poor people must learn how to better budget their money.
The council’s initial decision faced a backlash from residents. One resident, Carol Anne Knapp, started a petition in the days after the vote, calling upon the council to conduct a re-vote on the matter. In early January, Knapp and another resident, Darlene Kantor, interrupted a city council meeting to demand the council support efforts to bring the basic income pilot to Smiths Falls.
The town has faced economic hardship following the closure of a Hershey’s chocolate plant in 2008, as well as the loss of other manufacturing plants such as Shorewood Packaging and Stanley Tools. Residents like Knapp and Kantor believe that the council should welcome the basic income pilot (if Smiths Falls is selected) as a potential solution to its high rate of poverty.
On January 12, a public information session on the basic income pilot, convened by the Smiths Falls council, drew a crowd of more than 250 people.
The response of constituents was influential in the council’s reversal of its decision at the January 16 special meeting.
References and Further Information:
Evelyn Harford, “Smiths Falls town council won’t have ultimate sway on basic income pilot project’s location, says province,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 6, 2017.
Evelyn Harford, “Protesters make a stand in support of basic income pilot at Smiths Falls town council,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 9, 2017.
Hillary Johnstone, “‘An occupy moment’: Smiths Falls residents demand basic income pilot project,” CBC News, January 10, 2017.
Evelyn Harford, “Council votes to send basic income delegation to ask questions, lobby province,” Smiths Falls Record News, January 16, 2017.
Chris Must, “Council reverses stance on basic income lobbying,” Hometown News.
See also:
John Chang, “CANADA: Council of small town Smiths Falls rejects basic income trial, residents disagree,” Basic Income News, January 16, 2017.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo: Bridge near Smiths Falls, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 David McCormack
by BIEN | Jan 16, 2017 | News
Councilors of the small Ontario town of Smiths Falls voted on December 19 last year to reject participation in its province’s basic income pilot, to the objection of residents and the town’s mayor. A petition requesting a re-vote is currently circulating online. The story begins, however, in 2008.
That year The Hershey Company shuttered its Canada operations, at the time based in Smiths Falls, largely for cheaper Mexico-based labor. This exit of the area’s biggest customer precipitated the same by other businesses, and although the ensuing purge of jobs merely reflected a manufacturing decline already underway in the province, the disappearance of five hundred positions at Hershey’s alone, accounting for nearly 6% of the town’s population, catalyzed especially forward-looking pain. That year the town operated at a surplus of C$11.2m, and by the town’s most recent reported fiscal year, its once budget excess had trudged through increasingly tight leverage to a deficit of C$1.3m (albeit improved since 2013). Today the town struggles with unemployment above the national rate, and a third of children live below the poverty line.
Given also an aging population and petering labor force – per census data the town’s median age increased by 2.1 years in the five years leading up to 2011, and the overall population declined by 2% – it could be in the interest of Smiths Falls’ residents to entertain a basic income system. Indeed the petition created by resident Carol Anne Knapp has so far gathered 113 supporters, with a goal of one thousand. This is despite the council’s three-two vote, with two councilors absent, against mayor Shawn Pankow advocating to Ontario’s finance minister for participation in the program. Pankow has meanwhile expressed interest in holding a public meeting on the topic this month, health officials in tow.
A prominent councilor, Dawn Quinn, cast one of three “nay” votes. According to Jordan Pearson, writing for Motherboard, her vote was at least partly informed by her credo of frugality, stating that “folks sit around in Tim Hortons all day instead of looking for jobs, and they should consider buying a tin of Tim Hortons coffee to make at home instead of buying a cup.” On that point Pearson continues, “[Quinn added] they could consider shoveling snow to earn some extra money.” Similarly conveying Quinn’s underlying sentiment, Kate Porter quotes her in CBC News: “They need to be able to learn how to take that money and stretch it […] we need more of that kind of thinking.” So it appears the belief that basic income causes squander was, at least for one decision maker, a reason for the council’s vote outcome.
There is, however, some evidence from a bordering province that suggests this perspective is dogmatic, as reflected in Knapp’s petition letter requesting that a “new vote be based on science and evidence.”
Nearly forty years ago, Dauphin, a similarly small town in the Canadian province of Manitoba, underwent a five-year minimum income (dubbed “mincome”) experiment. Mincome was also similarly basic income-lite. Rather than a true guarantee, which is regardless of preexisting income status, mincome subsidized only those poor enough and was reduced for those who earned above a threshold. Likewise, Ontario’s pilot makes whole those earning below a set threshold. Even so, the experiment provides refutation to Quinn’s apprehension of lethargic congregations at Tim Hortons.
Evelyn Forget (credit to: Ecocide Alert)
According to Evelyn Forget, an economist at the University of Manitoba and academic director of the Manitoba Research Data Centre, primary earners in Dauphin worked only marginally less within the five-year study, and much of the other reductions in labor force participation was comprised of women who extended maternity leaves and male high school students who simply stayed in school rather than work. Additionally, hospitalizations, in particular for mental health problems, dropped significantly (nearly 9% across the board) and would alleviate the burden on healthcare programs today.
Quinn acknowledges, though remains unpersuaded by, the Manitoba findings and is further dissuaded by cost – a concern currently aggravated by budget shortfalls. She protests that Smiths Falls became financially saddled after a 1970s investment in low-to-moderate income (LMI) housing, giving rise to her concern about opting into another government-borne program. A ten-year housing plan published in 2014 by Lanark County and Smiths Falls, however, notes that 74% of the county’s dwellings requiring major repairs were constructed prior to 1971. Coupling two observations then – 60% of LMI housing was developed under the program to which Quinn is referring; and renting in lieu of owning has been on the rise since Hershey’s departure – the 1970s investment appears to have provided an arguably necessary safety net.
Expenses, furthermore, reflect precarity when business output, curbed by economic disempowerment of consumers, constrains municipal revenues. In pursuing a conservative bottom line, rejecting basic income has a potentially truncating effect on the top, and budget woes thereby persist. On this, councilor Lorraine Allen, one of two “yea” votes, says the proposal would enable residents to “shop more, buy more groceries, perhaps be more involved in things that they couldn’t before.” Hence her vote for the program.
Still, the short-lived nature of the pilot is consistent with another of Quinn’s concerns: that a pilot implemented, then taken away, could prove negligibly meaningful. In the town’s 2015 operations approximately C$2.4m was spent on social and family services. Tucked inside these costs were, in addition to unspecified uses, assistance to the elderly, childcare and the social housing expenses which Quinn resents of the 1970s. If the Ontario program follows the recommendation by former senator Hugh Segal (a monthly allowance of C$1,320), the combined cost to eligible individuals could perhaps exceed the town’s existing social and family services expenditures. This mainly reinforces the need for cooperation between municipality and province-level governments to realize success from basic income. Eating the full burden, what Ontario offers is more generous than that. But in order for such a program to live past a test phase, the council of Smiths Falls would first have to heed the needs of its residents – and try.
Thanks to Genevieve Shanahan for reviewing this article.
Cover photo by wyliepoon.
More information at:
AreaScore, “Smiths Falls unemployment,” 2016.
Carol Anne Knapp, “Smiths Falls council reverse the decision regarding basic income,” Care2 Petitions, December 21, 2016.
City-Data, “City data of Smiths Falls,” 2011.
Evelyn Harford, “Basic income pilot project a no-go for Smiths Falls town council,” InsideOttawaValley, December 20, 2016.
Jesse Ferreras, “Ontario basic income should be $1,320 per month, adviser says,” The Huffington Post, November 4, 2016.
Jordan Pearson, “Why a struggling town voted against a basic income,” Motherboard, December 22, 2016.
Kate Porter, “Smiths Falls residents fight for guaranteed income pilot project,” CBC News, December 22, 2016.
Lanark County, “Lanark County and the town of Smiths Falls ten year housing and homelessness plan 2014-2024,” 2014.
Sarah Gardner, “On the Canadian prairie, a basic income experiment,” Marketplace, December 20, 2016.
Statistics Canada, “Census subdivision of Smiths Falls, T – Ontario,” 2011.
The Canadian Press, “Ontario floats idea of guaranteed minimum income to ease poverty,” CBC News, March 14, 2016.
Town of Smiths Falls, “2009 consolidated financial statements,” 2009.
Town of Smiths Falls, “2015 consolidated financial statements,” 2015.
by Dave Clegg | Dec 26, 2016 | News
A CBC news report offers a clarion call regarding the increasing demand being placed upon Canadian food banks who are attempting to address the hunger and nutritional needs of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens. Surely there is no better reason for a BI than the need for food banks in one of the richest nations on the planet?
Food Banks Canada, a national umbrella organization, has released its HungerCount2016 report on food bank use in Canada and includes numerous recommendations, the most crucial of which is the creation of a nation-wide Basic Income.
To accomplish this important goal, FBC has provided 4 policy recommendations in its report which the organization believes essential to accomplish this important goal namely:
1. a National Poverty Reduction Strategy by Oct 1. 2017
2. a Basic livable Income with steps leading to its creation
3. rethinking welfare towards a more supportive process
4. investing in Northern Canada’s food security.
Perhaps the most significant beneficiaries of a national BI would be the children who, the CBC report indicates, account for 35% of food bank use across the country. The CBC report also points out that the latest food bank figures show double digit spikes in food bank use in many parts of Canada.
While the CBC report indicates that Toronto is still the “…child poverty capital of Canada”, it also includes links to a number of related CBC items in which the Ontario government has recently announced a BI pilot program and Quebec has expressed interest in the feasibility of a BI, while three other links discuss what a BI might look like in Canada.
The Food Banks Canada full report can be found here: HungerCount2016.
Food Banks Canada has previously called for a BI in their HungerCount2015, which BIEN acknowledged here at that time as well.
by Kate McFarland | Dec 20, 2016 | News
Roderick Benns, the author of a new book of interviews on Canadians’ views of basic income, interviewed Chris Ballard, a Liberal Party Member of the Ontario Provincial Parliament. In June 2016, Ballard was appointed as Minister of Housing and Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy, and he will now be overseeing the province’s pilot study of a basic income guarantee.
In the interview, Ballard expresses optimism about the basic income pilot, and speaks about how the changing nature of work creates a need for new social policies. He also discusses federal interest in Ontario’s pilot, mentioning that he will regularly share information with Jean-Yves Duclos, Canada’s Minister of Families, Children and Social Development.
Read More:
Roderick Benns (November 29, 2016) “Ontario Minister hopeful for Basic Income pilot,” Basic Income Canada Network.
Reviewed by Dawn Rozakis
Cover photo: Ontario Waterfront CC BY 2.0 Vlad Podvorny
by Kate McFarland | Dec 8, 2016 | News
In a unanimous decision on Tuesday, December 7, the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island (PEI), Canada, agreed to “pursue a partnership with the federal government for the establishment of a universal basic income pilot project” on PEI.
Peter Bevan-Baker
CC BY-SA 3.0
The motion was originally proposed by Green Party Leader Peter Bevan-Baker, and received the support of all four political parties in the province, which have been united for well over a year in their support for investigating a basic income guarantee (BIG).
Bevan-Baker drew inspiration from past experiments in Manitoba (the Mincome trial of the late 1970s) as well as the pilot scheduled to begin next year in Ontario. He believes that PEI’s small size — the island has only about 150,000 residents — would make it an ideal setting for an additional pilot study. Hugh Segal, adviser for the Ontario pilot, has also encouraged other provinces, such as PEI, to run their own trials of basic income.
According to Bevan-Baker, a pilot project is necessary “so we can evaluate whether the benefits outweigh the costs” — as quoted in a CBC News report about the successful motion — where the costs, in his view, might include a work disincentive effect as well as financial costs to the government. The main benefit specified in the motion is the reduction or elimination of poverty. However, the motion also mentions many other possible positive effects, including “local economic growth, supporting entrepreneurship, reducing administrative complexity and costs, improving working conditions, reducing crime, improving health, and helping to build vibrant rural communities.” CBC News quotes Bevan-Baker as saying, “A universal basic income could enable the greatest unleashing of human potential ever seen.”
The full text of the motion is as follows:
WHEREAS implementing a universal basic income in Prince Edward Island would significantly reduce or potentially eliminate poverty in the province;
AND WHEREAS a universal basic income would likely have many other positive effects,
including local economic growth, supporting entrepreneurship, reducing administrative
complexity and costs, improving working conditions, reducing crime, improving health, and helping to build vibrant rural communities;
AND WHEREAS all four Prince Edward Island political parties have indicated their support for exploring a universal basic income;
AND WHEREAS the federal government has indicated an interest in exploring a universal basic income;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislative Assembly urge government to pursue a partnership with the federal government for the establishment of a universal basic income pilot project in Prince Edward Island;
THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Government shall provide an update on the progress of this initiative in every session of this assembly.
The motion is still only an early step toward a basic income pilot in PEI. If the province is to actually implement a pilot, it will require cooperation and support from the federal government. The PEI Department of Family and Human Services has previously issued the following statement:
The Province supports the concept of the Basic Income Guarantee. We have been consistent in our response that any pilot project in this area would require active and committed federal participation. We are always open to partnerships with the federal government to improve the financial well being of the residents in our province.
No specific model for the basic income has been proposed for the (possible) pilot. The Working Group for a Liveable Income — an advocacy group that has been instrumental in promoting BIG in PEI for over a decade — explicitly supports a negative income tax (NIT), in which “if the person receiving BIG gets other personal income, the maximum level benefit will be affected by a reduction rate”. Segal has also recommended an NIT for the Ontario pilot. While ‘universal basic income’ is often used to refer to a universal cash grant with no reduction based on other earnings, in contrast to a NIT (cf. “What is the Basic Income Guarantee?”), it is not certain whether the PEI motion intends the phrase in this sense (which would entail that PEI is pursuing a form of BIG less commonly discussed in Canada).
References
Motion No. 83, Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island.
“P.E.I. MLAs effusive in their support for basic-income pilot project,” CBC News, December 7, 2016.
Kevin Yarr, “’A rare opportunity’ for basic income pilot project on P.E.I,” CBC News, November 23, 2016.
Reviewed by Dawn Howard
Photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Government of Prince Edward Island
