This article argues the a form of basic income guarantee would work better than Canada’s current poverty-reduction strategies.
Ernst, Kelly, “Poverty reduction strategies are wrong-headed,” The Record, 23 October 2012
https://www.therecord.com/opinion/columns/article/821876–poverty-reduction-strategies-are-wrong-headed
Elizabeth May, the leader of the Green Party in Canada and an MP in British Columbia recently endorsed basic income. The endorsement of a “Guaranteed Livable Income” came through a press release on October 17, the United Nations (UN) International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. May’s press release reminds her audience that the Green Party is the only political party in Canada to advocate for a basic income as a means to eradicate poverty. The endorsement occurring on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is an apt response to the UN resolution for all member states to create and implement concrete strategies to eliminate poverty.
More about her remarks can be found online at:
https://www.canadianprogressiveworld.com/2012/10/18/elizabeth-may-calls-for-a-guaranteed-livable-income-in-canada/
The Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) has named the Basic Income Canada Network as the host of the 15th BEIN Congress, which will take place in Ottawa, Ontario in the spring or summer of 2014. Kelly Ernst, of Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, will chair the Local Organizing Committee (LOC). Other members of the LOC include Jurgen de Wispelaere, Kizzy Paris, Jenna van Draanen, Linda Lalonde, Myron Frankman, Tim Rourke, and Sharon Murphy. The LOC will name a date and a venue for the conference within the next six months and release a call for submissions sometime in 2013. For more information about the organizational efforts that will bring congress into being in a little more than 18 months, contact: Kelly Ernst <kernst@chumir.ca>
Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress: Basic Income and Economic Citizenship
Thursday May 9th to Saturday May 11th, 2013
Sheraton Hotel and Towers, New York City
The Twelfth Annual North American Basic Income Congress, Basic Income and Economic Citizenship, will take place in New York City on Thursday, May 9th through Saturday, May 11th, 2013. The congress is organized by the U.S. Basic Income Guarantee Network (USBIG) in cooperation with the Basic Income Canada Network (BICN/RCRG), and will be held in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Eastern Economic Association (EEA). Attendees at the North American Basic Income Congress are welcome to attend any of the EEA’s events.
Featured speakers include Carole Pateman, UCLA and Cardiff University, co-author of Basic Income Worldwide: Horizons of Reform; Sheri Berman, Barnard College, author of The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century; Jurgen De Wispelaere, University of Montréal, co-editor of The Ethics of Stakeholding; David Casassas, University of Barcelona, co-editor of Basic Income in the Age of Great Inequalities; James Riccio, MDRC, co-author of “Toward Reduced Poverty Across Generations: Early Findings from New York City’s Conditional Cash Transfer Program;” Darrick Hamilton, The New School, co-author of “Can ‘Baby Bonds’ Eliminate the Racial Wealth Gap in Putative Post-Racial America?” and Evelyn Forget, University of Manitoba, author of “The Town with No Poverty: A history of the North American Guaranteed Annual Income Social Experiments.”
All points of view are welcome, and proposals from any discipline are invited. For more information see the call for papers at: www.usbig.net.
Or contact the congress organizer, Almaz Zelleke of USBIG, at azelleke@gmail.com.
DEADLINE FOR PROPOSALS: November 30th, 2012
Two videos on Guaranteed Annual (Basic) Income in the Canadian context, featuring Senator Hugh Segal, can be found on the TVO website:
Politics Around Poverty (49 minutes):
https://ww3.tvo.org/video/184975/politics-around-poverty
What Do You Think of “Guaranteed Annual Income”? (2 minutes):
https://theagenda.tvo.org/blog/agenda-blogs/what-do-you-think-guaranteed-annual-income
