by Sara Bizarro | Sep 18, 2018 | News
Anonymous recipient of the Ontario basic income experiment. Photo credit: Jessie Golem, photographer responsible for the Humans of Basic Income project
The Ontario Basic Income Pilot, started by a liberal government, was canceled on July 31st 2018, by the newly elected Ford administration. The conservative government has announced that the last payment to the 4000 recipients that were part of the pilot program will be on March 31, 2019. This date was announced by Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod, claiming this is a “lengthy and compassionate runway” to closing the project. On why the project was canceled, MacLeod said: “A research project that helps less than 4,000 people is not the answer and provides no hope to nearly two million Ontarians who are trapped in a cycle of poverty.” The general justification of the new government is that the program was failing, although a clear explanation of what is meant by that has not been given. MacLeod says that Ontario should develop a “sustainable social assistance program that focuses on helping people lift themselves out of poverty”, while also characterizing Basic Income as a “handout” that does not break the cycle of poverty, even though she did not share the study results that led to this conclusion. MacLeod did not mention that 70% of the Basic Income Pilot recipients are working and that, apart from the baseline data, no surveys were completed, so there is nothing to support the idea that the pilot was failing.
The reactions to the cancelation announcement have been many, including a class action suit filed by four Lindsey residents, represented by lawyer Mike Perry, who is launching a lawsuit based on anticipatory breach of contract and administrative law. The Basic Income recipients claim they “made plans to improve their lives when they signed up for the pilot in April last year, providing the government with detailed personal information to be approved and expecting the pilot to run its three-year term.” Tom Cooper, of the Hamilton Roundtable for Poverty Reduction, said that the six-month wind down still leaves many Basic Income recipients in “impossible situations.” Mr. Cooper says: “Many have signed one-year lease agreements with landlords and they can’t get out of those leases and they can’t afford their new rent. There are many people who plan to go back to school in September. Whether that will still be a reality for them with a longer wind down is questionable.”
Other reactions included a protest at Queen’s Park on August 9th in Hamilton, and another one in Lindsay, were around 100 people participated. The Queen’s Park protest had about 30 Basic Income recipients asking questions as to what the future holds for them. Since the cancelation decision was made and announced before the participants were notified, they found out via the public media and were anxious about what was in store for them. In the Scott Thompson Radio Show, Tom Cooper says that “conservatives promised them not once but twice, during the election, that it would run for the full three years.” He also mentions the case of a young woman, as an example of how canceling the Basic Income Pilot before term can cause havoc to the recipients life: “A young woman who is trying to get her children back from children’s aid, she did everything she was supposed to, getting a new apartment, so that her children could live with her, she signed a lease about a month ago, and now finds out the program has been canceled and she can’t even afford the lease anymore.”
The Mayors of Hamilton, Lindsay, Thunder Bay and Brantford have all signed a joint letter to the Federal Government asking it to consider a federal adoption of the pilot. Hamilton Mayor, Fred Eisenberger, just joined the other four Mayors on September 5th.
This idea is also defended by Sheila Regehr, chair of the Basic Income Canada Network, when she said: “If Ottawa completed Ontario’s $50-million-a-year pilot, the results would either support or dismiss the feasibility of a national basic income.” Also, according to Sheila Regehr, “Ethics complaints have been made by a few people to Veritas, the company the previous government hired to ensure ethical standards are met in the conduct of research involving human beings.”
There was also a piece by Prof. Gregory Mason, an associate professor of economics at the University of Manitoba. Prof. Mason argued that these experiments have limited use and that there were flaws in the “random assignment of participants”. Prof. James Mulvale wrote another piece, The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project is a tragedy, where he answers some of Prof. Mason’s points while Evelyn Forget, also a professor at the University of Manitoba, sent a letter to the editor rebutting Prof. Mason’s criticisms.
The Basic Income recipients also expressed their reactions. There is a website, Basic Income Voices that according to Tom Cooper, “is a site exclusively for pilot participants to share their thoughts, hopes, and fears. The testimonials are both heartbreaking and soul-affirming.” Jessie Golem, of the Hamilton pilot participants, who is also a photographer, launched a project to develop a portrait series of Basic Income participants called Humans of Basic Income, which is garnering a lot of attention.
There are several petitions: one was created partly by Basic Income recipients, Jodi Dean helped create Leadnow, others are North99 and the Council of Canadians. According to Sheila Regehr, actions will continue when the legislature resumes on September 24th, activists are planning events coinciding with the fall session of the legislature, including a presentation of the Leadnow petition.
More information at:
Mary Riley, “Class action lawsuit filed against Ontario government over basic income pilot cancellation”, The Hamilton Spectator, 27th August 2018
Kate McFarland, “ONTARIO, CANADA: New Government Declares Early End of Guaranteed Income Experiment”, Basic Income News, August 2nd 2018
Shawn Jeffords, “March 2019 to mark end of Ontario’s basic income pilot”, Global News, August 31st
Laurie Monsebraaten, “Save Ontario’s basic income pilot, advocates urge Ottawa”, The Star, August 3rd 2018
James Mulvale, “The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income project is a tragedy”, The Conversation, August 20th 2018
by Guest Contributor | Sep 12, 2018 | Opinion
The following is an open letter to the Ontario government from basic income advocate Rob Rainer. The Ontario government recently cancelled their basic income pilot program. Rainer is calling on the government to reconsider the cancellation.
Dear Premier Ford, Minister MacLeod, and my MPP, Mr. Hillier:
I am a resident of Ontario and a concerned citizen who is among the many who, in recent years, have been advocating for basic income as a vital form of economic and social security, and human dignity – not only for those in or on the cusp of poverty, but for the broad “middle class” within which millions of people are profoundly economically insecure. I respectfully ask that you reconsider the Ontario government’s decision to terminate the Ontario basic income pilot project. Further, I ask that you commit to seeing this project through to its intended completion and evaluation.
The Ontario pilot is a world-leading test of how basic income can transform lives for the better. The eyes of the world have been on Ontario because of it – and remain on Ontario now in the wake of the government’s decision. Sadly, yesterday’s announcement by Minister MacLeod that the government will terminate the project appears to have been made with little regard for not only the evidence in favour of basic income but also the evidence already emerging from the pilot itself – including how in just a short period of time basic income has begun to transform many lives for the better (see also this story). The announcement is especially galling given that, in April, it appeared that your Party was prepared to see the project through if you were to form the next government. As an unidentified Party spokesperson said then, “we look forward to seeing the results.”
And so, several questions for you:
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: On what evidence or information was the decision made to end the pilot? Who was consulted beforehand? Notably, did the government speak directly with any of the 4000 pilot participants spread across Hamilton, Brant County, Lindsay, and Thunder Bay, and/or any of the members of the pilot research team? If it did not take those steps, I recommend they be done ASAP if there is yet possibility to revisit the government’s decision. I believe that were your government to hear directly from pilot participants, in particular, that its views on the pilot might be much more informed.
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: Assuming this decision stands, what will be done to make the transition as painless as possible for the pilot participants – some of whom have already made critical decisions for their lives on the basis of having access over three years to the basic income? Specifically, will the government continue to issue monthly basic income payments for most if not all of the remaining intended duration of the pilot?
Mr. Ford or Ms. MacLeod: What are your ideas as to what might be more effective than basic income to providing a solid floor of economic security for Ontarians (with major health and other benefits in return)?
Mr. Hillier: I met with you in February 2017 at your constituency office in Perth. At that time you expressed general support for the idea of basic income and, I recall, at least conditional support for the basic income pilot. You may feel obliged to support the government’s decision here, but I nonetheless ask: Are you comfortable with the decision, or would you be willing to champion that the government reconsider?
It is not a stretch to say that lives may well depend on a turnaround here. I understand from colleagues close to the ground of the pilot that if the government follows through with its intentions, that one or more suicides may well follow – reflective of the economic desperation many people in Ontario suffer. In this light, I encourage you to read at least some of the ~500 short testimonials contained in the attached document, in which people from across Ontario and many other parts of Canada explain the difference basic income could mean for them and/or their loved ones (and note how some of the writers mention suicide in the context of their desperation). For further and very good introductory information about basic income, I also recommend to you Basic Income Canada Network’s Basic Income primer series.
Sincerely,
Rob Rainer
Basic Income Advocate
Tay Valley Township, Lanark County
by Kate McFarland | Aug 7, 2018 | News
Photo: Stormy weather in Ontario, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Jeff S. PhotoArt
Ontario’s guaranteed income pilot has been ended nearly two years early, prompting researchers and advisors who contributed the project to speak out.
On Tuesday, July 31, Ontario’s recently elected Progressive Conservative (PC) government announced the cancellation of the province’s guaranteed income experiment, reneging on a statement made during the campaign that the PC would see the three-year experiment through to its end if elected to form the new government.
The abrupt and unexpected announcement stirred the ire of politicians, anti-poverty advocates, and, not least, program participants themselves. Nonetheless, Lisa MacLeod, who presented the news at a press conference in her capacity as Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, has held her ground, dismissing claims that the PC broke a campaign promise as “fake news” since the party never included a commitment to the experiment in its campaign platform. Her words, however, have left many unappeased and continuing to fight to save the project.
Those who have spoken out again this decision of the PC government’s include several individuals involved with the implementation of the experiment, such as project advisors Hugh Segal and Kwame McKenzie, and at least one researcher who spoke to the press anonymously out of concern for confidentiality.
Former Canadian Senator Hon. Hugh Segal
The Honourable Hugh Segal, former Canadian Senator of the Conservative Party, was appointed as Special Advisor on Basic Income by Ontario’s Liberal government during the project’s initial planning stages. In this role, Segal authored the comprehensive discussion paper (“Finding a Better Way: A Basic Income Pilot Project for Ontario“) that laid the groundwork for the design and implementation of the experiment.
When MacLeod announced the pilot’s early termination, Segal responded with a scathing opinion column in The Globe and Mail, in which he foregrounds the issue of fairness to participants: “These people believed the promise that they would not end up worse off for signing up for the pilot project. They have now been let down badly.”
“[W]hen a party gives its word – as then-Official Opposition leader Patrick Brown gave me in 2016 and PC Party Leader Doug Ford echoed through his spokesperson during the 2018 election campaign – that it would let the pilot project go forward before judging the results […] , this assurance influenced those signing up.”
Segal also addresses the assertion of MacLeod and PC government that the experiment was too expensive to continue: “Looking at the cost of the pilot project is fair enough – but frankly, simplistic. We know that poverty is a perfect predictor of poor health and early hospitalization, bad educational outcomes, substance abuse and problems with the police – all of which cost Ontario billions.”
Drawing a connection to Premier Ford’s key policy goal of ending so-called “hallway health care” (hospital facilities so inadequate that patients must be treated and housed in corridors), Segal additionally speculates that a guaranteed income could lower hospitalization rates as low-income individuals begin “eating better, living more balanced lives and making progress in work, education and family.” He laments that “we will now never know” whether the policy would have had such predicted positive effects on health outcomes.
Dr. Kwame McKenzie
Dr. Kwame McKenzie, psychiatrist and CEO of the Wellesley Institute, had been named Special Advisor to the Ontario Basic Income Pilot by the previous provincial government. Like Segal, McKenzie is now concerned about the effect of the experiment’s cancellation on those currently enrolled in it. The psychiatrist tweeted on August 1, the day after the experiment was cancelled, that he “woke this morning more worried about the health impacts on participants. This is a high risk situation.”
McKenzie spoke to CBC Radio about his concerns, emphasizing that participants currently face a “difficult and stressful time” which could lead to many and severe possible physiological consequences. He noted that many of those who enrolled in the pilot have made “life-changing decisions” founded on the belief that they would have a three-year guaranteed income, and argued that they now need both adequate financial support (he recommended at least a year to wind down the project) and personal support in making new decisions.
Also like Segal, McKenzie believes that a guaranteed income could have promoted key objectives of the PC government. He stressed, for example, its potential to result in better jobs for low-income people. Asked by CBC about MacLeod’s work-focused approach to welfare, McKenzie stated that he agrees that “good jobs is a great health intervention” (while cautioning that bad jobs tend to worsen health). He went on, however, to explain that a guaranteed income might have offered a effective means to achieve this goal, bemoaning “Now I guess we’ll never know.”
Speaking anonymously to CBC, another researcher on the experiment’s academic team more directly addressed MacLeod’s allegation that the pilot project is not working: “There’s no conceivable way that they were told the project wasn’t working. We just don’t have any data to know whether it was working or not.”
The researcher acknowledged that individual recipients have gone to the media with stories that are “very positive” but underlined the fact that these reports might not be representative: “[T]he whole point of our project was to just stand back from all the stories people are telling and try to look at the data in a reasonably scientific way.”
If the experiment had continued as planned, the research group was expected to evaluate outcomes in many areas — potentially including, among others, food security, stress and anxiety, healthcare usage, housing stability, education, and employment — comparing data gathered from the 4,000 guaranteed income recipients to that collected from a control group.
Results had been expected to be reported to the public in 2020.
by Kate McFarland | Aug 2, 2018 | News
Photo: Ontario Premier Doug Ford (CC BY-SA 2.0 Bruce Reeve)
The experiment, which has been providing 4,000 low-income Ontarians a guaranteed annual income of C$16,989 for single individuals and C$24,027 for couples, had been launched in April 2017 and originally slated to continue for three years.
Lisa MacLeod, Minister of Children, Community and Social Services, announced the project’s cancellation during a press conference on the recently elected government’s plan to address poverty and reform social assistance (video below).
Her spoken remarks were accompanied by a News Release and Backgrounder from the Government of Ontario Newsroom.
The experiment had been created and launched under the province’s previous government, led by Premier Kathleen Wynne and the center-left Ontario Liberal Party. On June 7, 2018, the Progressive Conservative (PC) Party emerged as victors in Ontario’s general election, with Doug Ford as new Premier.
However, despite the government’s shift to the right, there was no initial anticipation that the guaranteed income experiment would be cancelled after the Ford government assumed control on June 29.
On the contrary, as recently as April, a spokesperson had told reporters at The Star that the PC Party would continue the guaranteed income pilot. In an article dated April 24, the Toronto-based newspaper states that party spokesperson Melissa Lantsman replied, “Nope, as mentioned we look forward to seeing the results,” when asked if a PC government would “kill the innovative experiment.”
At Tuesday’s press conference, however, MacLeod unexpectedly announced that the provincial government has established a 100-day deadline to develop a “sustainable social assistance program that focuses on helping people lift themselves out of poverty,” which is to focus on the reintegration into to the workforce of those who are able to work.
After castigating the preceding Liberal government for creating a “mess” and “patchwork system” of programs, MacLeod stated, “We are also going to wind down the Ontario basic income research project, which is clearly not the answer for Ontario families.”
In another controversial announcement, MacLeod declared that the government would increase support to those who enrolled in the province’s existing social assistance and disability programs, Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program, by 1.5 percent — in contrast to the 3 percent promised by the previous government.
Following her prepared remarks, the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services fielded questions on the government’s decision to discontinue the guaranteed income trial. When pressed to provide data or specific examples to corroborate her claim that the piloted program is “clearly not the answer” for poverty in Ontario, she offered no details, stating only that the pilot is “not doing what it’s intended to do,” “quite expensive,” and “for the amount it was costing … certainly not going to be sustainable.”
Similarly, initial announcements released on the Government of Ontario Newsroom said only that the Ministry will be “winding down” the research project “in order to focus resources on more proven approaches,” and that “three-year study of no-strings attached payments is not the answer Ontario families need.”
MacLeod initially divulged no details concerning how or when the project will be terminated, stating only that she wanted “to assure Ontarians on the pilot project right now that we will do it ethically.” On the following day, however, a news report from the Canadian Press noted that experimental participants “received an email Wednesday saying their payments would continue through August but got no further details about how the project would be phased out.”
MacLeod has defended the government’s decision to cancel the pilot in the face of opposition and dismay from anti-poverty advocates, other Ontarian politicians (including the leaders of the left New Democratic Party and Green Party), and the program’s beneficiaries (see, e.g., CBC, HuffPost Canada, and The Lindsay Advocate, the local newspaper of one of the experiment’s major test sites).
On the day following the announcement, she told the press that the program was “a disincentive to get people back on track” and failed to help beneficiaries become “independent contributors to the economy,” adding, “When you’re encouraging people to accept money without strings attached, it really doesn’t send the message that I think our ministry and our government wants to send. We want to get people back on track and be productive members of society where that’s possible.”
With nearly two years of the trial remaining, no results of the experiment had yet been formally analyzed. However, some participants, such as members of Hamilton’s Living Proof, had voluntarily shared personal anecdotes about how the guaranteed income program was improving their lives.
Not Really a “Basic Income” Pilot
The amount of the payments to experimental participants was conditional on household status (couples receive less than single individuals living apart) as well as income (the amount of the benefit is reduced at the rate of 50% of additional earned income). For these reasons, the program being tested in Ontario was not technically a basic income as defined by BIEN. As Karl Widerquist has recently pointed out, it is more aptly described as a negative income tax.
However, the project has standardly been called a “basic income” experiment by the Government of Ontario, and the Basic Income Canada Network, BIEN’s Canadian affiliate, has accepted the usage; for example, the latter convened the 2018 North American Basic Income Guarantee Congress at Hamilton, Ontario, one of the experiment’s test sites, and invited participants and researchers as featured speakers. In general, the basic income community has taken a keen interest in the experiment, and one not borne out of mere terminological confusion; even if not a basic income strictly speaking, the piloted program eliminated many conditionalities central to most welfare programs in Canada and other developed nations, such as the requirement to work or look for work.
Correspondingly, basic income advocates have reacted vociferously to the sudden and unexpected announcement of the project’s premature demise. Roderick Benns, one of Canada’s leading journalists on the topic, has summarized the decision as “ideologically driven,” “mean-spirited,” and “wrong.” The US-based Economic Security Project, which is currently funding the development of a basic income trial in California, also responded quickly to the announcement with a blog entry condemning the move as “short-sighted and irresponsible,” undermining promising research as well as hurting the lives of the program’s recipients.
Really a Premature End
Earlier in the year, news media inaccurately reported that the Government of Finland was also about to pull the plug on its two-year basic income experiment launched at the beginning of 2017. In this case, however, the government had announced only that it would not fund any extension or expansion of the project beyond this initial two-year trial, prompting the government body responsible running the experiment to issue a clarificatory statement.
While the announcement from Finland was a disappointment for those researchers and advocates who had hoped for an expansion of the experiment, the Finnish experiment will be completed and analyzed as originally planned. In contrast, the Ontario government does intend what had earlier been feared in Finland: the premature termination of its experiment as early as this month.
More Information
Official news releases from the Government of Ontario can be followed and accessed here: https://news.ontario.ca/newsroom/en.
The previous provincial government’s official website on the pilot study is still available “for archival and research purposes” here: https://www.ontario.ca/page/ontario-basic-income-pilot.
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Reviewed by Dawn Howard
![Wayne Lewchulk: “We could use [basic income] as an opportunity to discover the potential of humans”](https://i0.wp.com/basicincome.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/B88239635Z.1_20180618205505_000_GPK7LDBK.3-0_Super_Portrait.jpg?resize=1%2C1&ssl=1)
by Andre Coelho | Jul 2, 2018 | News
Wayne Lewchulk. Picture credit to: The Halmilton Spectator
“This isn’t your grandparents’ labour market”. Wayne Lewchulk, a professor at the McMaster University and specialist in labour markets, precarious employment and health, says it crystal clear on an interview given on May 24th 2018.
Lewchulk, who has been teaching labour issues for more than 35 years, is completely aware that his stable job as a professor at McMaster is becoming the exception, rather than the norm. This is aligned with the line of reasoning professor and writer Guy Standing also advocates in his latest book on the subject. As a Canadian, and resident in Hamilton, Ontario, he is a co-founder of the Poverty and Economic Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) project, which joints with the McMaster University and more than other 30 universities, community organizations, labour unions, government and media outlets, to advance research and policy debate around labour and particularly precarious employment.
Lewchulk has also helped to organize the latest North America Basic Income Guarantee Congress, this year hosted at McMaster University. He has also been influential at the Ontario Basic Income pilot project, as a member of the evaluation panel. Even though this pilot project is not quite a basic income as far as the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN) definition goes, it may still be an important step towards a real implementation in Canada.
Despite a rise in employment in the last decade, in Canada, this has been mostly for part-time, Uber and Mechanical Turk style kind of employment. These forms of employment, Lewchulk explains, are very insecure, limiting workers ability to “form relationships or settle in one spot, let alone buy a house”. That also means lack of labour benefits, which can mean less health-related coverage. More employment with less money will also mean less opportunities for children, since parents cannot afford development activities for them. Moreover, expenses with gaining qualifications and learning throughout life also diminish. Capital and business owners have been, successfully, passing on labour costs to workers themselves, as technology and economic change agitate and deteriorate working conditions worldwide.
Asked about technological disruption, however, Wayne Lewchulk remains optimistic: “I think it’d be fantastic to have machinery doing a lot of the things we do, so we could focus on the things that we let fall by the wayside right now: being good to each other; creating art; spending time with our families”. According to him, basic income can be a powerful instrument to attain this goal, “but we have to figure out how to pay for it”.
More information at:
Sonia Verma, “This isn’t your grandparents’ job market”, McMaster University Brighter World, May 24th 2018
Guy Standing, “The Precariat – The new dangerous class”, Bloomsburry Ed. 2011
Sara Bizarro, “Canada: NABIG Congress 2018 in Hamilton, Ontario”, Basic Income News, June 6th 2018
André Coelho, “CANADA: Quebec is implementing a means-tested benefit, not a basic income”, Basic Income News, January 24th 2018
