On Ontario’s cancellation of its basic income pilot

Over the last week, I have been following the news that Ontario has decided to cancel its basic income pilot, only one year into what was supposed to be a 3-year project.

I am saddened by the decision made by the government of Ontario, for a number of reasons.

I was, of course, looking forward to learning from Ontario’s pilot project, which would have provided a wealth of evidence about the effects of basic income. Ontario was leading the country in assessing the impacts of this policy, and their project was being watched around the world. They were tracking changes in employment, health, education, food security and housing, as well as community-level effects in Lindsay, with independent assessment by university researchers.

Before Ontario, the last pilot in Canada took place in Dauphin, Manitoba, over 40 years ago. This pilot illustrated some very promising results: in just 3 years, hospital visits were reduced by 8.5%.
Researchers attributed this marked decrease to lower levels of stress in low income families, which resulted in lower rates of alcohol and drug use, lower levels of domestic abuse, fewer car accidents, and lower levels of hospitalization for mental health issues.

In deciding to cancel the pilot, Ontario, and our whole country, has lost a significant opportunity to learn about the effects of basic income and to be on the leading edge of exploring this policy.

But what has struck me the most in the last week since the news of cancellation are the individual stories coming out of Ontario, from those enrolled in the pilot, whose lives are deeply affected by this decision.

So many stories have highlighted how people’s lives changed once they began receiving basic income. These stories have highlighted, too, the substantial human cost to cancelling this pilot part way through, when thousands of people had made plans and decisions on what they thought was stable ground.

Some participants in the pilot decided to attend college for the first time, or returned to school, to pick up the skills needed for meaningful employment or to start a new career. Others began living independently, or found secure accommodation for the first time. For some, it was the newfound ability to afford healthy food and other small things to improve the quality of their lives, and the lives of their children. Others used the income to pay down long-standing debts.

Many spoke about the reduced stress they felt, the ability to plan into the future instead of worrying only about the day-to-day, and a feeling of greater independence and dignity.

Many participants in the program were working, but still couldn’t afford the necessities of life and make ends meet.

One individual who was part of the pilot wrote to me highlighting the impact that basic income had on him and his family. Despite both working, he and his wife had amassed a significant amount of debt, which they struggled to pay off as they tried to provide for their children. The program, he said, was allowing them to pay down their debt and do more with their children. Most importantly, he said, he could finally see the light at the end of the tunnel to better days, for him and his children.

In his words, “this program … gave people that really needed hope a lot of hope for a brighter future.”

These individual stories speak to the promise I believe basic income holds – as a better way to support people as they navigate the economic challenges of the 21st century. Recent years have seen disproportionate increases in part-time and contract work. Wages have stagnated while the cost of living in our cities has spiralled out of control. Meanwhile, studies estimate that half of Canadian jobs could be impacted by automation in the next decade alone. We proposed exploring basic income in B.C. because we believe that government needs to have a plan for the changes on the horizon.

The experiences of people in Ontario has made me see even more strongly the need to do serious work exploring this policy. I have previously written a four part series (Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV) outlining why I think basic income is an idea that we need to explore in BC. Establishing a pilot project formed a key aspect of the Income Security component of our BC Green 2017 election platform.

We’re forging ahead in BC with our expert committee, an expert panel comprising three distinguished researcher that launched last month and is studying how basic income could work in BC. This committee is the first step towards fulfilling a government commitment under CASA to pilot basic income in BC.  I am hopeful that the committee’s work will provide the evidence that governments need to decide how to proceed – not only here in BC, but across Canada.

In this time of change, as we grapple with the challenges we face today and on the horizon, policymakers have a responsibility to plan for the future, and to make decisions that will give their citizens the best possible chance to pursue their dreams and to achieve success. In a country as wealthy and as compassionate as ours, that’s the goal our leaders should be working towards.