When the Ontario government announced on July 31 that they were “winding down” the Ontario basic income pilot program, Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod admitted it: Premier Doug Ford’s government broke a campaign promise. A spokesperson for Ford’s team had said on the campaign trail that the program would continue to its scheduled conclusion in March 2019 under a Conservative government, and that Ford was “looking forward to seeing the results.”
But no results have been or will be seen. MacLeod said that Ford’s government decided to end the program because it is failing to help people become individual contributors to the economy. However, an unnamed member of the pilot’s research team told the CBC that making such judgments is impossible, because no data has been collected to show whether the program was working or not.
With the basic income program, eligible individuals receive a regular sum of money from the government regardless of employment status, to ensure a minimum income level.
The cancellation of Ontario’s basic income pilot is not just another run-of-the-mill broken promise. The $150 million program was launched in 2017 under Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government. The pilot program was designed to determine how a basic income “might help those living on a low income better meet their basic needs.” It aimed to measure how basic income would impact food security, stress and anxiety, housing stability, and education, among other things.
Individuals participating in the program had to meet stringent requirements set by the government, and were living under the assumption that the experimental program would continue for three years before coming to a conclusion. The participants of the program, some of the most economically vulnerable people in Canada, made significant changes in their lives to comply with the requirements of the pilot. Many of these changes would not be sustainable without the government’s payments.
According to a class action lawsuit filed on behalf of the program participants, leases were signed and financial commitments were made under the assumption that the program would continue. By going back on his promise, Ford has pulled the rug out from under the members of the program, leaving some of them, according to the lawsuit, worse off than before.
MacLeod stated that over 25 per cent of those participating in the program have either dropped out or failed to meet obligations. But this figure does not merit the cancellation of the program. The $150 million being spent on the basic income pilot is a tiny drop in the bucket of Ontario’s total spending, and some experts say basic income programs can actually have economic benefits down the road.
Axing the program does very little to alleviate Ontario’s financial hardships, and at a massive cost to those relying on the program for their wellbeing. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath is correct in saying that the cuts are “bullying the most vulnerable people in our province.”
Furthermore, the pilot was not designed to be an easily scalable model for all of Ontario. Rather, it was implemented as a fact-finding mission. By cancelling it so prematurely, the Ford government is not only breaking a promise and creating significant instability for some of Ontario’s most vulnerable people, but they’re also making sure that every dollar already spent on the pilot’s implementation was spent in vain.
It’s hard to see the decision to cancel the basic income pilot as anything other than the natural progression of Doug Ford’s disrespect for the voter and the taxpayer.
By refusing to release a costed platform before election day—instead promising to reduce government spending through the elimination of “inefficiencies,” rather than cuts—Ford implied that you and I are either too careless or too stupid to worry about exactly how our tax dollars are spent. Now, as he makes cuts he promised not to make and axes programs he promised not to axe, I’m left wondering if he ever really had a plan in the first place.
Maybe the inefficiencies haven’t been so easy to find after all.
