A poll conducted by Global News revealed that 86 per cent of Canadians agreed that the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) has done a good job of preventing financial disaster for many Canadians.
The unprecedented level of national accord surrounding CERB brings forth suggestions of a Canadian Universal Basic Income (UBI).
UBI is an umbrella term that envelopes several social welfare systems that typically operate as a monetary benefit delivered unconditionally to all national residents.
Variations of the system operate under the terms ‘guaranteed minimum income,’ ‘negative tax income’, and ‘basic income.’ Some UBI systems include qualifiers and maximum earning limits that complicate the definition, but all effectively function as cash payouts.
International ventures into UBIs have seen great success, with the Bolsa Familia project in Brazil being the most notable. In 2011, 50 million program participants received cash transfers of variable amounts depending on the number of individuals in a household.
In turn, recipients delivered on promises to vaccinate their children and increased youth school attendance. To break the cycle of intergenerational poverty through both short-term living improvements and long-term investment in youth, the Bolsa project expended little more than 0.5 per cent of the Brazilian GDP and was responsible for 28 per cent of the total poverty reduction in the nation.
The Brazilian model of UBI informed many similar policy decisions in countries such as Peru, Kenya, Honduras and other nations with high poverty rates. However, with the introduction of a new populist government in Brazil as of June 2019, the Bolsa Família project began to fizzle out. Fewer families are being accepted into the program, and more are falling back below the poverty line—mirroring Canada’s own ventures into UBI.
The four-year ‘Mincome’ project in Dauphin, Manitoba in the 1970s and the short-lived Ontario Basic Income Pilot in 2016 both adopted similar principles to the Brazilian model. Both provinces dealt out variable monthly payments for families falling under a determined minimum income. The money came with no expectations of social duties, unlike in the Bolsa project.
The results of both projects were overwhelmingly positive. In the prairies, families receiving a guaranteed annual income of $16,000 reported living healthier lives. Concerns about work disincentives were also squashed in experiments—the ‘Mincome’ project showed stable employment rates in addition to an 8.5 per cent decrease in hospitalizations.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford cited financial concerns as his primary reason for shutting down Ontario’s project in 2019, reflecting a common concern with UBI programs and why a UBI is not something Canadians should be expecting anytime soon.
Work disincentives and budget talks are weak defences for why UBI can’t work in Canada.
Funding concerns regarding budgets and increased national deficits are not unfounded nor completely irrelevant. However, these are trivial matters that can be offset by making critical decisions about the efficacy of current welfare programs. By reflecting upon where we can afford to make sacrifices through cutting programs that would overlap with UBI, concerns about an increased national deficit could be easily resolved.
A social welfare overhaul would be critical in implementing a UBI, and identifying overlaps in funding and rating the efficacy of national programs could create pockets for a UBI to be introduced. Funding via carbon and data taxes could bolster the program, and increased taxes on the top one per cent have been suggested to Parliament, but these suggestions have been pushed aside by Ford’s government in favour of sticking with the status quo.
The only apparent disadvantage to a well-planned, thorough execution of a UBI is the laborious fund shuffle that will involve terminating current social welfare programs in favour of a UBI.
However, extending the current platform created by CERB provides an easier transition towards a complete UBI that would prevent Canadians who rely on existing social welfare programs from being completely on their own.
If that’s all it really takes, I think it’s a cost most Canadians should be able to bear.
Although it’s time-consuming and involves tedious work, a welfare overhaul would create a window for UBI to emerge, which would ultimately be worth the period of financial instability that would arise from scrapping current programs.
Change requires breaking apart old habits and building new ones. UBI opponents fear the process, not the result.
CERB created the ideal platform and capacity to introduce a Canadian UBI. Allowing the infrastructure to dissipate would be a waste of more of those precious funds that opponents of UBI so fervently protect.
UBIs reduce burdens on medical systems and improve both the physical and mental well-being of all participants—a worthy investment into the lives of Canadians. Increased life security and lower stress on earnings allows for diversification of work and increased opportunities to pursue higher education, more independent business ventures, and other benefits that improve the Canadian social structure.
In 2018, 3.2 million Canadians lived below the poverty line. Eight million people applied so far for CERB. We can make the leap, but the daunting weight of change is holding us down.
The status quo is easy, and it isn’t completely failing Canadians yet, so there’s no real pressure for reform. However, 3.4 million Canadians could benefit from a long-term program that is currently being supplied to more than twice that number through the temporary CERB.
Change needs to be built into the fabric of the social welfare system concretely, in order to avoid similar endings like that of the Bolsa project. A Canadian UBI would require sound political and financial entrenchment to ensure longevity. These conditions are only possible through active and determined political backing for the project.
Featured graphic by Sara Mizannojehdehi.
