A Response Letter to Human Rights Advocate Josephine Grey on Basic Income

Please note: this post is the first of three (1/3) different but connected posts on the need for a more caring world and the real potential Basic Income holds to help us achieve this. I will do a post a day over the next couple of days and then I will give it a break for a bit...thanks for taking the time to read if you are so inclined and/or able.

Dear Josephine, Sunday, Nov. 26/23

I have just read *your paper on Women, BIG and Climate Resilience for the second time since you sent it. I had to reread it today as when I first read it over last eve I got emotional due to the high resonance with my own beliefs, interests and desires. Thank you, Josephine!

As well, it threw me back to my university days (25 yrs ago) when, as a student in Black History in the Americas, I did a paper on colonialism, capitalism and women of the Caribbean. (My dad's great-grandma was a member of PEI's early black community). A lot of water under the bridge since those days in my own history when my prof wanted me to work for the UN and instead I got married, had three kids and became a homeschooler.

Here I am now, feeling so hopeful after reading your very articulate and passionate plea for the changes necessary for women to reclaim their power and bring prosperity, peace and healing back to their families, to their communities and to each other and the hurting earth.

I agree wholeheartedly that basic income is fundamental to the support women need to build the resilience required to mitigate further climate harm and to adapt to an already very changed and still rapidly changing, world.

That we can create system change utilizing a human rights framework is an exhilarating thought!

That the right to a livable world is a basic human right which cannot be realized under the death grip of the neoliberal agenda is such a vital point.

Basic Income Now!

We cannot make the eco/climate changes that are urgently needed without the benefit of first having basic needs met. Everyone is too exhausted// crushed by the system itself and especially women (and especially women who are members of the BIPOC and/or LGBTQ2+ communities to which I would also add the disability community).

The pain of intersectionality is real and the need to do as Naisha Khan says, and center marginalized persons, is critical. Doing so, we can all become more equal participants in the change and healing which are both urgently necessary and very possible.

As you so clearly state, the dominant narrative has been a powerful silencer for far too long. BIG is a means of centering and elevating those voices which we need centered for sustainable processes of reconciliation to occur and to correct the dominant culture of their "historical amnesia".

So many people are suffering and the thought to me that MAiD may be extended to persons with mental illness in the near future (March 2024) only hastens the urgency of getting a national basic income project on the table and into the hands of those in greatest need.

The horrible devastation of climate crises and their cascading effects on food security and housing are terrifying. It is so easy to be given to despair. People need to see that goodness is still possible for hope to be anything beyond a pinprick of brightness. Basic income can fan the flame of hope in our collective hearts and from this less othering will occur!

This afternoon I attended an annual lecture in memory of my granduncle who was murdered in Nicaragua while living there and helping locals set up co-operatives in the early 1990's. The lecture was by an immigrant priest living and working in PEI named Fr John Molina. He is from Columbia and was speaking about the structures at the root of the ongoing conflicts there.

He welcomed us to consider the parallels between the conflict there (with its roots in colonialism, capitalism and patriarchy) and the challenges people here are living today...lack of adequate housing, food insecurity, land grabs, inability to access timely and appropriate health care and on and on.

He spoke about how the responses need to be coordinated so that they are not addressed in silos and he referenced my friend Marie Burge's role in the report released on basic income with all the potential it holds for addressing myriad challenges by facing the fact that a lack of a stable income puts one at risk for so many poor outcomes.

As well, he briefly discussed that one of the more hopeful things going on in Columbia, at present, is that there are microloans available to farmers and small business operators, (largely women) growing fruit and making preserves, crafts and such, to sell in order to support their families and communities in the midst of unbelievable hardship and fear.

Clearly I could go on and on. Your words are beacons for the wavering hope and possibility in my heart to perch on!

Thank you once again for sharing this! It is such an important welcoming to further dialogue that it makes me wonder if I might share it with our local working group on Livable Income? They are hoping to have study groups form this winter to hash out the GBI report I sent you so that more people can push for basic income here.

ps...When I read your report I was struck by the question why aren't we all using the human rights angle when talking to gov't about basic income...esp in a country like Canada...where it seems like it is still somewhat possible to have such conversations and be taken seriously.

It also made me think of something I read in a recent article called The End of Retirement (The Walrus) which also equates human worth with productivity...Arggh! That measures such as the one quoted below (and the one you mention in the opening of your article) are still in use is shocking and should not be occurring in this day and age.

A metric called the dependency ratio calculates the proportion of the people not in the workforce who are “dependent” on those of working age. According to Statistics Canada, dependents are aged zero to nineteen and sixty-five and over. Productives are twenty to sixty-four. The international tool is often cited by government and business and has been a driver of pension-reform debates around the world.

The language we use matters and so much has been eroded by allowing language to form a culture of devaluation of women's work. We must reclaim and share our value and our voices, everyone! Here's to basic income as a means of making women heard in an age of neoliberal, patriarchy and colonial silencing and in the midst of eco-chaos and increasing global instability!

In Peace,

Jill

*Anyone interested in reading the article referenced here which Josephine Grey authored can contact me for a copy! She has given me permission to share with those interested~

Please note: Statement on upcoming changes to Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) law Jun 22, 2023

From the CMHA statement:

The Canadian Mental Health Association makes this statement in anticipation of a legislative change expected in March 2024 that will allow people to qualify for Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) when mental illness is the sole underlying condition. Considering the Final Report from the Expert Panel on MAiD and Mental Illness1, CMHA is focused on ensuring that all people with a mental illness have the conditions they need to recover, and the care they need to be well. This includes housing, food, income, and wrap-around health supports.

and

The human rights of people with a mental illness are fundamental, including their rights to dignity, self-determination and bodily autonomy. Canada is failing to meet its human rights obligations when people with a mental illness cannot receive the programs, supports and resources they need to be well and live with dignity. The federal government has an obligation to ensure that a person has all of the resources they need to live. An absence of affordable housing, income supports and/or food security must not be the reason someone chooses MAiD.