This is the second of three posts on the topic of basic income...a vital piece of the Just Transition Framework. Please, if you can, spend a few minutes engaging with this thoughtful report...and consider how basic income might improve your life or the life of a friend or neighbour.
On Wed. Nov. 22nd, 2023 PEI made history with release of a landmark paper on Basic Income.
This wonderfully collaborative effort was the result of many, many volunteer hours by amazingly devoted and diverse specialists from PEI as well as from across Canada, including PEI Working Group on Livable Income's Marie Burge. Thanks to the report, with its concentrated focus on the nuts and bolts of what a 5-7 year Guaranteed Basic Income demonstration project could look like here on PEI, Islanders (and all Canadians) can get a better feel for how a basic income demonstration rollout could happen.
We estimate that this proposed GBI benefit would put Prince Edward Island on a path to meet its poverty reduction targets [and] can be fully financed while ensuring that most PEI taxpayers are better off. https://www.gbireport.ca/executive-summary
As you can imagine, this is an exciting and critical step towards potentially getting basic income off the ground here! In these dark days we are collectively living, a basic income could be the light at the end of the tunnel for so many people who are currently struggling with poverty.
As well, other national basic income advocates are still working hard to make the voices of everyday Canadians heard on this vital topic. Leadnow is currently requesting that those of us who are able, take a few minutes to share how the cost of living crisis is affecting us and our communities as well as how our lives might be improved by the implementation of a basic income program.
This is a fabulous chance to have our voices heard. Tomorrow I will share my responses here!
Last June, the amazing Senator Kim Pate said that our Senators will read every story that comes across their desks and that PERSONAL STORIES are the MOST POWERFUL!
Click below to tell Senate how a basic income could help YOU or someone you care about:
And please take a few minutes to check out the guaranteed basic income report released last week. Section 9.1 (p.25-26) makes several good points on GBI and disability, one of which is:
"The implementation of the GBI cannot replace targeted essential programs like
AccessAbility Supports, which provide disability-specific in-kind social supports; therefore, these programs need to remain in place alongside the introduction of any GBI program."
As phenomenal, longtime basic income advocate, Marie Burge of the PEI Working Group on Livable Income (PEIWGLI) said in her rousing speech at the media release of the report..." We will have our work cut out for us as advocates, to correct and perfect the program, should it be implemented here on PEI." Of course she thinks this would be a good problem to have!
A very important document and one critical step closer to a demonstration project on PEI!
In sum, this proposal provides a roadmap for a feasible GBI for Islanders aged 18 to 64. Together with the Canada Child Benefit, the Old Age Security (OAS)/Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS) and the new Canada Disability Benefit reintroduced in the legislature by the Government of Canada, this proposed GBI has the potential to create an Island without poverty, paving the way for a Canada without poverty. https://www.gbireport.ca/executive-summary
Thanks for your time,
In hope!
Jill
* a version of this was first published on PEI Autistic Adults blog.