Sen. Art Eggleton came to Calgary recently seeking to build support for a basic income pilot project.

Basic income, also known as a guaranteed annual income, would ensure Canadians have enough income to meet basic needs and avoid the stigma associated with receiving welfare.

Eggleton told an audience of about 150 at Calgary’s Central Public Library that one in seven Canadians live below the poverty line, and their situation creates an estimated $30 billion in costs associated with health care needs, social assistance and criminal justice needs. The same estimates place the price-tag for basic income at about $12 billion. Therefore, Eggleton argued, a basic income program could be a wiser, more beneficial use of public funds.

The July 28 event was hosted by Social Workers for Social Justice, Poverty Talks and Vibrant Communities Calgary.

Eggleton, who was Toronto’s longest-serving mayor, has become a champion for a national pilot program that would test the effectiveness of basic income. He chairs the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, which produced a 2009 report, In From The Margins: A Call To Action On Poverty, Housing and Homelessness (pdf). Eggleton told the audience that the report found the amounts of income provided [through public sources] are inadequate and unreliable, and the supports too often entangle people in programs and policies that make escape almost impossible.

The report describes a “welfare wall” – a “subtle form of micro-colonialism of poor people by the state, disempowering them and deterring them from acting to improve their lives.”

Under the Constitution, the provinces are responsible for social welfare. The federal government finds itself involved as well, through Guaranteed Income Supplement (for low-income seniors), Working Income Tax Benefit, Employment Insurance, Universal Child Care Benefit, and the National Child Benefit Supplement.

There was an ongoing Canadian policy debate on guaranteed annual income (GAI) from 1968 to 1973. Manitoba’s NDP government ran an experimental GAI (referred to as ‘Mincome’) from 1975 to 1977. Qualified individuals in Dauphin, Man., were offered guaranteed incomes that amounted to $19,500 for a four-person household, with amounts varying by household size and income earnings. When the government changed in 1977 election, the program was eliminated.

The hasty dissolution of this experiment meant few conclusions could be drawn. It was, however, received relatively positively, because its framework is distinctly different from welfare systems.

In a paper entitled More Normal than Welfare: The Mincome Experiment, Stigma, and Community Experience, Dr. David Calnitsky writes: “Mincome did not single out groups to be treated in a manner that accentuated their separation from others. Participants avoided the special treatment of having their work and personal lives monitored and regulated… Yet the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor persists. The moral regulation of the poor is an enduring feature of social assistance.”

The Mincome experiment’s information pamphlet stated:

… A Basic Annual Income would be an efficient way of making sure that all Canadians have a reasonable and secure income, including those who are working. But both governments felt that more advance information was needed about what would happen if such a program came into being. To test this, a small-scale study has been set up.

This summer, the Government of Ontario announced it is moving forward with a basic income pilot. The province appointed Sen. Hugh Segal, (Deputy Chair on the 2009 Senate Report) to provide advice on the design and implementation of the pilot. According to Eggleton, Prince Edward Island and Quebec have voiced their own interest in a national pilot project, along with the mayors in Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, and Kingston.

Eggleton believes that Canada’s poverty rate requires more than the status quo to be adequately addressed. With the interest of the mayors of Alberta’s two largest cities, will the West join in to be part of pilot project?

Beth Miller is a research intern