The North a great place for basic income pilot.

• Author: Cirtwill, Charles
• Position: Think Tank

There was a bit of a surprise present for policy wonks in the recent provincial budget. The province committed to launching a basic income pilot project in Ontario. The core idea is fairly simple. Everyone in a community would be guaranteed some basic amount of money upon which to live.

The devil, as always, is in the detail. The concept of basic income goes by many different names. Negative income tax, universal basic income, guaranteed annual income, for a start. They variously involve direct transfers to everyone, to families, or to some subgroup of everyone (usually working age adults). These models are also "funded" through differing means: administrative savings (terminating existing support programs and laying off/reassigning their staffs), increased taxes, lower costs in other areas (health and justice being the two biggest areas for savings when people have hope and can build for a future).

You can also achieve a basic minimum income not just through lower taxes and direct transfers but also by including personal income, whether from retirement savings or employment. In fact, it could be argued that between the Canada Pension Plan, the tax system, Old Age Security pension and the Guaranteed Income Supplement, we have a minimum income in place for seniors in Canada. Similarly, something akin to a negative income tax could be achieved through an enhanced working income tax benefit.

Hence the need for more pilots, so that the alternative models can be tested in the real world. I say more, because in the late 1970s, Canada actually piloted a guaranteed annual income in Dauphin, Man. The findings from that pilot are good enough that governments at all levels are talking about the idea again. This revised interest in a basic income is mirrored around the globe. Finland, Sweden, Switzerland and Nigeria have recently joined the growing list of countries and communities at least prepared to experiment with the approach.

If Ontario is going to join this list, a strong case can be made that they should pilot the idea here in the North. One reason is cost. A basic income is expensive, more expensive depending on the income level set. Dauphin is about 8,000 people. Which made the pilot manageable.

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