Hon. Kim Pate moved second reading of Bill S-233, An Act to develop a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income.

She said: Honourable senators, more than 50 years ago, in the report of the 1971 Special Committee on Poverty, Senator Croll and his colleagues identified that “Poverty is the great social issue of our time.” They stated, “The poor do not choose poverty,” declaring it “our national shame,” and warning us:

No nation can achieve true greatness if it lacks the courage and determination to undertake the surgery necessary to remove the cancer of poverty from its body politic.

They noted that we continue to pour billions of dollars every year into social assistance schemes that have “treated the symptoms of poverty and left the disease itself untouched.”

This unanswered call to action focused on pressing issues of long-term well-being for Canadians and prescribed as an urgent priority a “Guaranteed Annual Income as the first firm step in the war against poverty.” The committee pressed for immediate action because it “felt the poor could not be asked to wait years for the help they so urgently need.”

Poverty is not inevitable, nor is it an individual failing. It is the result of government policy choices that fail to provide viable pathways out of poverty that abandon and leave people behind.

Poverty puts people’s safety, health and well-being at risk and undermines the values of equality, dignity and choice to which we collectively aspire. Poverty excludes people from contributing to their communities to their full potential in ways that impoverish all of us.

For these reasons, in terms of human, social, health and economic well-being, it is the cost of failing to address poverty, not the cost of support measures that Canada cannot afford.

As we approach the second anniversary of the pandemic, the need to revisit the Senate’s 50-year-old recommendation regarding guaranteed livable basic income is more urgent than ever.

Canada is reckoning with a COVID-19 toll of illness and of death indisputably shaped and defined by income inequality; and a status quo that has allowed billionaires to amass incredible wealth at a time when millions are struggling without the economic means to stay safe and healthy; and with pandemic response measures that have yet to reach those below the poverty line in a meaningful way, despite Canada’s stated intention of ensuring recovery for all.

Bill S-233 would respond by implementing a framework to make a guaranteed livable basic income a reality.

Canada’s current approach to poverty is leaving millions behind. According to the government’s own data, on the eve of this pandemic, at least 3.7 million people — that is 10% of Canadians — were struggling below the poverty line. Poverty rates are at least double that for persons with disabilities, racialized and First Nations peoples. Families headed by single mothers, and particularly by mothers living with a disability, are nearly three times more likely than average to be living in poverty. Indigenous children face poverty rates five times higher than the national average. Canada’s policies have left 53% — more than half — of children in Indigenous communities in poverty.

The pandemic exacerbated health and income inequality. During the first year of this unprecedented economic and health crisis, 47 Canadian billionaires increased their wealth by $78 billion. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and World Economic Forum document staggering increases in economic inequality around the world as a result of COVID-19. The pandemic has created a new billionaire every 26 hours and allowed the world’s 10 richest men to double their wealth.

While Canadian billionaires increased their wealth during the pandemic, too many of their companies cut or clawed back pandemic pay increases from their front-line workers.

Compensation for Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs increased to an average of $10.9 million per year. For 30 of these 100 CEOs, these incredible amounts were paid out as their companies applied for and received emergency wage supplement funding from the government.

In the meantime, Statistics Canada reports that low-income workers, particularly women and racialized persons, disproportionately lost jobs as a result of business closures. In Canada and around the world, women assumed additional unpaid care work, contributing a stunning $10.8 trillion to the global economy while impoverishing themselves.

COVID-19 spotlighted the vital work of caregivers in long-term care homes, too many of whom were in poverty at the start of the pandemic due to inadequate pay, or working multiple jobs in order to barely make ends meet. As the pandemic made it impossible to work at different care homes, too many were left to struggle, some with no housing options other than homeless shelters.

During the first year of the pandemic, 34% of African Canadians reported difficulties meeting basic household financial commitments, compared to 16% of non-racialized people. The household incomes of 31% of persons with disabilities decreased. As many as 54% of Indigenous peoples faced difficulties meeting their personal needs for shelter, food and protective equipment.

While measures like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit provided many with vitally needed economic relief, these individual supports were unavailable to anyone without $5,000 in income in the previous year. As a result, those most marginalized and most in need of assistance were left behind, abandoned to the pandemic with next to nothing in additional protections. Those who were poor stayed poor. Let us be very clear, dear colleagues, CERB did nothing for those who were poor before the pandemic and who became more vulnerable because of and during it.

The unconscionable consequences of Canada’s failure to address poverty and income inequality include starkly magnified, needless and cruel exposure of people to preventable health risks.

As Public Health Agency of Canada research brings into sharp relief, one of the most shameful realities of this pandemic is that the poorest Canadians are two times more likely than the richest to die of COVID-19.

Studies from around the world demonstrate a horrifically clear link between income and a person’s risk of dying of COVID-19. In fact, when it comes to predicting COVID-19 deaths, income inequality is a clearer and more determinative indicator than even a person’s age.

The situation is no different in Canada. Despite this country’s investments in medicare and in the belief that no one’s health should depend on their ability to pay, our eviscerated health and social care systems and economic inequality are killing people.

People are dying because they cannot afford space to physically distance or to stay safe when they are ill. Mortality rates were between 2.5 and 2.8 times higher for people living in apartments compared to those living in single, detached homes. Many of those at greatest risk for COVID live in multi-generational homes or with multiple roommates in order to be able to afford rent. The situation is infinitely worse for those in congregate settings, from long-term care homes to shelters to jails, and is all the more desperate for those on the streets with nowhere safe to turn.

People are dying because they cannot afford to stay home from work. Front-line workers are mostly low paid, with limited to no benefits, and working remotely is definitely not an option. Many have to take public transit to get to work.

One year into the pandemic, lower income, high immigrant, racialized and dense neighbourhoods have been hardest hit by COVID. For example, Scarborough, which accounts for about 5% of Ontario’s population, represented about 15% of the province’s COVID-19 cases. This reality is attributed in part to the number of people working multiple jobs in the most precarious forms of employment.

In this fifth wave of this pandemic, health professionals continue to describe “a tale of two pandemics,” one lived by those who can afford to better protect themselves and one by those who cannot. Too many below the poverty line cannot afford to buy masks or tests, or take time off work to get vaccines, or have the means to stock up on extra food or medications to avoid multiple trips to stores.

The pandemic has underscored the plight and policy imperative of meaningfully addressing the needs of low-income Canadians. Income is the number one UN Sustainable Development Goal and the primary social determinant of health for Canadians and globally. Compared to higher-income individuals, people living in poverty in Canada experience 11.3 fewer healthy years; 1.5 times the rate of infant mortality; 1.6 times the rate of unintentional injury mortality; 2.7 times the rate of suicide; 4.1 times the rate of self-reported poor mental health; 1.4 times the rate of asthma; two times the rate of diabetes; 1.9 times the rate of disability; 1.9 times the rate of smoking, and 1.7 times the rate of lung cancer.

Health consequences are not restricted to those below the poverty line. Many more, though not in poverty, are desperately trying to keep poverty at bay. Recent polling reveals that an unprecedented one in three Canadians — and one in two young Canadians — are struggling with their mental health. They are fatigued, frustrated and anxious as they navigate the inequality and instability of COVID-19. For those on the precipice, living without adequate economic, health and social safety nets takes a dangerous toll.

There is no possible excuse for our inaction. Despite the risk to individuals, to public health and to community well-being, Canada continues to leave people in poverty and at risk of poverty. This costs us between $72 billion and $86 billion per year, billions in preventable healthcare expenses alone. Previous investments in guaranteed livable basic income tell us that Bill S-233 has the ability to help change this.

In the 1970s, Manitoba’s basic income pilot resulted in an 8.5% reduction in hospitalizations and emergency healthcare costs. In Ontario’s basic income pilot, 79% of participants reported improvement in overall health; 82% reported improvements in mental health; 83% were better able to afford necessary medication; 74% were better able to afford dental care, and 50% were better able to afford psychotherapy. One third of participants with children reported improvements in their children’s health. Many reported having to use health services less often.

Bill S-233 and its sister, Bill C-223, lay the groundwork for significantly improving the health and well-being of Canadians. They would result in the Minister of Finance developing and advancing a framework, in consultation with Indigenous peoples and provincial, territorial and municipal governments, for implementing a national guaranteed livable basic income program. Such a program would provide direct amounts of income support sufficient to live on and would be accessible to anyone in Canada over the age of 17 below the poverty line.

As a recently released briefing paper by Dr. Jim Stanford reveals, the success of the CERB underscores both the feasibility and effectiveness of income security supports such as guaranteed livable basic income. Dr. Stanford also pointed out that despite rhetoric about the CERB and other income benefits disincentivizing work, aside from anecdotal, self-interested employer testimonials, there is a decided dearth of evidence to support such assertions. While some who were in precarious, part-time or gig work may have moved into more reliable work, leaving employers offering low wages or no benefits with some work shortage, the labour market is rebounding and arguably more robust, with labour force participation in late 2021 exceeding pre-pandemic peaks.

Rather, as many of our colleagues more acquainted than I with business practices have pointed out, like CERB, a basic income would allow workers to not be forced to choose between starvation or homelessness or working in dangerous conditions. This provides them a chance to decommodify their lives and resist employer demands that are unfair, unsafe or intolerable.

A guaranteed livable basic income should not result in clawbacks to other services or benefits individuals receive to meet exceptional needs related to health or disability, nor would it replace or remove the need for vital housing, social, health, education, labour and other programs and protections; rather, it would work to ensure that access to these measures and decision making about how best to care for oneself, one’s family and community are not undermined by lack of money to meet basic needs. Moreover, it could be constructed so as to incentivize training and labour enhancement by eliminating current policies that interfere with the ability of too many to rebound out of poverty.

Currently, those most marginalized spend whole days, years and even lives working to access a series of over-subscribed services like food banks and shelters, as well as income programs that offer too little while subjecting people to rigid, dehumanizing, and arbitrary conditions. As reported by the National Advisory Council on Poverty, the design, requirements and criteria of these programs too often make them particularly difficult for Indigenous peoples and other marginalized groups to access and out of touch with their needs and realities.

By navigating this demoralizing system day after day, a person may receive a bare minimum to help them to subsist. Such emphasis on minimum subsistence means that people are trapped at the margins, making impossible and unacceptable choices, for example, between food, medicine or shelter, not to mention constantly on the brink of urgent need and crisis.

In just one example brought to light by the research of Dr. Evelyn Forget, a single mother of two on social assistance had a plan to try to improve her employment prospects and lift herself out of poverty by taking job training. Because she was on social assistance, she required permission from a caseworker before she could do so. The otherwise supportive caseworker did not see the benefits of the woman’s plan, and so instead of supporting and encouraging her initiative, the woman was not allowed to explore a pathway that could have led her and her family out of poverty. In whose interests do we plunge people into and then keep them submerged in poverty?

The observations included in the 2021 report of the National Advisory Council on Poverty linked inadequate responses to poverty to the pernicious opinion that people in need are trying to abuse the system by accessing benefits. Through consultations, they heard that:

. . . programs design their eligibility criteria with a focus on keeping out the “cheaters.” Systems place responsibility on applicants to prove their disability repeatedly, even for lifelong conditions, including an emphasis on doctor-verified diagnoses. There is a perception that resources are carefully rationed and scrutinized to ensure that each qualifying recipient has “just enough” to survive.

In every province and territory, social assistance rates are wholly inadequate. They not only fall well below the poverty line, but they provide between 20% to 60% less than so-called deep poverty lines.

As summarized by one participant in the advisory council’s consultations, “You’re just trying to put food on the table and you’re seen by others as cheating. It’s soul destroying.”

These harmful and classist attitudes about poverty are belied by the sheer amount of work and determination that go into surviving. The National Advisory Council notes that the time and effort required to navigate anti-poverty programs has turned poverty into a punitive, permanent and dead-end full-time job. And as one Ontario disability benefit recipient noted to our office, if navigating poverty is a full-time job, “The pay sucks, man.” If the disability payments she qualifies for were expressed as the equivalent of an hourly wage, they would amount to $6.74 per hour. Those on social assistance, rather than disability assistance, receive even less.

Emergency pandemic responses like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit, or CERB, have risked reinforcing already powerfully engrained stigmas by drawing distinctions between workers eligible to receive supports and others who are not.

This ignores the reality that more than half of people below the poverty line have employment income as their main source of support — they are working but not being paid enough to survive. More fundamentally, it reinforces the assumption, noted by the National Advisory Council on Poverty that:

. . . poverty is the result of personal failings, rather than the failure of systems, labour market challenges, and government policies and programs.

This leads to the assumption that some are deserving and others undeserving of help.

Participants in consultations with the council noted the expectation that people living in poverty:

. . . have to be without fault in order to receive support. There is no room for them to fail or slip up.

Those in poverty are held up to scrutiny in a way that no one else is. The kind of decisions those better off routinely make and absorb the costs of — from buying a treat for their child to taking a personal day off work — are, for those in need of income assistance, too often construed as moral failings, lack of discipline or, worse yet, laziness. Meanwhile, as the work of our colleagues Senator Downe and Senator Wetston reveal, we do not seem to apply the same critical lens when it comes to wealthy Canadians evading taxes or competition law. At its root, guaranteed livable basic income would ensure that everyone has the freedom to make choices about how best to care for themselves and their families.

Let’s return to Dr. Forget’s example of the single mother who was trying to access job training. For her, the Manitoba basic income pilot was a crucial turning point. Enrolled in the program and no longer subjected to the scrutiny of a caseworker, she now had the option of accessing enough money to give herself and her family stability while she temporarily left the labour market to pursue job training. She enrolled in the training.

Speaking to Dr. Forget 40 years later, the single mother spoke about the pride she still felt at having modelled independence for her two daughters.

Her experience is echoed by countless participants in the Ontario Basic Income Pilot in 2017. One person reported, “It helped fill in the gaps when I had precarious (part-time) employment while looking for something more sustainable.”

Another person said, “I was saving for a vehicle so I could pursue self-employment without fear of not making ends meet.”

And another said, “I was able to get the medical equipment I needed so I didn’t have to leave work for my asthma.”

And another:

I was able to get out from under payday loans. I was able to feel dignity in living and hope for being able to maybe buy a cheap car, pay off debt and not being looked down on by my neighbours.

And another:

Even with a low employment income, I became more committed to my job serving a vulnerable population because I knew the basic income supplement would allow me to pay all of my bills and eat well.

And another:

As someone who works 40+hrs a week in a factory job that destroys my body, making next to [minimum] wage, I was making barely enough to get by . . . The basic income program helped me afford my bills . . . and allowed me to participate in recreational activities more.

And another:

I had plans to go to school for all three years of the pilot so that when it was over, I would be in a position where I would be educated enough to have a good career. I would be in a higher tax bracket and paying more taxes so I would be contributing more to society.

And another:

I was in the hospital multiple times a week with health problems from not being able to eat properly, stress, and not having a way to really go anywhere (in life). I’m enrolled in schooling and I intend to go to college next year . . . .

And another:

I finally felt like part of society and not isolated . . . able to go out for a tea when asked, pay for uncovered meds needed . . . sleep without anxiety. It was a feeling of confidence, self-worth.

And another:

My confidence boosted sky high . . . I took 2 months to get my anxiety under control. I found a full-time job in a little less than 2 months . . . My kids’ confidence went higher, [they] started bringing home better grades . . . They have proper winter clothing . . . able to play outside . . . Basic income made me want to better myself and I did.

The access to meaningful choices afforded by guaranteed livable basic income is a matter of dignity and equality. It is also crucial to allow people a chance to get out of what can otherwise be overwhelmingly cyclical chasms of poverty in ways that current social assistance programs simply do not.

Bill S-233 is part of a cross-chamber collaboration with MP Leah Gazan. It builds on the momentum and decades of work of parliamentarians from diverse regions and political affiliations, drawing attention to the potential of guaranteed livable basic income as those behind the bill seek to represent Canadians below the poverty line, especially during this health and economic crisis.

More than 50 of us, honourable colleagues, signed joint statements and letters to the government on this issue. Three of our Senate committees, including National Finance, Social Affairs and Human Rights, as well as the Finance Committee in the other place, have made recommendations in support of guaranteed livable basic income since the onset of the pandemic.

Our former colleagues Senators Eggleton and Segal worked to bring guaranteed livable basic income to the attention of this chamber long before the onset of COVID-19 through committee studies and motions. They have carried on their seemingly tireless work beyond the chamber and throughout this pandemic.

Member of Parliament Julie Dzerowicz introduced guaranteed livable basic income legislation in the last parliament. Two major political parties included this issue in their federal platforms last election. A third endorsed guaranteed livable basic income as a top priority at their policy convention.

Public opinion polls indicate that significant majorities of Canadians support guaranteed livable basic income. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen unprecedented numbers of people organizing, contacting their representatives and petitioning for urgent implementation of this measure, citing recommendations from experts in fields as diverse as the arts, banking, economics, health care, human rights, labour relations, social work and the tech industry.

Bill S-233 builds on Canada’s past successful experiences with guaranteed livable basic income. Participants in pilots in Ontario and Manitoba reported improved health and well-being without significant work disincentives. In Manitoba, the main areas where labour market participation decreased were for teenagers who were able to complete high school instead of having to work to support their families and parents temporarily caring for young children.

Federally, Canada already counts on two forms of guaranteed livable basic income, the Canada Child Benefit and the Guaranteed Income Supplement for seniors, to reduce the number of young and older Canadians living in poverty in ways that contribute to the economy. According to the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, every $1 that the government spends on the Canada Child Benefit results in $2 of economic activity. The economic benefits of a national guaranteed livable basic income program are predicted to similarly stimulate the economy.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated the costs of a national guaranteed livable basic income program. Most recently, they provided an example of a program that could deliver $80 billion in supports for a net cost of only $3 billion by replacing tax measures like the GST credit and basic personal amount, as well as provincial and territorial social assistance.

This estimate does not include future cost savings associated with downstream social and economic benefits, such as reductions in health care, criminal legal system and emergency shelter spending. Nor does it include the potential economic benefits outlined by the Canadian Centre for Economic Analysis, including a 1.8% increase in real GDP, 346,000 additional jobs and $52 billion in additional tax revenue after the first five years of the program alone.

A national income-tested guaranteed livable basic income would obviously entail transition costs, but overall it is not a question of spending significantly more money; rather, it requires us to spend money differently and more effectively.

During COVID-19, CERB and related programs have demonstrated Canada’s capacity to deliver meaningful, innovative and flexible economic supports to individuals in need. New pushes for federal involvement in guaranteed livable basic income are underway. The government has committed to reintroducing the Canada disability benefit, a form of guaranteed livable basic income for persons with disabilities. The Province of Prince Edward Island is requesting federal support for a provincial guaranteed livable basic income, which could serve as a demonstration project for rollout to other interested provinces and territories.

The 2021 Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ People National Action Plan includes implementation of a national guaranteed livable basic income program as a key facet of decolonization and reversing systemic economic marginalization of Indigenous women. For years, Canada has been exploring the idea of guaranteed livable basic income and has been generating a wealth of compelling data about the benefits that such a program can offer. Bill S-233 would allow us to map out a national approach at a time when the imperative of eliminating poverty has never been clearer.

In 1971, the members of the Special Senate Committee on Poverty presented their bold proposal for guaranteed livable basic income to Canadians as follows:

To do what has to be done will certainly cost money. Lack of action will cost many times more. What inaction will cost in lost humanity is infinitely greater. The Committee believes that the Canadian people . . . are ready to face the challenge of poverty.

I think so, too. Canadians have been ready and waiting for more than five decades. It is time for us to act, honourable colleagues.

Meegwetch, thank you.