A Guaranteed Liveable Income is Green Party of Canada policy.  During the 2015 Election it was a integral piece of the GPC’s integrated plan to eliminate poverty in conjunction with a renewed commitment to Universal Health Care, the introduction of Pharmacare, a National Housing Strategy, and the elimination of Post Secondary tuition and debt relief for those struggling under enormous student debt loads.

Oddly enough, this is not at all a new thing.  The Canadian Government partnered with the Manitoba Government to run a guaranteed annual income pilot project they called Mincome in Dauphin ~ A Town Without Poverty?  back in the 1970s.  As often happens with long term projects in countries using winner-take-all voting systems, the government changed and the new lot boxed up all the data and stored it away.

This is becoming a hot topic worldwide, and here at home we’re hearing about this from all levels of government:

FEDERAL
The Trudeau Liberals just prioritized one of Richard Nixon’s favourite conservative policies: ‘mincome’

PROVINCIAL
A Basic Income For Ontario? Province Plans Pilot Project As Part Of Budget

MUNICIPAL

• What Kitchener said about Ontario’s basic income pilot project
• Waterloo region committee supports call for guaranteed basic income national discussion

The Waterloo Green Party is hosting the second Guaranteed Livable Income Green Learning Community event on Saturday to help get a handle on what this social policy is all about.

As a learning community, we’ve met once already to develop a set of questions we’d like to explore. When we meet on the 18th, we’ll dig deeper, sharing what we’ve learned and discussing more in depth.  All are welcome, there is no need to have attended our first session.

You can join the Green Learning Community Event

• on The Mighty Bell or
• on Facebook or you can
• just show up!

Guaranteed Livable Income
Learning Community ~ Session 2
Saturday
1:30 PM – 3 PM

The Journey ~ A Christian Church
16 Eby St. N.
Kitchener, ON

*note: although the venue this time is a church, it is a non-secular event

Further Reading:
The Manitoba Mincome Study; Even a small Guaranteed Income has dramatic positive effects on society
Download the 39 page PDF file:
THE TOWN WITH NO POVERTY Using Health Administration Data to Revisit Outcomes of a Canadian Guaranteed Annual Income Field Experiment

You can get more information from our awesome local advocacy group, Basic Income Waterloo Region