What is a Guaranteed Livable Income?

You have to like all the various names for a UBI throughout the years. As the Canadian election approaches, you can visibly see how Canada's support of basic income is likely way higher than in the United States.

Now the Green Part of Canada has also their own conception of it and it’s called a Guaranteed livable income (GLI). In all honesty, Canada’s CERB has been a bit like that during the pandemic for those who lost jobs during the lockdowns.

Here is what the Green Party of Canada say about their proposal:

What is Guaranteed Livable Income?

The Green Party has long argued that Canada can eliminate poverty by adopting a Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), a kind of basic income. The GLI replaces separate federal and provincial programs with a single, universal, unconditional cash payment delivered through the tax system.

The GLI means every Canadian receives a regular minimum payment, establishing an income “floor” but with incentives for recipients to continue working and earn more.?Payments would be based on a calculated “livable” level for different regions of the country.

Unlike existing support programs, additional income will not be clawed back. People earning above a certain total income will pay the GLI back in taxes. The?GLI would replace?the current complex array of income supports – social assistance, income supplements for seniors, disability payments, etc. – with a single payment. Replacing those programs with a single regular payment to every Canadian eliminates the vast bureaucracy and associated costs needed to administer them. These savings will help to pay for the GLI program.

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Meanwhile the?NDP of Canada?want to tax the ultra-rich more so Canadians can have better access to services like affordable child car and improved housing affordability in general. I think for young people, housing and affordability (the economy) is the major issue, not climate change or reconciliation (with original owners of the land).

A Guaranteed Livable income, a 4-day work week and WFM are all likely scenarios of the future of work in countries like Canada before 2035.

• Guaranteed livable income
• 4-day Work week
• WFM option for knowledge workers (hybrid work that favors the worker’s preferences)

There is?yet another document?about what a GLI could look like and means.

It talks about universal accessibility and substantive equality which are good concepts. So goals of a UBI implementation also favor more inclusion and social equality in various ways.

• Universal Accessibility: ensuring the ability or opportunity of individuals, when in need, to access resources and services, by removing financial and other barriers.
• Substantive Equality: ensuring that legislation, policies and practices respond to and meet the diverse needs and interests of all, so that all individuals and groups have access to the resources and opportunities needed to ensure they do not experience discriminatory treatment. The focus is on addressing and redressing harms caused by discrimination and inequality rather than merely reacting to the situations that result.

With automation, aging populations and the increase of corporate monopolies that veto a lot of the wealth distribution and consumer protection in Capitalism, with a major drop in the labor participate rate during the pandemic, a UBI has never been more urgent of an invention whether you call it a GLI or something else. Massive wealth inequality and tax evasion isn’t good for society.

If Canada were a real champion of human rights, it would indeed adopt a form of a GLI to reduce poverty and give people more choices in how they want to participate in society in the future of work and life. Seniors should be able to live and retire in dignity. Young people should have the opportunity to own property in the future and have faith in the system and not feel overwhelmed with the burden of an gaining population and taxes based on the choices of older generations.

The Green Party in Canada is nothing more than a minority party but the along with the NDP give Canada a distinction. Indeed even the UBI champion of New York, Andrew Yang will form a new party in the U.S. based on this philosophy.

If a UBI is implemented on a federal scale, Canada would be among the first places in the world to adopt it. Canada is a resource-rich, culturally diverse, and human-rights-promoting democratic

country (although Justin Trudeau admires China).

Despite this, far too many Canadians do not experience equal access to protections, resources or opportunities. The result is a less fair, just and cohesive society where efforts focus on reacting to harms and issues rather than on approaches that proactively prevent and work to eradicate inequality and discrimination. A GLI would certainly aid a lot of people who do not prosper in the current system or have many choices when trying to live and work with dignity.

Way back in 2009 this idea was conceived: A Guaranteed Livable Income?(GLI) would be an?unconditional and universal income?administered by federal governments and granted to individuals to ensure that no person’s income falls below what is necessary for Health, Life and Dignity.

Having access to food, shelter, clean water and internet should be provided to citizens. It should not be something we earn, but we contribute towards society in the creative way we see fit. In truth a GLI would help people start new businesses and make better choices than feel stuck in low wage jobs. As many low-paying jobs have seen wage increases during the labor shortages of the pandemic, the way we think of inflation and UBI must also change with the times.

Of course this isn’t at all a new concept. Even in North America there is a lot of history around it including in Canada. In the past this concept was called?Guaranteed Annual Income (GAI) and was advocated by many including?Martin Luther King Jr.,?Robert Theobald,?Buckminster Fuller, Canada’s 1972 Royal Commission on the Status of Women in 1972,?and even?Pierre Berton.

The term ‘Livable’ was chosen in the late 1990’s by grassroots groups on both the east and west coast of Canada. In discussions on the west coast, ‘livable’ was seen as having more vision and dignity than ‘basic’ or ‘adequate.’?It’s understood that it would be universal and for everyone, but it should also be guaranteed, leaving no person man woman or child behind.