One Kingston city councillor is advocating bold new policies to combat the twin crises of climate change and poverty.

Robert Kiley, councillor for Trillium District, is looking at the policy of guaranteed basic income and how it might be mobilized to address both environmental and individual health for Canadians.

Kiley is a Kingston native and former deputy leader of the Green Party of Ontario. He stepped down from all of his partisan roles in 2018 before declaring candidacy for municipal office.

“My argument is that human health is environmental health,” Kiley said in an interview with the Whig-Standard. “Basic income helps ensure that humans can live well, and in turn they can do their part for the environment.”

Guaranteed basic income is exactly what it sounds like. The government of a jurisdiction provides a guaranteed payment to all eligible citizens, funded through the government’s regular budget.

Kiley claims a basic income guarantee would cause better health outcomes, higher educational attainment, and ultimately economic growth.

He also believes it would be a more efficient use of government resources than the current method of delivering social assistance.

“Right now, we have a patchwork quilt of different social policies,” Kiley explained. “Basic income is a way to streamline social services.”

Kiley emphasizes, however, that this would not replace existing social services.

“I think other services are essential,” Kiley clarified. “But I think that these other services will be less used when the basic income cheque is given.”

Furthermore, Kiley believes there could be a positive link between a basic income guarantee and local initiatives to combat climate change.

He argues that citizens with more financial flexibility are more able to make environmentally conscious choices, such as buying locally sourced food and using more sustainable modes of transportation.

This idea was the focus of a presentation Kiley delivered at the Kingston Unitarian Fellowship on Wednesday night, an event hosted by 350 Kingston and Our Time Kingston, two organizations dedicated to bringing the climate crisis into the forefront of Canadian political discussion.

The idea of guaranteed basic income is not new to Ontario. The former provincial Liberal government under Kathleen Wynne had introduced a basic income pilot project, which would run for three years and provided payments to 4,000 low-income people in communities such as Hamilton, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Lindsay. The project included a control group with similarly low-income individuals, so the province could study the effects of a basic income on factors such as housing and food security.

Ford’s Conservative government axed the project in March.

“It’s a shame,” Kiley said of the Ford government’s decision.

The Conservatives had said in the election that they would preserve the pilot project, but later Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod reversed course, saying that the program was “failing.”

Kiley hopes to bring this idea to the forefront of political discussion, but he recognizes that more research and development needs to be done before it can be introduced as a policy proposal.