Last week the provincial government released the results of the Ontario basic income pilot baseline survey. The baseline survey was designed to capture the face of poverty in Hamilton and surrounding regions.

The results were revealing. The data showed that the average basic income applicant was food insecure, had difficulty finding affordable transportation options, found it difficult to pay their bills on a monthly basis, and was more likely to have mental and physical health challenges than the general population.

The baseline was supposed to be compared to a series of followup surveys, which would establish how people's lives were changed after they began receiving basic income support. However, when the government cancelled the program last summer, it also scrapped the evaluative portion of the study. This means there is no available data to compare recipients' conditions before basic income to those afterwards.

The largest basic income pilot experiment in the world to date was taking place right here in Hamilton, and it has been brought to hasty end without any analysis or data collection.

In the six months that have passed, the government has offered few persuasive explanations for its actions. Its justifications have largely relied upon questionable figures cited about the costs of expanding basic income to the entire province, and the plainly rhetorical position that "the best social program is a job."

If the cancellation goes forward without an evaluative study we will never be able to determine whether the lives of individuals receiving benefits were tangibly improved. We will be unable to show whether and to what extent recipients experienced improvements in critical social indicators in important areas such as health, labour market participation, housing and food security, and family/community relations.

The stories we have heard suggest that basic income was bringing real, tangible benefits to people's lives.

Even if the basic income pilot is never expanded to the entire province, it still has value as a standalone experiment. There is much to be learned about how to improve existing programs and policies by understanding how basic income impacts recipients.

Furthermore, axing an experiment after providing benefits for nearly two years to some recipients by the time benefits end in March of this year without collecting the data, is not an effective use of government resources. Twelve to 24 months on basic income is sufficient time to draw conclusions about life changes. It would be easy for the government to simply conduct exit interviews with recipients as the program winds down. Yet, the government has been clear that it has no interest in seeing the evidence.

We are of the view that the success of the pilot depends upon its ability to articulate the stories of its recipients as measurable evidence. Without this, the Ontario basic income pilot's many benefits, lessons, and stories risk becoming historical footnotes.

Good public policy requires good information. It also must be moored in scientific evaluation, not in ideology. For these reasons, the McMaster University Basic Income Project conducted by researchers from the School of Labour Studies, has begun distributing an anonymous survey to basic income recipients in Hamilton, Brantford, and Brant Region, in an effort to fill this research gap.

We believe if we can reach enough recipients it is still possible to establish meaningful findings about the impacts of basic income on poverty reduction in the Hamilton area, and to ensure that public policy decisions about basic income can at the very least be made from a foundation of evidence.

Basic income recipients from Hamilton, Brantford, or Brant County interested in completing the anonymous survey can contact the McMaster University Project by email at: themubip@gmail.com Or on Twitter at: @theMUBIP.

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