The fourth Forum des Idées Pour le Québec (“Forum for Ideas for Québec”) will take place at Champlain College from September 23 through 25. It will focus on social policies–including a special session devoted to the idea of a guaranteed minimum income (GMI) for Canada and Québec.

Organized by the provincial Liberal Party, Parti libéral du Québec, the Forum des Idées Pour le Québec is an annual nonpartisan gathering, featuring lectures and panel discussions on major social and political issues facing the province.

The head of the provincial government, Premier Philippe Couillard, will be present for the event. Couillard has made a promotional video for the event, which highlights its attention to the GMI.

The session on GMI, which is scheduled for September 24, will feature four highly prominent basic income researchers and advocates:

Yannick Vanderborght, Professor at Université de Louvain and Université de Bruxelles, associate editor of Basic Income Studies and founding editor of Basic Income News .

Evelyn L. Forget , Professor of Community Health and Social Work at the University of Manitoba, well-known in the basic income community for analyzing the results of Manitoba’s Mincome experiment .

Jurgen de Wispelaere, a visiting researcher at the University of Tampere who has worked on the design of Finland’s basic income experiment and written extensively on basic income.

Marc de Basquiat, President of the French basic income group Association pour l’Instauration d’un Revenu d’Existence .

This session will be chaired by Jean-Marie Bézard, vice-president of the Forum Scientific committee and Director of Plénitudes, Prospective & Management.

Other issues to be addressed include poverty, inequality, pay equity, and coordinating social interventions across a territory.

Visit the event page for more information. Registration is limited, and typically sells out weeks before the event.

Two public discussions of guaranteed minimum income and universal basic income will take place in Québec in the following week (September 27 and 28).

Reviewed by Jenna van Draanen

Québec flag photo CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Mathieu Thouvenin

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