WHAT ONTARIO’S BASIC INCOME PROGRAM WILL PROBABLY LOOK LIKE IF IMPLEMENTED AND SOME PERSONAL ANECDOTAL REASONS WHY I AS A SOCIO-ECONOMICALLY MARGINALIZED ONTARIAN SUPPORT IT.

First the expressed purpose of the Basic Income is to ensure that no Ontarians fall below the deemed annual poverty line. Unlike other international jurisdictions like Switzerland, the Ontario legislature won’t be attempting to pass and implement Universal Basic Income for every citizen, but a much more modest version thereof, very much like that of the Old Age Security annual income supplement that many Ontario seniors currently receive. As with Old Age Security, the Basic Income benefits will be administered by Revenue Canada in the form of monthly payments. I imagine there will be some debate as to what monetary amount actually constitutes the annual poverty line (as it is somewhat arbitrarily deemed), but I think we can safely assume that it’ll be set at around $18,000/yr and that the basic income will be granted accordingly.

Now. For most OW/ODSP recipients, if we subtract the negligible dental allowance, the now restricted special diet allowances and the rental supports which in a market rent setting are currently nearly impossible to qualify for from their average annual incomes (about $9,000/yr and 13,000/yr respectively), we’re looking at a respective $6,000/$4,000 increase in annual income even if such for the most part, DE JURE allowances were DE FACTO accessible. And the loss of such so-called allowances are even further offset by the Basic Income annual increases thereto in the more long term 2–5–10 year context. This does not mean that ODSP/OW will cease to exist, but rather in the case of ODSP at least, the workers will have less of a work load and thereby, be able to attend to their clients needs more efficiently. Nor does it mean that mental health and other disability related supports will end. It will however, very likely mean significant cuts to municipal agencies like the SHSA, TCHC and TESS and related nonprofits like shelters and drop-ins currently costing Toronto about a billion dollars a year. I’m personally OK with that. In the case of those seniors solely dependent on Old Age Security, it’ll mean an increase of about 1,000-$2,000 in annual income. So again, win/win.

The Basic Income will also be available to Ontario’s working poor in the form of monthly “top up”s. There were numerous times when I could’ve used that support, particularly when on one job site I got a back injury but had to keep working to cover rents and bills taking over 30 generic Tylenols/day for the ensuing week in order to do so having no union protection or Workers’ Compensation.

It will also be available to those socio-economically Ontarians (of 18 years and older) trying to lift themselves out of poverty by EARNING a higher education in Ontario’s universities and colleges. Again I could’ve really used this (and the Ontario Student Grants now available) in my first year at U of T, when supported by only inadequate OSAP loans, I ran out of money by the end of the winter term and had to write my final exams literally (by which I mean, FACTUALLY) hungry, bringing my GPA down from 3.9 to 3.79. It would also have meant that for the ensuing years I wouldn’t have had to work overtime while taking intensive (Hebrew) languages courses amounting to almost a full course load, the combination of which ultimately resulted in burn out and a consequent nervous breakdown.

Although by no means a perfect solution to the problem of poverty, the Basic Income even at mere $18,000/yr is still the program with by far the best chances of lifting socio-economically marginalized Ontarians out of poverty by EMPOWERING them with at least some equality of opportunity, without which, real socio-economic equality and inclusion is impossible. Yes. It will have some short comings and will need to be adaptively tweaked and improved especially in the beginning. But it will still have far better results than Toronto’s current equality of outcome approach of segregating the poor in TCHC’s substandard apartments and so-called supportive housing and not only segregating them but worse still, warehousing them in the SHSA’s shelter system.