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Guaranteed Annual Income To Start in Alberta?
Tue, 2015-06-09 02:12
#1
Guaranteed Annual Income To Start in Alberta?
Tue, 2015-06-09 02:15
#2
Tue, 2015-06-09 02:18
#3
This will be part of it I presume.
Food
Clothing
Housing
Health
Education
http://www.thestar.com/news/queenspark/2015/06/08/provinces-increase-pre...
Tue, 2015-06-09 07:04
#4
Yes, but in terms of health and education, universality can be restored and improved in other ways.
And housing requires a much greater investment in social housing (such as cooperatives and cohousing schemes).
Education nowadays also implies internet access. And another component is access to public transport.
The Post article was reasonably good, but of course it was followed by a volley of poor-bashing comments, such as crap about drug-testing. As if wealthier people didn't take drugs!
Tue, 2015-06-09 10:16
#5
From that post article:
The idea of traditionally conservative Alberta as a testing ground for a left wing social policy might seem strange, but it has increasing support.
Only for those unfamiliar with the history of the prairies.
Speaking of which, it's surprising the article missed an anti-poverty initiative that was underway before the provincial sea change.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/medicine-hat-on-brink-of-ending-ho...
Tue, 2015-06-09 10:20
#6
alan smithee
It's like the Twilight Zone.Alberta?
Hang your head in shame,Québec.
Tue, 2015-06-09 10:30
#7
I don't think the NDP campaigned on this, so I doubt it will see the light of day in this term of office.
Tue, 2015-06-09 10:41
#8
I read the article, but somehow I missed the name of one single person in Alberta who is actually proposing a guaranteed minimum income. Can somehow help me out with that?
Having said that, I've never been a big fan of this approach. Society should be constantly defining general social needs and finding ways to provide them universally, for free. Kind of as referenced by lagatta above.
Tue, 2015-06-09 10:54
#9
I read the article, but somehow I missed the name of one single person in Alberta who is actually proposing a guaranteed minimum income. Can somehow help me out with that?
Don Iveson is paraphrased as saying he'd be willing to host a guaranteed-income pilot project in Edmonton. And Nenshi says he'd be in favour of "negative taxation", which the writer than states is a form of guaranteed income.
Other than that, it's mostly conjecture, like an old "In Search Of..." episode. It says that the gauranteed income has "long been a pipe dream" of "people like Joe Ceci< without actually saying that Ceci himself is in favour of it.
Tue, 2015-06-09 11:00
#10
I'm a big fan of this, I'm really hoping it happens its vital that someone makes this happen.
Tue, 2015-06-09 11:22
#11
Ok, I found a story that quotes the two mayors being a little more categorical in support of trying such a scheme. Of course, they're not the ones who would pay for it.
Tue, 2015-06-09 11:41
#12
Can somehow help me out with that?
Being as it is in the Post, the other possibility is that the article was written as a dog whistle to those who are going to freak out about the communist takeover. Do a bit of googling and you'll find some.
But here's another article with the mayors musing about it as a good idea in principle:
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/06/05/alberta-mayors-stick-back-...
As to whether it is a good idea or not of course we all want the perfect solution (whatever that is), but until that drops out of the sky we have to make a tradeoff between relieving suffering and ideology.
There is a similar housing initiative in Republican Utah. Whatever the initial anti-poverty motive in that case, what sold it to the public was the bottom line of cost.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free
(ah... cross-posted with you U)
Tue, 2015-06-09 12:13
#13
Being as it is in the Post, the other possibility is that the article was written as a dog whistle to those who are going to freak out about the communist takeover. Do a bit of googling and you'll find some.
<
If the Post were trying to whip up a red-scare over this, they probably wouldn't mention that Milton Friedman was a supporter, much less include a huge picture of him in the article.
The Post does have a history of covering issues and perspectives that don't get much coverage elsewhere, and not always from a right-wing angle either. In this case, however, I would say that they're probably making bigger claims than the evidence will currently support.
Tue, 2015-06-09 13:09
#14
Unionist, I agree with you, but we do need a non-humiliating replacement for our current social welfare (or whatever the current euphemism is) program. At one point I applied for welfare, some years ago, when a client went bankrupt and didn't pay me over $5000 owed in work fees. It was impossible for a freelancer to qualify, and they kept throwing up different reasons for ineligibility. Of course I got other contracts and jobs in the meantime, but went through utter hell.
I've always hesitated with regard to a Guaranteed Annual Income, firstly because there are so many human needs left unmet and unemployed workers who could do them or be trained to do so, and for the reasons Unionist states. But we have to get rid of the humiliating and grossly inadequate "welfare" system. Nobody can eat a nutritious diet on that paltry sum or dress and groom oneself well enough to secure a job. And only a minority who have secured social housing can have a decent place to live.
Tue, 2015-06-09 13:17
#15
@ VOTD
I know there are plenty of stories in the post that don't have a strictly right-wing bias, but a mention of friedman notwithstanding, these things are multilayered - from the writer, to whomever's idea the story was in the first place and who approved it, to how it was edited.
I am wondering aloud about that in part because this IS a speculative story ( I don't think that was its only purpose). And of course the timing, and the failure to mention similar initiative which were made by the conservative government, and ways in which this is actually in keeping with alternative traditions of mutual support that have been around for awhile.
That, and the fact that there are some people freaking out about the story. And they don't seem dissuaded by Friedman.
http://www.reddit.com/r/metacanada/comments/358i5y/im_too_pissed_off_to_...
Tue, 2015-06-09 13:44
#16
I am wondering aloud about that in part because this IS a speculative story ( I don't think that was its only purpose). And of course the timing, and the failure to mention similar initiative which were made by the conservative government
Well, they do mention that Rumsfeld and Cheney ran a Guaranteed Income pilot project in the 1970s. Not too many people are likely to confuse those two guys with Communists. Well, except maybe some John Birchers.
Tue, 2015-06-09 23:20
#17
Don Iveson is paraphrased as saying he'd be willing to host a guaranteed-income pilot project in Edmonton. And Nenshi says he'd be in favour of "negative taxation", which the writer than states is a form of guaranteed income.I read the article, but somehow I missed the name of one single person in Alberta who is actually proposing a guaranteed minimum income. Can somehow help me out with that?
Other than that, it's mostly conjecture, like an old "In Search Of..." episode. It says that the gauranteed income has "long been a pipe dream" of "people like Joe Ceci< without actually saying that Ceci himself is in favour of it.
Same article says this:
Federal Liberals have resolved to study it in a federal pilot project, and P.E.I.’s new premier has offered to host one.
But it is Alberta that has the momentum, and increasingly, the political will to bring a mincome to reality.
Which made me think of this article:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/06/07/american-spring-has-begun
Unlike the Tea Party, The American Spring is an organic movement that genuinely originates at the grassroots level. That’s why it is such a diverse movement with so many different perspectives. The movement against inequality isn’t funded and orchestrated by billionaires. It begins in the diverse daily lives of millions of people. The American Spring is a reaction to the millions of ways that inequality affects us every day. The millions of people involved in the movement against inequality are not primarily motivated by ideology, we are motivated by a desire for justice in our daily lives.
We are motivated by our desire to live without aggressive, brutal policing in our neighborhoods. We are motivated by a desire to enjoy the benefits of an education without being cursed by a lifetime of student loan debt. We are motivated by the desire to have access to health care without having to pay huge, unaffordable monthly premiums. We are motivated by the desire to have a decent job with a fair wage, not a job that consigns our family to poverty.
We don’t have to pick sides in this movement. We are all on the same side. We are all on the side of justice.