A guaranteed annual income is a noble goal of governments with the potential to “demolish” Ontario’s public services, says Warren “Smokey” Thomas.
That’s if the government’s proposed basic income pilot project breeds a scheme to privatize social assistance programming, warns the president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents public sector workers.
“Given the direction the current Ontario government is taking on social services, I think Ontarians have every reason to be skeptical,” Thomas said in a release Friday.
Should the government decide to implement a basic income plan after a proposed three-year pilot, the cost alone may beget privatization, he added.
Thomas sounds the alarm weeks after basic income adviser Hugh Segal released his 101-page discussion paper that is informing the province's plans to reform social assistance. Segal suggested the government test replacing Ontario Works and the Ontario Disability Support Program with a basic income and raising the benefit to $1,320 per month, up from the current maximum of $706. Those on disability support would get an additional $500 a month.
Thomas said the fundamentals behind the proposed security are good, such as rising incomes for people living below the poverty line (around $20,000 for a single adult Ontarian) and reducing the welfare stigma. But he isn't convinced basic income will do that. Thomas wants the government to address those matters through beefed up policies like raising the minimum wage or increasing the OW and ODSP rates.
"If anything, [a basic income] may make people a little less poor, for a little while, until public services end up on the chopping block. I'm worried that this Basic Income is just part of the Liberals' larger plan to further privatize the province," he added.
While the social benefit of a basic income is clear, some fiscally-conservative minded people have pointed out that providing the most vulnerable citizens with a guaranteed income will also ease fiscal pressure on the welfare system, health care and other social services run by governments.
Ontario's government has not committed to Segal's recommendations and has yet to make any final decisions about what the pilot project will look like, or if it will eventually be rolled out provincewide, and not only in a handful of test towns and cities (as Segal has suggested for the pilot.)
Social Services Minister Helena Jaczek has said her ministry is only just starting the work on determining appropriate funding and won’t have final figures before public consultation on Segal’s paper closes Jan. 31, 2017.
Jaczek will introduce the plan for the pilot later that April.

Heard: OPSEU sounds privatization warning over basic income

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