Winnipeg Centre MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette wants people to sign his petition in support of a guaranteed minimum income.
The idea has been talked about before, but Ouellette wants the federal government to fund new pilot projects in an effort to confirm results of previous experiments on minimum income, or "mincome," done in Manitoba in the 1970s.
A guaranteed annual income would ensure everyone a set income just for living, and streamline and replace existing government social assistance programs.
University of Manitoba health economist Evelyn Forget studied the data collected by the federal government in the seventies.
A person’s guaranteed income would be based on their employment income, she said.
“If your income increases, your payout decreases,” Forget said. “I think, without question, it could work.”
Not everyone agrees.
The Fraser Institute released a report on guaranteed income in January 2015. Director of Fiscal Studies Charles Lammam said while the idea has merit, he’s skeptical it would work.
He said governments spent $185 billion on income support programming in 2013 and changing the delivery of those services would require “a whole set of different pieces of the puzzle to fall into place.”
“This is measures targeted at all levels of government to people with low income, the disabled, the elderly, parents with young children,” said Lammam. “If we’re talking about fundamentally reforming that $185 billion envelope, that’s a pretty big undertaking.”
