Basic Income For Canadians

From the Covid-19 Emergency to Financial Security for All

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the idea of providing a basic income to everyone in Canada who needs it was already gaining broad support. Then, in response to a crisis that threatened to put millions out of work, the federal government implemented new measures which constituted Canada’s largest ever experiment with a basic income for almost everyone.

In this new and revised edition, Evelyn L. Forget offers a clear-eyed look at how these emergency measures could be transformed into a program that ensures an adequate basic income for every Canadian.

Forget details what we can learn from earlier basic income experiments in Canada and internationally. She weighs the options, investigates whether Canadians can afford a permanent basic income program and describes how it could best be implemented across the country.

This accessible book offers everything a reader needs to decide if a basic income program is the right follow-up to the short-term government response to COVID-19.

Contributors

Evelyn L. Forget

EVELYN L. FORGET is the leading authority on basic income in Canada. She is an economist in the School of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. Her first edition of Basic Income for Canadians (2018) was nominated for the Donner Prize for excellence in public policy writing. She has been consulted by governments in Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Finland, the Netherlands and Scotland on this topic. Her research has been featured on CBC Ideas, PBS Marketplace, and in the documentary The Free Lunch Society. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Chapter Contributors Pages Year Price
The introduction provides an overview of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic how it may play a role in the adoption of basic income.
6 $0.60
This chapter provides an outline of what basic income is.
27 $2.70
This chapter provides brief overviews of limited-scale experiments with basic income across Canada, how they were implemented and their results.
23 $2.30
This chapter looks at how basic income policies can be beneficial to the overall mental and physical health of communities.
15 $1.50
This chapter looks at our relationship with work as individuals and as a society and how basic income will fundamentally change that relationship.
16 $1.60
This chapter looks at how we assign value to people based on their jobs and how basic income could end that way of measuring the value of humans.
21 $2.10
This chapter specifically investigates the impact that basic income has on women.
19 $1.90
This chapter explores the impact of basic income on different populations including indigenous people, racialized people, and people with disabilities.
19 $1.90
This chapter debunks a variety of myths surrounding basic income
30 $3.00
This chapter assesses the cost of basic income and whether it’s something we can realistically afford.
28 $2.80
This chapter looks at the next steps for making basic income a reality in Canada.
17 $1.70
2 $0.20