P.E.I. advocates push for guaranteed basic income as Liberal leadership race heats up

A number of groups are urging political leaders — and Liberal leadership hopefuls — to make a basic income guarantee a priority.

The P.E.I. Working Group for a Livable Income and Coalition Canada Basic Income recently sent an open letter to Liberal leadership candidates.

The letter asks for resources for the working group to continue its efforts and calls for a five- to seven-year pilot project on the Island. It also urges candidates to include a guaranteed basic income in the party's platform.

Among those who put their names on the letter is Liberal MP Sean Casey.

"My hope is that this goes forward with the support of the leadership," Casey told CBC News. "One of the leadership candidates has already indicated an interest in this topic. I hope and expect that this will be part of the discussion in the debates that are coming next week."

The idea of a basic income guarantee has been discussed on P.E.I. for a number of years. A 2023 report suggested that implementing such a program could reduce poverty on the Island by 80 per cent. The report also proposed a funding model involving both the federal and provincial governments.

Provincial officials told CBC back in 2023 about P.E.I.'s targeted basic income pilot program, which focused on social assistance clients facing employment barriers. That initiative topped up existing benefits, ensuring recipients received at least 85 per cent of the market-basket measure — also known as Canada's official poverty line.

P.E.I. as a testing ground

Casey said the Island is well-suited for a basic income pilot thanks to its size and demographic diversity.

"We have urban and rural communities, a place where we have a Francophone minority, a place where we have Indigenous communities, a place where we have both advanced and primary industries," he said. "All of those things are transferable in other parts of Canada."

Jillian Kilfoil, executive director of Women's Network P.E.I., agreed with Casey that P.E.I. is an ideal location for a basic income pilot. The organization is among the groups that signed the letter.

Kilfoil pointed out that significant groundwork has already been done on the Island, and it would make sense to start here.

"There's a lot of complexity to implementing basic income guarantee, and so having a place where you can start like P.E.I. and figure out a lot of those kinks, figure out how it interacts with a lot of the existing programs, work those out here over five to seven years, and then bring that to the rest of Canada," she said.

Kilfoil said a basic income program is needed here given the mounting struggles Islanders have been through the past few years.

"The pandemic COVID-19, hurricane Fiona, the inflation crisis, climate change, automation and job loss. As a result of that, people are really struggling to make ends meet, and the situation is only getting worse. People really need some type of floor so that we all have our basic needs met."