Welfare study shows need for guaranteed income
Sep. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM
HUGH SEGAL
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Canada's on-again, off-again relationship with a guaranteed annual income
(GAI) has made the rounds for many years. The most renowned recommendation
for the GAI came out of the 1985 report of the Royal Commission on the
Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, chaired by Donald
Macdonald, known as the Macdonald Commission.

The report stated unequivocally that a universal income security program is
"the essential building block" for social security programs in the 21st
century...

For more than 30 years, I have been a relatively lonely Conservative
proponent for a guaranteed annual income, or a basic income floor. I do not
believe that, in a country such as Canada, fellow citizens must live so far
below what we consider a poverty line that they are unable to provide the
basic necessities of shelter, food and clothing for themselves and their
children. And based on the current allowances provided by the welfare
system, I also refuse to accept that people purposely choose to avoid
employment in order to subsist on such a paltry income.

Individuals who turn to welfare do so as a last recourse. Whether the
situation is the result of abuse, job loss, lack of education or training,
addiction or single-parent households, our duty as Canadians and human
beings is to guarantee an income that allows people to provide for
themselves and their families while affording them a level of dignity that
boosts confidence and inspires hope.

Detractors of a guaranteed annual income will invariably point to its price
tag. However, the municipal, provincial and federal governments are
currently footing the rather hefty price tag of poverty as it translates
into health-care costs, an overburdened judicial system, a myriad of social
services that often duplicate each other and the basic loss of human
productivity.

And then there is the prevailing, subjective assessment of the welfare
recipient. As the Council on Welfare report points out, the stigma attached
to, and the perception of, those on welfare has in some measure inured us to
the harsh realities of their plight. From a patronizing perch some have
taken permission to ignore the human toll taken by poverty. In our rush to
judgment, we paint all welfare recipients with the same brush to smugly
justify our inaction.

Surely the time has finally come to seriously consider a guaranteed income,
financed by the money now in innumerable other programs. It is time to
simply recognize that to be a Canadian should mean to be free of the fear
that inadequate food, shelter, clothing, recreation and basic necessities of
life cannot but impart.

Poverty is rarely, if ever, a choice. Tolerating its worst consequences in a
society awash in surpluses federally, provincially and in the private sector
is an abomination.

---------------
Senator Hugh Segal is a Conservative member of the Standing Senate Committee
on Agriculture and Forestry, whose study on rural poverty begins this fall.

Complete article: http://tinyurl.com/p54oy

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