http://lindsayadvocate.ca/court-reserves-judgment-on-basic-income-case/
Court reserves judgment on basic income case
Published on January 28, 2019
in Community/Poverty Reduction
by Roderick Benns
An Ontario Court has reserved judgment on the high profile basic income
case which was argued by Kawartha Lakes lawyer and social worker Mike
Perry in a Toronto court room today.
However, the court also recognized this was a time sensitive matter,
given that the program will end as of March, 2019.
Many believe this will be a matter of days, not weeks, before the court
rules.
The challenge heard today was the application for the court to overturn
the decision to cancel the Ontario Basic Income Pilot. A pending class
action lawsuit will only be heard if the court decides not to overturn
the Province’s decision and the pilot doesn’t continue.
If needed, the court will later hear a class action lawsuit for damages
over breach of contract for the new Ontario government cancelling the
basic income pilot project prematurely.
In April of last year, the Ontario Liberal government announced it would
be testing a new social program – basic income – in Hamilton area,
Lindsay and Thunder Bay area. The program provided up to $16,989 per
year to about 4,000 Ontario residents who qualified, with no stipulation
as to employment status.
On July 31, the Ford government announced the basic income pilot program
was to be cut. The government later specified the program will end as of
March, 2019. Nearly 2,000 of the participants were from Lindsay.
The basic income has had a profound impact on participants. One of the
representative plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Tracey Mechefske of Lindsay,
had used the additional income to pay marketing and sales space fees for
her small business. Now she will soon not be able to purchase the
supplies to make her products to sell.
Another plaintiff, Grace Hillion, was able to enroll in school to train
in broadcasting. Hillion had planned the tuition payments on three years
of basic income.
Participants from Hamilton and Thunder Bay have shared similar stories –
buying more professional clothing for work, putting their car back on
the road to job hunt, feeding their kids better, renting a safer
apartment (with windows) – which reveal how the basic income pilot had
been working to inspire people, get them back included in society, and
break the cycle of poverty.
As basic income recipient and plaintiff in the lawsuits, Dana Bowman,
shares: “I felt accountable again. I was more independent and felt more
self-worth as I could budget my finances rather than having no extra
money after rent and a bit of food each month on ODSP. I paid my bills
and was able to join my working friends for lunch sometimes. I was also
looking into a two-year college program to get back working and help
others.”
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https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2019/01/28/ontario-mom-is-proof-basic-income-fixes-more-than-povertys-pain_a_23655268/
[links in online article]
01/28/2019 15:46 EST
Ontario Mom Is Proof Basic Income Fixes More Than Poverty's Pain
A newly released survey shows who signed up for Ontario's pilot program.
By Emma Paling
Etanda Arden's phone used to ring constantly with calls from bill
collectors.
The single mother was studying full-time at Lakehead University, paying
for rent and groceries with payments from the Ontario Disability Support
Program (ODSP). She was behind by $300 every month, so she'd pay half
her bills one month and half the next, never catching up.
Arden struggled with depression and anxiety.
"I found that it really affected me as a student and as a parent. I was
always preoccupied, thinking about how we were going to maintain our
life. And not wanting my kid to suffer either."
Since being on Ontario's basic income pilot project, life is different.
"It just alleviates a lot of stress," Arden told HuffPost Canada by
phone from Thunder Bay, Ont.
She said she feels like a better parent, too, now that she can afford
extras like field trips for her 13-year-old daughter, Tyler-Rose.
Her experience is typical for people who enrolled in the basic income
pilot, new data shows. Eighty-one per cent of participants reported
moderate or severe "psychological distress," according to a survey
obtained by a recipient.
The pilot gave no-strings-attached payments to people living on low
incomes in exchange for their participation in a research study. Single
people living on less than $34,000 were eligible for up to $16,989 a
year and couples living on less than $48,000 were eligible for as much
as $24,027 a year.
Ontario's Progressive Conservative government announced in July that it
would cancel the payments and the research. This baseline survey
provides the first public information about the pilot's participants. It
doesn't measure the effects of the program, but it sheds a light on who
signed up. The introductory survey was completed by 5,077 participants
in December 2017.
The psychological distress statistic is the most significant piece of
information in the survey, said Sheila Regehr, an advocate with the
Basic Income Canada Network. She spent more than 30 years working with
the federal government on welfare, employment insurance, pensions and
poverty solutions.
"If you are distracted in your job you can't do well. If you're worried
constantly about the daily effort to just put food on the table ... you
can't be a good parent or good daughter or a good friend to somebody,"
Regehr told HuffPost Canada.
That makes it harder for people on social assistance to land jobs and
for people in low-wage jobs to get promotions, she said.
Regehr said she was also "struck" to see that more than 56 per cent of
the participants had only a high school diploma or less.
"Education is really important and yet there are so many barriers to
actually improving your education, especially for people with low income
and especially for people who have had the misfortune to enter the
social assistance system."
For Arden, the stress of not having enough money almost drove her to
quit university and go back to work. She decided to stay in school
because she wants a different type of job than her previous minimum wage
gigs at Chester Fried Chicken and Robin's Donuts.
"If you don't have any education, you only qualify for a minimum wage
job, which I have done for years and years," Arden said. "You can't get
ahead."
Arden's plans are up in the air now that basic income ends in March. She
said she wanted to stay at Lakehead to get an Honours Bachelor of Arts,
but that'll take another year. So instead, she may graduate with her
Bachelor of Arts this year and start the search for work.
"What they're doing is making it harder because they're putting back
that stress and anxiety about not having any money, which is almost what
made me drop out in the first place," she said.
"I don't know if they're worried that people will take advantage and
nothing will ever come of it. But my plan was to get as much education
as I can in three years. So once the three years was up, I'd be
self-sufficient. And okay."
