Support for a National Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) Program 2021

BACKGROUND: The 2018 Statistics Canada Report on poverty indicates that out of 3.2 million Canadians in poverty in
2018, 1.4 million or almost 45% are those 26.2% of single female parents who remain in poverty. 8.6%
of women in Canada remained in poverty in 2018. Statistics Canada 2018 also indicated that 34% of
First Nations women and girls, 21% of visible minority women and girls, 23% of women with
disabilities, and 16% of senior women live in poverty.

Although norms are changing, women still perform most of the unpaid care, domestic, and
volunteering work in Canada. As such, there is a gender-based equity rationale for recognizing this
societally valuable work through a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI).Although norms are changing, women still perform most of the unpaid care, domestic, and
volunteering work in Canada. As such, there is a gender-based equity rationale for recognizing this
societally valuable work through a Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI).

The pandemic has pushed women’s participation in the labour force down to its lowest level in three
decades, with 1.5 million women losing their jobs in the first two months of the 2020 recession.

GBI is proposed as a way to fix the efficiency- and equity-related challenges in the income security
system, and is promoted as a superior alternative to Social Assistance (SA), which is inadequate,
stigmatizes recipients through means testing, and creates work disincentives because of high clawback
rates. The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls
also recommends a guaranteed livable income.

A basic income could help eliminate the power differentials between men and women that still subject
too many women to poverty and violence. The evidence shows that basic income improves family
and community health and wellbeing, financial resilience, and access to education and training – all at
an affordable cost.