A basic income guarantee ensures that everyone has income security. It is money provided without work requirements, delivered to individual people, and designed to provide safety and security.
This definition comes from Basic Income Canada Network, and Senator Kim Pate has a great post with more details too.
Why do we need a basic income guarantee?
A basic income guarantee has never been more important. Poverty, housing, food insecurity, debt, and the stress, sickness, loneliness, isolation – and sense of “it’s us versus them” that follow – are on the rise. Poverty impacts everyone: some at certain moments, some across entire lives, some across generations, and some indirectly, because we are all part of interconnected systems and connected communities.
A basic income guarantee is not a cure-all. It will need to be woven into many other structural and systemic changes, including how we keep food healthy, culturally appropriate, and affordable, how we end the financialization of housing, how we create meaningful work, and how wealth is distributed across communities and generations.
Basic income will need to sit alongside the conversations, relationships, experiences, and personal reflection that – once had – reveal poverty’s systemic origins. People impacted by poverty have vision, passion, and worth. They experience poverty not because of individual choices but because of how our society has structured our beliefs, policies, and flows of money.
Tamarack Institute – which sets its public policy priorities with members of the four Networks for Change – holds a basic income guarantee as one of its public policy priorities, because of the catalytic impact it would have on poverty, belonging, youth futures, and people’s ability to mitigate the impacts of climate change. Coast to coast to coast, communities are advancing a basic income guarantee as part of their plans for community-driven change.
Basic Income Guarantees and Atlantic Canada
Tamarack has been working alongside communities in all provinces and territories on a basic income guarantee, including communities in Atlantic Canada. The ACT BIG conference (Advocating Canada Towards a Basic Income Guarantee) – and the thoughtful preparation that the Basic Income Now Atlantic Canada team did leading up to our workshop – was full of examples of community-driven efforts.
Prince Edward Island. Prince Edward Island has fore fronted basic income guarantee advocacy for two decades. In 2022, community-driven efforts led to the unanimous approval of a province-wide basic income guarantee demonstration project by the PEI legislature. By 2024, the provincial government had received a detailed proposal outlining a financially viable path forward, prompting the creation of a joint federal-provincial working group to evaluate the project. Community leaders and national partners continue to champion the proposed demonstration to the Carney government.
Newfoundland and Labrador. In Newfoundland and Labrador, Basic Income advocacy dates back to a proposal in the 1990s and activism by the Religious Social Action Coalition. In 2020, Basic Income NL was formed, and significant policy developments followed:
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A motion to create an all-party committee on basic income passed and was launched
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The Health Accord NL final report recommended basic income (twice)
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A basic income program for youth was launched
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The province introduced a poverty reduction plan and basic income for seniors
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The Premier publicly addressed basic income.
Now, Newfoundland and Labrador is preparing for the release of the all-party committee report.
Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has been advancing basic income since the founding of Basic Income Nova Scotia in 2015. The organization has built partnerships with Coalition Canada Basic Income, Basic Income Canada Network, and numerous public health and community groups and stewarded six provincial conferences and numerous meetings with MPs, MLAs, municipalities, Indigenous groups, and basic income advocacy organizations. Sixteen municipal councils have passed resolutions backing a basic income guarantee, representing approximately 80% of Nova Scotia’s population. And the Nova Scotia Federation of Municipalities has joined the push for implementation, with provincial bills tabled in September 2024 and February 2025.
New Brunswick. New Brunswick has expanded support for a basic income guarantee through grassroots and municipal efforts. Greater Fredericton Social Innovation initially convened Basic Income NB, later joining the Atlantic Basic Income Coalition to strengthen regional collaboration. The coalition has presented to the Council of Atlantic Mayors Congress and secured city councils across New Brunswick as allies.
Regional Collaboration. Together, community leaders in all four provinces have contributed to the growing movement for basic income in Canada. They have:
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Supported Bills S-233 and C-223, introduced in 2021 by Senator Pate and MP Leah Gazan. (S-233 passed 2nd Reading and was sent to Committee in 2023 but was terminated in 2025 with the dissolution of the 44th Parliament.)
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Championed Bill S-206, which would create a framework for a basic income guarantee and succeed S-233 and C-223.
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Supported PEI’s basic income demonstration project.
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Launched an open consensus statement that defines a basic income guarantee and why it is important.
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Deployed a municipal toolkit designed to support municipal council members, mayors and civil servants to champion a basic income guarantee.
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Deployed a documentary screening toolkit to facilitate community conversations on basic income guarantees.
