5 Principles for a Basic Income

 

5 principles for a basic income (PDF)

Disability Action Hall’s hope for a Basic Income

 (Based on the Basic Income Calgary’s Principles)
To learn more about these principles, please visit https://basicincomecalgary.ca/about/ 

Be universal (For all)

·      It is for everyone

Be available to all legal residents of Canada, not necessarily tied to residence. (for individuals who are not able to secure a home and are accessing an emergency shelter and/or emergency housing)

Be adequate (Be enough)

·      The benefit indexed to inflation and adjusted quarterly.

·      It has generous income exemption allowance like AISH so people have an incentive to work.

·      The benefit works on a sliding scale if you have a job (like Calgary’s Low-Income Transit Pass)

·      The benefit is not taxable (like GIS) what you receive is what you get to keep.

Be Individual

On an individual basis and every individual should get it. (If you are a couple you both should get the full benefit-not blended, not based on family income and then create barriers for relationships or empower people who are leaving an abusive relationship to leave without fear).

Be complementary (Works with services and supports)

It will work with social safety net programs as people need more than income to address other barriers to poverty, such as training, education, health care/pharma care, childcare benefit and social housing/rent control/housing subsidies.

Be a step forward

It works in concert with other provincial programs. It is not a step backwards to ensure people are not worse off than before.

 

Some of the wording to help explain the principles are based on the webinar from  by Michael Prince, Part 1 Canada Disability Benefit, what could it look like. November 2020 hosted by the Plan Institute. 

Celebrating 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day

Disability Action Hall Members joined in solidarity for the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. We read out a speech, read 'I am a person' poem. Featured below are links to the poem, media coverage and photos...

Our statement for International Women's Day (read out by Ian Gordon and Brad Robertson)

Members of the Disability Action Hall stand in solidarity for the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day. Our message is a ray of hope. Hope for all Albertans to live without poverty...

$1188 a month is not enough money to live on; the rates need to go up to the cost living, so people with disabilities can live a good life like everyone else. 

-People with disabilities are more than likely to be abused and live in poverty; Many of us live on AISH and people in poverty should not be abused. 

-People should have a choice on where to live and not live in a place to be abused. 

We encourage you to learn about these numbers:

39        39% of adult Canadian women have experienced at least one incident of sexual assault since the age of sixteen.

42        42% of women with disabilities have been or are in abusive intimate partner relationships.

58        58%  Alberta had the second highest rate of violence against women in Canada

1188     $ 1188 is what many of us try to live on month to month. Some of us don’t make it.

41,000  Is the number of Albertans living on AISH.

347      $ 347 dollars a month more is what it will take to help Albertans living on AISH to be above the poverty line.

1          Is all it takes... You to help raise awareness...violence and poverty no more for people with disabilities.  Learn about the 1188 challenge and fill out a postcard today. Without you. Without us. There is no hope. Hope for life above the poverty line. Happy International Women’s Day everyone! 

I AM A PERSON (read by Sue Bente, written by Mary Salvani)

 I am a person, who happens to have a disability,
A lot of people see me as one who has no capability.

I am a person, who has got good caring heart,
Who has remained unseen right from the start.

I am a person who has finished school,
where I learned that teachers and peers see me as a fool.

I am a person who feels hurt every day,
Because people say mean things and smack me out of the way.

I am a person who deserves to be fed.
Not sent away every night hungry and off to bed.

I am a person whose sexual boundaries have been broken leaving a void inside me,
That has kept me as a prisoner instead letting me be free.

I am a person who deserves to be treated with dignity, honor, and respect, Instead I feel like I am a reject.

I am a person who feels broken into pieces like is a puzzle,
because the words inside me had been muzzled.

I am a person who deserves to be treated well,
Instead I am living inside a jail cell.

I am a person who needs to be heard.
Yet no one has stopped and cared enough to listen to any of my words. 

Media Coverage

Photos of International Women's Day rally at Harry Hays by Colleen Huston



Calgary Journal on rally by Laura Wershler 


CBC (scroll to minute 16) News Coverage