Basic Income Now
Websites
Resources
1. Basic Income and Food Security, Dr. Valerie Tarasuk, 2017 See also Coalition Canada’s The Case for Basic Income series.
2. A Proposal for a Guaranteed Basic Income Benefit in Prince Edward Island, 2023 See also Coalition Canada’s A GBI for PEI for a brief overview of the proposal. A national GBI would set a secure income floor for all Canadians and reduce poverty from about 10% (and rising) to just 2%. It is designed to work alongside—not replace—existing supports such as minimum or living wage, disability programs, labour rights, reconciliation efforts, and other vital services. No one should ever be worse off under a GBI.
3. To get a real sense of how inadequate our income assistance system is, the Maytree Foundation offers one of the best analysis. Their latest report on Welfare in Canada is for 2024 (published in July 2025). Their charts are really well done and clearly compare the amount people receive and how far below the poverty line the amount is. (Note that the first report in this series was published in 1987 - so Maytree has almost 4 decades of experience doing this analysis). Maytree also publishes The Latest Count of Social Assistance Recipients Across Canada (March 2025) in the Social Assistance Summaries prepared by province and territory.
Take Action
Coalition Canada is doing a real push right now to try and get the GBI for PEI demonstration project fully implemented and evaluated as a jointly funded federal/provincial project. It is a critical first step toward a national GBI.
Coalition Canada’s 2026 Federal Paper Petition Campaign
Federal Paper Petitions are a very effective way to advocate for policies you believe in. Inherited from the British system at the time of confederation, petitioning the Crown and Parliament is a fundamental parliamentary privilege. Formal guidelines for how to petition parliament were established in 1876.
Unlike e-petitions, you only need to collect 30 hand-written signatures with addresses, which are reviewed according to the official guidelines and certified by the Clerk of Petitions. Each certified petition presented in the House of Commons by an MP must be publicly responded to by the Government of Canada within 45 days.
Volunteers who collect signatures learn about the paper petition process, basic income and the PEI project, so they can have good conversations with potential signatories. They meet with their MP to ask them to present their paper petition in the House. While your MP may not support what you are petitioning for, they are your voice in parliament, and if they decline, they are denying your parliamentary privilege. We would like to see members of all parties standing in the House and presenting our petition. It signals to MPs that this issue is an important one for voters in their ridings. To learn more about this opportunity to take action, see Coalition Canada’s Questions and Answers about this Campaign; Instruction for volunteers, the official Paper Petition template, and a poster for display in public spaces.
Here are some talking points you can use when you meet with your MP.
The Vancouver Food Justice Coalition invites all members to help collect petition signatures for us to present to our local MPs. Please contact vanfoodjustice@gmail.com for more information on how you can get involved.
