Thank you, Mr. Green.

[English]

Professor Green, I was recently discussing social justice. We were talking about how the social contract is being broken, and that, today, young people — the young generations — no longer expect the privileges of the older generations.

The B.C. panel examined the view that a guaranteed livable basic income has a role to play in transforming society and the economy in response to disruptions. What kind of disruptions? What is happening right now? It’s the affordability crisis, the pandemic, extreme weather events, the opioid crisis and climate change. The panel concluded that basic income could provide a base level of protection throughout the economy from disruptions, such as the ones I just mentioned. Still, you do not support it.

Given the even more urgent need for what is happening right now — and you just said that nothing is currently going right — do you not agree that we should continue to explore the role of a national guaranteed livable basic income in stabilizing these crises that are happening in society?

Respectfully, no, I don’t agree. The area that is closest to my expertise is the labour market. The things that we’re concerned with there — in terms of the types of disruptions you’re talking about, for example — include fissured work. For many people — in particular, often women — we saw it happen with COVID, where the women who were working in care homes were not actually employed by the care homes; they were employed by other employers, such as a central employment agency, who then moved them around in a way that was risky to their health and bad for their work arrangements.

Our argument is that with that disruption and precarity going on in the labour market, we need to act — but we need to act directly. Basic income is not a direct act in response to that. A basic income gives those people an income, and hopes that will allow them to walk away from a bad job, but nobody, as far as I can tell, is proposing a basic income that is above the poverty line. That’s not going to be enough to allow those people to walk away from those jobs and discipline those labour markets.

To us, rather than going for this project and adding an extra layer onto the whole system, we think it’s better to address the problems directly. Let’s address it with minimum wage, with the Canada Workers Benefit increase and, in particular, with direct regulation.

The parameters and criteria that will be needed to also guide the evaluation that you did should include social well-being and health parameters — not only the ones related to labour. I’m a professor. I talk to students. Sometimes they like the job they are doing as engineers, but sometimes they think that they would be better off being a musician. To be a musician or a singer is very difficult to start.

I understand; I agree. We’re worried about the labour market side and the income side, but I only used that as an example. Much of the report is exactly about the point that much of what we’re concerned with is exactly the issues you’re talking about: the nature of the job that people have and the nature of their societal relationships. Our whole point is that simply giving people an income will not change that.

In terms of the training and retraining, that literature tends to show that directed training programs that are targeted at the people who are ready to make that jump are usually helpful. Broad programs, including broad income programs, have a tendency not to have a lot of take-up, and when they do have take-up, they tend not to be effective.

The results from the literature about people shifting careers point away from a basic income. One of the studies in the project went into that in great detail.

Thank you.

[Translation]

Thank you, Professor Green. My questions will be a follow-up to Senator Galvez. It is about the cultural sector.

As we all know, most artists work all year long, but they’re not paid all year long. There’s a lot of invisible work that they do. They do research, they create, they produce and then, if they perform, if they sell their works, they will be paid.

In 2020, artists and arts organizations representing tens of thousands of artists, writers, technicians and performers came together to outline a case for basic income for the arts. Many artists who inspire us with their creations, bring us together and enrich our communities are subject to precarious, short-term contracts without access to benefits, paid sick leave or even Employment Insurance, and many were beneficiaries of the CERB and Ontario’s basic income pilot.

In the case of basic income, artists challenge us to imagine the potential of a guaranteed livable basic income alongside and without eroding federal support for arts and culture programs in supporting the remarkable creative capacity of individuals, but also in inspiring communities.

The B.C. panel’s conclusion that basic income is too individualistic seems at odds with artists’ experience of a guaranteed livable basic income allowing them to contribute creatively, enrich their communities and basically do their work all year long.

Did the panel speak to artists, particularly artists who have participated in a basic income program, before drawing its conclusions?

The short answer to that is, no, we didn’t talk to artists in particular. I agree with everything you said. I appreciate the arts greatly. I think it’s an integral part of our society. I think it should be supported on a higher level than we do. But creating a general basic income for the whole economy and expecting it to hit every target — thinking that it’s going to reduce poverty, get people to better jobs and improve the arts sector — is asking everything from one policy tool. My belief is, given the goals you stated, with which I agree, we should be thinking about the program that makes them possible. Part of my point is that in doing that, we would go to that community and ask them how to create a self-supporting community that helps each other. I just don’t see it happening by giving everybody money and hoping that a certain set of people become artists. I think there’s a more direct way to do it.

I’m going to try to go further because it’s true that part of the work of the cultural sector is invisible work. It’s invisible because they do research and they’re creating in their own studio. During that period, they’re not paid. They’re not contributing to the economy in that sense. But further down the line, they will produce and perform.

Don’t you think that, for example, for that sector — you were speaking about targeted sectors — it could be relevant? Most of the time, they depend on grants and wages when they work, for example, as performing artists. But there’s a gap there that is obviously impossible to fill, and a basic income could help by being the base of a good wage for them to work.

What do you think?

First, let me say that you’re much more the expert in this than I am. This is not a particular part of the society that I know in detail. I know artists, but I don’t know the details of how to do this better. All I’m saying is that a general basic income doesn’t necessarily seem, to me, to be the response. I don’t see going from this problem, which I agree with, to the conclusion that, therefore, we need a general basic income. Maybe a targeted basic income is the way to think about this. Do we think about creating a community of artists that are given a particular support program that helps create a community that they take part in? That, I believe, makes sense to me, but I’m not sure that I understand why that’s an argument for a general basic income.

Thank you.

Professor Green, would you be open to giving us a written answer to the following questions posed by the four senators?

Yes, I’d be happy to do that.

Thank you.

This is focusing on your comment that instead of a basic assistance program, we should fix what we have.

One of the issues that I’ve always been interested in is that for people who are receiving financial assistance, in order to encourage them with workforce participation, for every dollar that they earn, they reduce a certain amount of their financial assistance. It used to be that if you earn a dollar, you maybe lose 50 cents, until you reach a certain salary.

Is that the best formula to support people and encourage them to move into the workforce? Did you do any work in that area?

Yes, that was part of what we looked at. Part of the issue is that it’s something you can’t escape. If you want to —

Professor Green, I will interrupt. We had agreed that we would have the answer in writing through the clerk. Do we still agree on that?

I misinterpreted. I beg your pardon.

I’d like to follow up on Senator Marshall’s question. One thing that struck me in the opening remarks was your idea that the basic income program places the burden on the vulnerable individual to fix their own problems that they face.

Could you expand on that? What needs to be done? Maybe tie that into where you are now in terms of your research and work. What are the next steps so that we can understand where you’d like to take it? Thank you.

Thank you, Professor Green. I want to come back to something you raised with Senator Woo in terms of long-term costs.

Part of the challenge has been that — certainly I’d be interested in your response to this, in writing as well — we haven’t seen a basic income and we haven’t seen the long-term costs, in part, because, as you pointed out, there is the political nature and the fact that programs have been cut. You’re probably familiar with the Finland example where they have looked at some of the cost savings and downstream benefits of the types of approaches they’ve done and, in fact, have found savings, particularly in terms of medical costs, the criminal legal system and a more just society. Is it tautological in some respects — because of how our election cycles work — that we haven’t had a government that is willing to take it on? That’s the first part of the question.

The second part is the bill doesn’t actually say, “Implement only a basic income.” It talks about national standards. It talks about many of the issues, and replacing social assistance wouldn’t address the single mom that you talked about. In fact, the bill tries to look at a number of those issues. I’d be interested in your response to how a streamlined process might look at all of those issues, including the jurisdictional issues that we’ve raised.