Canada: The Case for Basic Income

The idea of a universal minimum level of income support for all Canadians was first recommended by the Croll Committee Report in 1971. In the same year, the Castonguay-Nepveu Commission of Quebec suggested a similar scheme. In the early 1970s, a Social Security review reintroduced the concept. Based on proposals from these studies, the Canadian government, in partnership with the province of Manitoba, conducted a Negative Income Tax (NIT) Experiment called MINCOME, between 1974 and 1979. At the time, it was widely believed that this experiment would serve as a pilot for a universal programme that would revolutionize the ways in which Canadians pay taxes, receive benefits and earn income. The oil shocks and persistent stagflation of the 1970s brought different governments to power at both the federal and provincial levels, and ended MINCOME without implementation of the anticipated universal basic income proposal. In 1986, however, the idea was revived by the Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, known as the Macdonald Commission and, once again, the excitement generated by such a radical proposal did not translate into a universal basic income scheme. Since then, subsequent governments have continued to flirt with the idea, and the most effective new social support programmes in Canada, such as the National Child Benefit, are built on the lines of a negative income tax.