Royal Society of Canada Report Recommends a Basic Income Guarantee

Renewing the Social Contract: Economic Recovery in Canada from COVID-19, released in December 2020, details four categories of recommended economic response from Provincial and Federal governments. These categories are: “Renewing the Social Contract, Reinvigorating the Economy, Enabling Innovation, and Improving Crisis Policy Responses”.

Included in the “Priority Recommendations” under “Renewing the Social Contract” is the following:

1. Establish a basic income guarantee (BIG) that is universally available to provide adequate income support to all persons and be responsive to economic shocks. (Emphasis added).
2. Reform provincial and federal labour codes to ensure paid sick leave, as this is an essential public-health policy to support a more resilient economy.
3. Work with provinces and territories to establish universal access to childcare that provides Early Childhood Education, to protect parents and especially mothers’ opportunities for labour force participation.
4. Implement a comprehensive tax reform that enhances the fairness of taxes by broadening the tax base to treat all capital income on a par with earnings, and address intergenerational transmission of wealth inequality by re-instituting an inheritance tax.

You can access the report through the link above, or through the RSC’s website here.