Thank you. Mr. Chair, and committee members.
I am both a public health physician and an academic who does research into the causes of health inequities and the impact that programs and services have on reducing these inequities and improving health and well-being.
I am speaking to you today in my capacity as a member of Coalition Canada Basic Income, which is a coalition of basic income and anti-poverty groups from across Canada that formed near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in response to the early signs and predictions of the inequitable impacts this event would have on the Canadians who are living in poverty.
Our members have worked for many years with community service organizations, non-government organizations, concerned citizens, people with lived experience, as well as academics and other experts to advance the case for an evidence-informed approach to improving income support programs in this country. As has been well-documented by our chief public health officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, in her October 2020 report called “From Risk to Resilience: an Equity Approach to COVID-19”, there has been a disproportionate impact on subpopulations, those who face racism, stigma, or discrimination in many forms due to both the disease itself, as well as the interventions that we've had to use to bring it under control.
This report outlines several high-impact areas of action as a way forward as we move out of the pandemic, learning from what it has exposed. The first and foundational area mentioned is that of economic security and employment conditions. In the first few months of 2020, groups that worked with populations living in poverty were faced with impossible choices. They were being asked to close or adapt services to keep clients safe from COVID knowing that this then risked disrupting the precarious balance of supports these clients depend on. They have also joined our coalition as they have seen the limitations of our current systems of supports and services first hand.
Income supports that were put in place to help Canadians who found themselves out of work during the pandemic response helped a lot of individuals and families who were one paycheque away from homelessness and poverty, and showed that government can be nimble in mobilizing resources to help those in need. However, some people who did not qualify and were already living in poverty may have received bad advice, or applied for this funding only to find that they were then subsequently cut off from their existing income supports, or were being asked to pay this money back. In other cases, the amounts they had been receiving through existing programs were substantially less than the cost of living, and it made the CERB an attractive option for survival. Others faced eviction once temporary bans on evicting people during the crisis were lifted, or saw their lives thrown back into crisis as precarious supports and services were cut back due to COVID safety concerns. The pandemic and our responses in controlling it, essentially, have exposed gaps in our complex system of the programs and services that we have for those living in poverty.
Multiple studies in Canada and elsewhere have also shown that those living in poverty have had more cases of COVID at a higher rate, higher hospitalization rates, and higher deaths than other Canadians. Fortunately, many studies have already been done that show this doesn't have to be the case. Previous experiments with guaranteed annual income in Canada and elsewhere have shown that participants experienced better health, both physical and mental health, and utilized fewer health and social services. The vast majority have used this more secure base of income to stabilize their current circumstances and better plan for their future. Our existing old age security and guaranteed income supplement programs have moved Canada from having one of the highest rates of poverty for older adults among OECD countries to one of the lowest, while the rate of food insecurity among this age group has dropped 50%. Similarly, the child benefit has raised over 334,000 Canadian children above the poverty line, and UNICEF views it as a model of an effective basic income program for that subgroup.
As we make progress in decreasing poverty in this country through these types of programs, we need to address the other subpopulations who are still living in poverty.
Our current programs and services often have complex eligibility criteria and regressive qualification requirements, such as the need to liquidate current assets or claw back any income earned while on assistance, that collectively serve to keep many families in poverty. This has drastic consequences for their health and well-being, leading to yet more costs to deal with the after-effects of the health and social costs of poverty through downstream funding and even more services.
This pandemic has shown us that we need a stronger base to rebuild on to make us more resilient to face future crises. By adopting a guaranteed annual income, families impacted by job loss during a future pandemic or a major change in the economy would know they were secure while they waited for their jobs to return, or they would have the flexibility to retrain for whatever jobs emerged in the new economy. In addition, we'd have a simplified system with less administrative costs with more of the investment going directly to those in need, simultaneously reducing the indirect costs of poverty and reducing the complexity and inefficiency of our current system.
In closing, the costs of a guaranteed annual income are not insignificant, but the costs of dealing with the after-effects and downstream impacts as well as our complex current system are almost as large, and perhaps even larger, with less impact. Many studies have shown that for the most complex cases, the costs of the health, social service and justice systems' current responses to the effects of poverty and homelessness are enormous. They often leave people in the same or worse condition in the end, with little hope for the future.
We can learn from the successes and limitations of our pandemic response and build back better. Basic income has the potential to enable all Canadians to live healthier lives by reducing the negative health impacts associated with living in poverty. It is for this reason that many health and social service organizations, including public health, endorse developing a basic income for Canadians.
Thank you.