Why aren't Canadian Urbanist talking about UBI

[wg_flamip]

Originally Posted by 1overcosc

A common argument made is that only the biggest cities offer services the poor need, but this is also bunk.

It depends on what services you require. While many services are available in smaller cities, there are many specialized services that only exist in our largest cities. I'm most familiar with the specialized services available to the LGBTQ community in Toronto, so those will be my focus in the following examples:

-Addiction treatment programs that focus on the LGBTQ population that are aware of and sensitive to its unique causes and forms. Take meth addiction, for example. Meth hit the gay community hard: the club scene, the baths, the parties, &c. Treatment sensitive to that context has literally saved the lives of people who are very important to me. Other mental health services are also targetted toward the community, including treatment for eating disorders, domestic abuse-related trauma and mental health issues more generally (while some LGBTQ patients experience fantastic care in the mainstream system, others come away with horror stories).
-Services specifically designed for male and trans sex workers, which can include anything from social work to strength in numbers (identifying bad johns through the grapevine, for example).
-HIV-related services. In addition to specialist services, a poz person may have better access to GPs, pharmacists and other healthcare providers who have experience and training in the field in larger cities.
-Culturally sensitive services, which include support for LGBTQ youth navigating diverse and occasionally hostile cultural contexts. This can include the threat of "honour" killings, corrective rape, forced marriage, various forms of reparation therapy and other forms of abuse. It can also include minority-language counselling or access to LGBTQ-friendly religious leaders (finding someone to perform a Hindu same-sex marriage, &c.).
-Immigration services including refugee resettlement programs aimed at those fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, lawyers specializing in LGBTQ asylum claims, resources for undocumented migrants, &c.

And this is just in one minority community among scores of others with specialized needs. While most Canadians have access to most services in mid-sized cities, many of these groups (which include some of the most vulnerable in society) do not.

[GlassCity]

Originally Posted by lio45

Of course! You haven't noticed the wording of what I was replying to?

Rents could be $5,000 a month for a cupboard under the stairs in Vancouver for all I care and it wouldn't have the least bearing on my point that you can live decently in this country with $600 a month.

I suggested that UBI could be somewhat tied to rents in this thread already, but I think I'll reconsider that. Living in a given city over other available cities isn't a fundamental right, it's actually a privilege.

The beauty of an UBI would be its simplicity. If you're stupid enough/stubborn enough to try to make ends meet on it in Vancouver, be my guest, but do know you'd be much better off in Saint John or Moncton. What you choose to do with your UBI is your own problem.

This is what I tried to bring up earlier. As liberal as I am, I just can't buy into the argument that people deserve to remain in the cities they grew up in, much less their neighbourhoods. UBI would present people with a choice between a harder life in the city they're already in, and an easier life somewhere else. Of course it wouldn't be easy for a Vancouverite to move to New Brunswick, but in cities as close as Chilliwack or Nanaimo, that UBI cheque would already go much further. And if you really want to stretch it, Prince George is an 8.5 hour drive away from Vancouver, 7.5 hours away from Edmonton, has a population of 85,000 and has a much lower cost of living.

UBI could really serve as an economic catalyst for such midsized cities and could help us move away from our dependence on a handful of cities to house the majority of our population. Ensuring the feasability of aspiring music stars in Vancouver and Toronto shouldn't really be the priority of such a program.

That being said, I see what Stryker is saying and I do have concerns about this really just being a further embrace of capitalism. I'd hope to learn more about how it's worked out in other places before it inevitably becomes an election issue here in the next few cycles.

[1overcosc]

Originally Posted by wg_flamip

It depends on what services you require. While many services are available in smaller cities, there are many specialized services that only exist in our largest cities. I'm most familiar with the specialized services available to the LGBTQ community in Toronto, so those will be my focus in the following examples:

-Addiction treatment programs that focus on the LGBTQ population that are aware of and sensitive to its unique causes and forms. Take meth addiction, for example. Meth hit the gay community hard: the club scene, the baths, the parties, &c. Treatment sensitive to that context has literally saved the lives of people who are very important to me. Other mental health services are also targetted toward the community, including treatment for eating disorders, domestic abuse-related trauma and mental health issues more generally (while some LGBTQ patients experience fantastic care in the mainstream system, others come away with horror stories).
-Services specifically designed for male and trans sex workers, which can include anything from social work to strength in numbers (identifying bad johns through the grapevine, for example).
-HIV-related services. In addition to specialist services, a poz person may have better access to GPs, pharmacists and other healthcare providers who have experience and training in the field in larger cities.
-Culturally sensitive services, which include support for LGBTQ youth navigating diverse and occasionally hostile cultural contexts. This can include the threat of "honour" killings, corrective rape, forced marriage, various forms of reparation therapy and other forms of abuse. It can also include minority-language counselling or access to LGBTQ-friendly religious leaders (finding someone to perform a Hindu same-sex marriage, &c.).
-Immigration services including refugee resettlement programs aimed at those fleeing persecution because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, lawyers specializing in LGBTQ asylum claims, resources for undocumented migrants, &c.

Of those five examples, the first three are definitely available in Kingston. Last two a little dicier because the city is so white.

However, investing government money into expanding availability of specialist services into smaller centres would be a lot cheaper than indexing UBI to local cost of living in Toronto & Vancouver.

[ssiguy]

In BC a single person {including those on disability} get a whopping $375/month for shelter which is suppose to cover your rent, phone, heat, and hydro. To illustrate how far BC has swung from being a generous social welfare state to Canada's most capitalistic, that rate has increased by a whopping $75/month since 1990! A person on general welfare in BC gets $625 and the disabled a maximum of $970.

The Liberals and NDP before them have decimated BC's welfare system and is uniformally agreed y most social workers has the hardest to qualify for. Once you apply now, you have to wait a minimum of 3 weeks to even get approved even if you are literally starving to death on the streets.

Now does anyone have any more questions about why BC has the highest overalll and child poverty rates in the country, the largest gap between the rich and the poor, the smallest middle class, and Canada's only urban slum?

[ssiguy]

As far as general UBI, it's a great idea but I think it would be a nighmare to implement and not very politically palatable. The Conservatives and many moderate Liberals/NDP would see it as "money for nothing."

A general income level would still require a huge bureaucracy as they would still have to monitor and provide assistance to people who can work but don't want to, can't temporarily, need retraining, or just can't find a job right now, or are a refugee. Also due to being a relatively temporary assistance there would be people on and off the system constantly requiring {as it does now} as a huge bureaucracy It could eventually be worked out but it would be very difficult.

First things first, get the Disability Assistance off the provincial roles and straight onto federal ones. It would require almost no added staff except for initial qualifications but after that nothing. Someone could leave the assistance but be "grandfathered-in" so that to reapply is simply filling in a form and it's automatice and it should not, unlike welfare, be tied to your asset levels. Just make it OAS and have the disabled pay taxes like everyone else and by having it federal it follows you across the country.

[1overcosc]

Here in Ontario, disability (ODSP) is hard to get requiring months of paperwork, but general welfare (OW) is actually quite easy to get. In fact, people often go on OW while waiting for ODSP.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

As far as general UBI, it's a great idea but I think it would be a nighmare to implement and not very politically palatable. The Conservatives and many moderate Liberals/NDP would see it as "money for nothing."

A general income level would still require a huge bureaucracy as they would still have to monitor and provide assistance to people who can work but don't want to, can't temporarily, need retraining, or just can't find a job right now, or are a refugee. Also due to being a relatively temporary assistance there would be people on and off the system constantly requiring {as it does now} as a huge bureaucracy It could eventually be worked out but it would be very difficult.

First things first, get the Disability Assistance off the provincial roles and straight onto federal ones. It would require almost no added staff except for initial qualifications but after that nothing. Someone could leave the assistance but be "grandfathered-in" so that to reapply is simply filling in a form and it's automatice and it should not, unlike welfare, be tied to your asset levels. Just make it OAS and have the disabled pay taxes like everyone else and by having it federal it follows you across the country.

Is that possible, constitutionally?

[ssiguy]

Of course it would be constitutional just as support for those over 65 is. The feds already provide most of the support of the disabled already due to social/welfare transfers and CPP Disability.

For KWoldtimer...........In BC you have to qualify to regular assistance and provide nighmarish amount of doctors forms to apply for disability assistance which cane take 1 to 2 months. In BC thou after showing up at the welfare office you have to wait 3 weeks to apply regardless of your situation {except if there are kids involved} for your "personal job search" and BC is the only jurisdiction that makes that requirement.

Even getting general welfare in BC is a nightmare and very difficult as you cannot have more than $150 cash on hand to qualify. Basically you have to be completely broke and absolutely destitute znd a permenent residence. Believe it or not many of those poor drug addicted souls in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside don't qualify for welfare.

[eemy]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

A general income level would still require a huge bureaucracy as they would still have to monitor and provide assistance to people who can work but don't want to, can't temporarily, need retraining, or just can't find a job right now, or are a refugee. Also due to being a relatively temporary assistance there would be people on and off the system constantly requiring {as it does now} as a huge bureaucracy It could eventually be worked out but it would be very difficult.

I don't think you understand what a Universal Basic Income is. The whole point is that everyone receives it unconditionally. Multimillionaires would receive the exact same UBI as someone living on the street. Employment status wouldn't matter. There are some details about how exactly it would be fairly implemented, but the whole point is to make it bureaucratically more simply by making it universal.