Basic Income Guarantee pilot
Petitioners ask the Government of Canada to immediately negotiate with Prince Edward Island to develop and implement a Basic Income Guarantee demonstration in PEI, monitored and evaluated for five to seven years.
Why we would sign this petition
- Would create real-world evidence on a Basic Income Guarantee's effects, helping determine whether broader implementation across Canada is warranted.
- Targets poverty, a major social determinant of health; a pilot could test whether guaranteed income improves health and social outcomes.
- A five- to seven-year monitored and evaluated demonstration gives time to measure impacts and adjust policy design before scaling up.
Why we wouldn’t sign this petition
- Negotiating and implementing a new pilot could be costly and require significant federal and provincial budget commitments not specified in the petition.
- Intergovernmental complexity and administrative challenges could delay or dilute the pilot, limiting its usefulness.
- A pilot may not answer scalability or long-term funding questions, and some may prefer testing targeted anti-poverty measures instead.
The summary and both sets of reasons are AI-generated from the petition and given equal weight. Claims are the petitioners’ own; consult the official record for the full text.
Official petition
Petition to the Government of Canada WHEREAS: In November 2020, the final report of the Prince Edward Island Special Committee on Poverty in PEI recommended that the Government of Prince Edward Island begin immediate negotiations with the Government of Canada to develop and implement a Basic Income Guarantee demonstration program for Prince Edward Island; This report was passed unanimously in the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island with the support of all political parties; and This demonstration program will benefit all of Canada by providing the information required for broader implementation, as poverty is the primary social determinant of heath and requires bold and creative approaches to understand and address its root causes and consequences in Canada. THEREFORE, we, the undersigned citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the Government of Canada to begin immediate negotiations with the Government of Prince Edward Island to develop and implement a Basic Income Guarantee demonstration program in the province of PEI that will be implemented, monitored, and evaluated for five to seven years.
Government response
No government response is available yet.