Ontario pilot project puts universal basic income to the test | World news | The Guardian

Ontario pilot project puts universal basic income to the test | World news | The Guardian Child poverty has been a long term problem in Ontario despite attempts to tackle it for decades as this 2005 photograph of children watching television in a bedroom that sleeps 7 in Kashechewan suggests. Children watching television in a bedroom that sleeps seven. Child poverty has been a problem in Ontario despite attempts to tackle it for decades. Photograph: Charla Jones/Toronto Star/Getty Images Ashifa Kassam in Toronto @ashifa_k Friday 28 October 2016 11.00 BST Last modified on Monday 31 October 2016 04.27 GMT View more sharing options Shares 9,098 Comments 391 The Canadian province of Ontario is pushing forward with plans for a trial run of universal basic income, making it the first government in North America in decades to test out a policy touted as a panacea to poverty, bloated bureaucracy and the rise of precarious work. In the coming weeks, the provincial government is expected to announce consultations to hammer out the details of a C$25m pilot project, with the aim of formally launching it in spring 2017. The government’s foray into basic income began earlier this year when it tasked Hugh Segal, a Conservative political strategist and longtime advocate of the idea, with exploring potential directions for a pilot project. “This is not something which is in any way, in my view, the precinct of the left,” Segal said in an interview. “It is in fact the precinct of rational people when looking to encourage work and community engagement and give people a floor beneath which they’re not allowed to fall.”