NDP candidates differ on plan for income security
The NDP’s federal leadership campaign is now becoming significantly more focused. Peter Julian has dropped out of the race, and no new candidates joined the fray as the entry deadline expired. And as this fall’s voting window approaches, the candidates are engaging in some important foundational debates about the role of government and the purpose of social benefits.
Again, Guy Caron is running on a proposal for a basic income to eliminate poverty altogether. Under Caron’s plan, anybody living below the low-income cutoff line for a region would qualify for a federal basic income boosting them to that line. Caron wouldn’t use the basic income as a basis for eliminating most other social supports, but would ensure its availability to provide support for every Canadian.
In contrast, Jagmeet Singh’s income security plan is targeted toward people working full time, seniors and people living with severe disabilities. Singh has proposed a system of transfers intended to guarantee that nobody falling into those categories will live in poverty. But he plans to fund new transfers in substantial part by folding in existing benefits, and doesn’t intend to extend benefits any further.
In this week’s Saskatoon debate, Singh took another step (and engaged in a spirited exchange with Charlie Angus) in distinguishing between public services which he views as properly being universal, and transfers which he believes should involve only the movement of funds from wealthier contributors to poorer recipients.
The result is the development of two key points of distinction: whether income supplements should be means-tested, and whether
The main conflict arises in the underlying philosophy of the candidates.
they should be restricted based on other factors.
On the first point, none of the candidates is proposing to eliminate means-testing in existing programs — and indeed Caron’s basic income system is also means-tested.
As a result, the main conflict arises in the underlying philosophy of the candidates.
Where the other candidates accept means-testing as a practical limitation to reduce the cost of their proposals, Singh is promoting it as a core value (and challenge to existing NDP policy).
That said, it’s the second point which offers the more important area for discussion and distinction.
It’s fair to say (as Singh does) that nobody working full time should live in poverty, nor any senior or person living with a disability. But Caron has already offered up the thesis that nobody should live in poverty — making for a stronger and more consistent principle.
In effect, Singh’s plan would redraw existing lines as to who receives support, while conceding as an underlying assumption that some people don’t deserve income security. That figures to help other parties who can draw on his caveats and exclusions to argue that income supports shouldn’t be extended at all. And it also means his plan would offer hope (and ultimately income security) to far less people than Caron’s.
And even if there were a sound basis to leave some out-group on the wrong side of an antipoverty policy, it’s far from clear that Singh has drawn the line in the right place.
In particular, a wage tax benefit doesn’t offer support to people who can’t find traditional work due to economic or personal circumstances. And so the people most excluded from work opportunities might suffer a further disadvantage in being barred from income supports.
Lest there be any doubt, Singh’s plan would still make for an improvement on the status quo. But it remains to be seen whether NDP members will want to limit the party’s vision on income security to accepting and tweaking the system that has so many people facing precarious lives.