A guaranteed livable basic income is an important foundation for climate resilience and a just energy transition—giving communities the economic security they need to adapt, recover, and lead local solutions, according to panelists at a recent webinar.

The webinar hosted by grassroots climate justice group Grand(m)others Act To Save The Planet (GASP) reanimated debates around basic income based on Senator Kim Pate’s Bill S-206.

Introduced May 28, 2025, the bill calls for creation of a national framework for a guaranteed livable basic income (GLBI) for everyone over 17 in Canada. Under the bill, “liveable” means enough to afford food, housing, clothing, transport, and other essentials—and recipients would not need to be in training or employment to qualify. It also ensures that critical disability and health supports remain intact.

“Basic income is the most radical nonradical idea that we can talk about,” said Dr. Niigaan Sinclair, an Indigenous studies professor at the University of Manitoba. Communities don’t thrive when people are excluded; basic income helps build communal bonds and ensures every life has worth, Sinclair said. Pate added that GLBI is part of remedying overrepresentation of Indigenous Peoples in prisons, and addressing the harms of poverty.

Sinclair’s message that ‘everyone matters’ grounds the work being done by the non-profit, non-partisan organization, Basic Income Canada Network (BICN) since 2008, said BCIN founding member and chair since 2014, Sheila Regehr, who is also a board member at The Energy Mix.

“If conversation, listening, and finding solutions are radical, then we are that,” Regehr said. “It’s in our own work, in our collaborations, and in our support for Senator Kim Pate’s work.

“A basic income is an antidote to so much inequality and injustice against people and the planet. There is no time to waste.”

Participants at the webinar emphasized what Green Resilience Project partners and organizations across Canada have highlighted: that without economic security, climate and community resilience is low. They said basic income is more than policy wishful thinking; it’s central to justice, community, and climate resilience.

Research on the cost-effectiveness and socio-economic outcomes of GLBI dispels [pdf] any fears that it discourages work or fuels inflation. “Equating welfare to basic income is a misunderstanding—it’s an opportunity for people to know they don’t have to be in crisis,” Sinclair said.

For Pate, it’s clear that “the only way we can achieve decolonizing and decriminalizing, is by building up community.” That means GLBI should complement, not replace, the social supports already designed to meet diverse needs. Community resilience requires rooted solutions—income security is one of them, participants in GRP discussions have said.

Bill S-206 and GLBI are being discussed after a second reading on June 4, 2025. The challenge now is political will, said webinar speakers. The law calls for consultation with provinces, territories, Indigenous governments, health, housing, disability ministries—and reporting back to Parliament. There’s no time for more pilot studies, GLBI proponents said at the forum. Canada has the data, the moral imperative, and the pressure for basic income policy that reflects dignity and equity.

Energy Mix Productions is lead convenor of the Green Resilience Project, where Giselle Lee Hausman works as Project Manager.