In her Globe and Mail column of Saturday, Jan. 14, Margaret Wente observed: “The United States has suffered two generations of industrial decline and nobody has a clue what to do about it. The worst problem is automation, not free trade...”
When I read that, my response was: Andrew Weaver, leader of the B.C. Green Party, knows what to do.
I’m referring to his column, “Basic income could address evolving employment trends,” which appeared in the Jan. 13 issue of the Oak Bay News.
Weaver contends that “basic income could help us address the high levels of poverty we have in B.C., and remedy some of the shortcomings of our current social assistance programs ... (as well as) help us respond to the shift we are witnessing in the world of work.”
“Basic income,” he adds, “holds exciting prospects for improving the lives of many in our province and securing us against an uncertain future.”
I applaud Weaver’s thinking and his sensible, go-slow recommendation that “we run pilot projects in B.C. ... to calculate the net costs and measure the outcomes on communities.”
Patrick Wolfe
Oak Bay