This Senator Says Basic Income Cuts Crime

Added: 2026-05-28

[00:00:00]And we know that in the 1970s, it not only did the Mincome project lift people out of poverty, it actually set people on a different path generationally than they were otherwise likely to be on. And so, and we saw reductions in crime rates, reductions in victimization rates, reductions in hospital reliance because of course, and in fact that's partly how the interest of people like Dr. Forget and many other physicians was captured was the fact that we're seeing increased reliance on the and the emergency care systems when people don't have you know, adequate income for their pharma care or adequate money to buy healthy foods or have recreation in the and lifestyle that would is contributing to a healthy environment. So, we saw that and we saw that the only people contrary to the the often the stigma that you know, people can as Hugh Segal said, people need bootstrap boots bootstraps need boots responding to the classic adage I would say incredibly classist view that you can just lift yourself up by your bootstraps, just pull yourself out of poverty. If that were true, there would be virtually nobody in poverty cuz I don't know anybody who says, "Yeah, I'm signing up.

[00:01:27]I'd like to be poor for a while."

[00:01:29]You know, it's it's just not a reality and yet it's one of the big discriminatory attitudes that exist. And what we saw with the Mincome project and saw again with the Ontario pilot when the Premier Wynn's government introduced a pilot which Premier Ford agreed to continue but then reneged on his election promise, we saw that crime rates went down, victimization rates went down, homelessness reduced, and health care and costs reduced as well.

[00:02:01]I know that if we carried that on for another number of years, in every jurisdiction, we would also see lower imprisonment rates.