Unknown Speaker 0:00 When the pandemic hit last year, it exposed some cracks in the system. The introduction of the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit opened up a conversation about universal basic income. In this episode, producer Scott McLean dives into how artists have weathered the storm and how they were leading the conversation about what makes a living wage way before Coronavirus. This is Same Difference. Unknown Speaker 0:29 [Music] It's time to say goodbye. Unknown Speaker 0:33 I feel like again, for me, it's about the connections we make with others and the baggage we bring to those interactions pretty simply and how sometimes we're just really looking for, you know, a soft place to land for however long, yeah. Unknown Speaker 0:52 That's Julie Tidle talking about the meaning of her latest release, Tornado. It came out in October, and in a normal year, Julie would be performing at venues across Toronto, but 2020 has been anything but normal. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all walks of life, but for artists who make a large portion of their income from live performances. It's been devastating. Unknown Speaker 1:13 Okay, so last year before the pandemic it was approx it was sort of like I was getting 40% from radio royalties mostly from Sirius radio, which actually artists are listening. That's a really good income stream. And then yeah, 40% was the corporate event and wedding band, bar, cover band gig thing and 20% was commercial work and like after work, stuff like that, Unknown Speaker 1:40 How much of a hit did you take them this year? Unknown Speaker 1:43 So I'm only making the radio royalties. So yeah, a huge chunk. I mean, no, I'm making a little bit off the freelance. But yeah, the whole like half almost half my income of the, you know, just working gig musician type thing that a lot of my friends here do to survive, like that's all been eliminated. Unknown Speaker 2:03 One way that artists have been able to survive the pandemic has been the Canadian Emergency Response Benefit launched by the federal government in March, and provided temporary income support for Canadians who either stopped working or without employment or self employment income due to COVID-19. But the release of CERB also ignited a debate over universal basic income and Canada. But what is basic income? Unknown Speaker 2:24 Basic Income is a income security structure that creates an income floor for people. Unknown Speaker 2:34 Barbara Borax has been pushing for a basic income program in Canada for nearly 30 years, and is currently the coordinator for external relations with the Ontario Basic Income network. I'd asked her to give me a definition of basic income and 30 seconds, and she just did it in 10. But beyond that brief explanation, basic income is effectively designed to alleviate poverty, and possibly replace other social programs, think disability or employment insurance. In fact, it creates an income floor and ensures a higher standard of living for Canada's most vulnerable people. Unknown Speaker 3:21 I've had the opportunity to exist in some artistic spaces in my life, through performing comedy and my photography. And I wouldn't necessarily describe the artists I know as vulnerable. Sure, there is a vulnerability to baring your soul to the public through your art. But the resilience and temerity it takes to survive as a professional artist is actually really, really impressive. The song that introduced this segment, Bullets, was from a project called Zinnia, the brainchild of Rachel cardi yellow. It's a story about the inevitability of violence and the impossibility of safety in a world full of misogyny and abuse. It's a story of survival. Last year, CBC hailed the song and a story about their favorite lyrics of 2019. And as the accolades poured in, it meant the 2020 was going to be a year full of festival and showcase appearances for Rachel. Instead, Rachel has been using her time to educate herself about basic income, and lending her voice to a growing number of Canadian artists pushing for a new kind of benefit. Unknown Speaker 4:12 The model that I'm the most drawn to is Leah Gazan's. She's an MP out of Winnipeg. And she's from the NDP and her, her plan is very closely tied to what's a guaranteed livable income. It's very tied to reinforcing like the social network structures we already have. Which I think is really important, rather than I am nervous about fraying at these social programs that we already have in place and fraying at the edges of them in order to make a basic income work. And so that's, that's where I'm mostly drawn to. I like the idea. Yeah, like in the same way that serve worked where if you're making In under a certain amount of money, it becomes impossible to, to just cover your basic needs, and the government stepping up to just cover that bottom line. And I mean for musicians and artists, when you have such a fluctuating income, if you're totally freelance, you really can't know how each month is going to turn out. And just to know that on the month that things go dry, you're not going to lose your home, you're still going to be able to eat. You're still going to afford your mental health medications, like these, these kinds of things. Just I think it's pretty appalling. How close to this precarious line, so many artists live and they're willing to, because they care about it so much, but it's,it's sort of heartbreaking to me. Unknown Speaker 6:00 That precarity is an issue that has hounded Craig Burgled his entire career. A filmmaker by trade. Greg was a sessional instructor, teaching Media Arts production at Vancouver's Emily Carr University of Art and Design for 10 years to supplement his income. But Craig never qualified for employment insurance in his life, and felt he was constantly falling through the cracks in terms of receiving government support when he wasn't working his day job. When CERB was rolled out in March, Greg had a feeling that its benefits started to run out, the conversation around basic income would ignite. And so he got organized. In July, Craig along with Zena Virgie and Clayton Wendat, wrote a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other senior ministers that was signed by over 300 performing artists, including representatives from associations that stand 1000s of artists and art workers calling for a permanent Basic Income guarantee. Unknown Speaker 6:49 The purpose of the letter, I wrote the first draft of the letter, and I saw it as a way to bring different arts organizations to the table. So the the purpose of the letter was, in fact, as a kind of like coalition points, you could say, like, how can I bring a whole bunch of different groups of people together? Let's use the letter as the as kind of like the fire, we're all going to get around and feel warm from each other. And so, you know, I had worked with Zana Vergie who is been, she's the founder of the Invisible Women's video Festival, which was one of the first women's people of colour, women's festivals out of Vancouver in the 80s, late 80s, and I had worked with her back then, when I worked at the Mayworks festival in Vancouver. And I had heard really good things about Clayton Wendat so I just called them both up out of the blue. And I was like, hey, are you in on this? And you know what, like so many other people on this campaign, they were in right away, like, artists get this stuff immediately. So we all polish the letter together. And then I called up. I just read a story on somebody's blog, Lauren's do box. She was study, she wrote this really good article about precarity in the arts. She's from Montreal, so I just messaged her. I was like, I'm doing this, are you interested? It was kind of interesting. First, we had to get into a discussion about what kind of basic income do you support? Because you know, we're not really big. The one we want is a progressive basic income. We're not looking for a libertarian basic income that reduces existing services. So we had to kind of like agree that we, you know, what is a basic income guarantee? And how did that work? So once we talked about that, I asked her, would you translate this, we've done it so that we had the English and the French version of the letter. Which I then use to use as outreach to many, many of the different organizations that signed on. So about 30, a little over 30 arts organizations signed on. I got them all together on a Zoom call, like a private Zoom call with with an with a draft, but almost a complete letter. And I gave it to them and I was like, is there anything else we need to add to this? And you know, so I would. I started with Carfax because I had some history there. They're the voice of the visual artists. They're the of Canada. The union that sets the visual artists rates for gallery shows, group shows that are used by Canada Council and the National Gallery. So I called them up. They had been interested in the issue for decades. So they were on board right away. And then I just started calling up the different people and some took longer to get through to. And, you know, the letter was brought to the membership of these, these organizations. And in some cases, like, when I contacted the Quebec Theatre Council, they were like, We already passed a resolution supported Basic Income last year, it's one of our priorities. We're working on it. We're signing on right away. So others, you know, needed more discussion, IATSI, which is one of the largest, I think they over 20,000 members. At the time, the whole theatre industry was closed down, they were lobbying the government for extending the CERB weeks, all of these organizations that were supporting Basic Income were also in supporting the arts campaign, were also lobbying Ottawa, and MPs to extend the CERB, which, which we know happened. So, so then we, with Zena, and Clayton, and myself, we all come from different arts communities. And we just started contacting all of the people that we knew. And that's how the sort of like prompt list of prominent artists joined on. And I think at one point, near the end, we set up like an online petition that people also signed, which is how we got up to 3000. Like in, I think it was about a week. Unknown Speaker 12:12 Craig's rallying cry for artists gained national attention. And it's helped build a cross sectional coalition of people in Canada, pushing for basic income, including support from some unlikely places. Unknown Speaker 12:23 The idea of a basic income for those living in disadvantaged people living in poverty is one that should attract the attention of our Prime Minister and his colleagues, you know, government's prime ministers, to think big now, we need big ideas in Canada for our development and our enhancement, and our prosperity. It's a new world out there, and it's going to be a new world. Unknown Speaker 12:49 That was former Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, talking to Brian Gallant, the former premier of New Brunswick about his support for basic income. It's rare that social support programs get the endorsement from all sides of the political spectrum. But there are politicians in Canada from all walks of life who are getting behind this issue. In August, Leah Gazan is in the NDP MP for Winnipeg center introduced motion 46, which calls on government to introduce legislation to ensure a guaranteed livable basic income that accounts for regional differences in living costs. This is Gazan speaking virtually in the House of Commons on October 22. Unknown Speaker 13:24 The Honourable Member for Winnipeg Centre. Unknown Speaker 13:28 Thank you, Mr. Speaker. More than 40,000 Canadians have signed a petition to support motion 46, which calls on the federal government to replace the CERB with a permanent permanent, guaranteed livable basic income while strengthening our current and future government public services and programs. If there was ever a time to do this, it is now support for motion 46 crosses party lines. Many colleagues in the house have supported motion 46 along sent along with senators, PTOs and organizations from across the country. Income guarantees are not a new concept in Canada, OAS, for example, but it is not livable and leaves many behind students, disabled persons, refugees, temporary foreign workers, people dealing with serious mental health and trauma issues. We must uphold our Canadian Charter and ensure that all people are able to live with dignity and human rights in Canada. Governing is about choices. We cannot afford not to care for people at this critical juncture. We must divest from corporate welfare and invest in people time to support motion 46. Unknown Speaker 14:32 Basic income is a creative approach to helping people like artists survive in times like COVID-19 and the pandemic has also forced artists to find new creative outlets for their work. Unknown Speaker 14:41 [Music]He's got inside jokes about the Ottawa edisi after the rice cakes and self loathing, maybe we're all stuck with him now. Hey, this guy's travers. Unknown Speaker 15:15 Usually after a stand up comedian delivers a punch line, you hear laughs in a comedy club. But when Ottawa's YukYuk's had to close the stores in March due to the pandemic, Trevor Thompson had to shift his weekly Sunday night show to zoom. That meant no live audience provide the feedback that comedians crave. Trevor has been performing stand up for 15 years, and after leaving a stable job in government decided to move from Ottawa to Toronto to pursue his dream of stand up comedy full time. The high cost of living however, meant that he had to take on a second career as a delivery driver for a local craft brewery, waking up sometimes at four in the morning to fill his shift. The financial stress of trying to make a go in Toronto impacted not only his everyday schedule, but also his creativity. And ultimately, he moved back to Ottawa. Unknown Speaker 15:56 Let me give you an example of like when I lived in Toronto, so during my like five years in Toronto, or whatever it was, I got a day job there where like, it just kind of started sucking the life out of me. And it just kind of took over my life and it was main reason why I just stopped doing comedy because it was a job where I had to get up. So this isn't necessarily a financial constraint but in the long run, it's a it was a time constraint. But it tied into the fact that in doing this job that I had to do to make a living, I had to get up five four thirty, five, even earlier sometimes in the morning to go to work. So it was a big constraint in terms of being able to go out and try to work on comedy, or to do shows or just to do open mics and get better, because I had the constraints of I had to get up at four in the morning to go work in my my day job. It's yeah, I mean that that's just one example. Right. But in terms of the constraints of having to work, depending upon, whatever whatever your job may be, is a huge hindrance for comedy in terms of just being available at night, like, you know, this is a nighttime thing that we do. And if you work as a server, or you know a bartender or in any kind of like hospitality, industry jobs, you have to work at night. That's why so many comedians work at comedy clubs, because they're in the environment already anyway. And it's like, well, maybe they can just throw me on to do a spot. But if you're just a regular, like, get to know somebody's working in a restaurant, and you got to work four nights a week, because that's where you make your money and that's when you make your tips. You don't have you can't do comedy, you can't do shows you can't you got your schedule is a is a nightmare. Because if you want to do a weekend of shows you got to book all this time off work. It's a, I mean, that's why so many comedians like working, working. You know, if they're going to work as servers, they like doing daytime shifts, right? But then you don't make as much money generally, when you're working daytime shifts, depending upon where it is you're working. Yeah, so I mean, those are just a couple examples there i can i can cite for it's just it's all it's time, right, like having the time having the freedom to not have to worry about working, so you can work on what it is you want to do. Unknown Speaker 18:08 That improvement on living conditions is something that extends beyond the artistic community, which is why Craig aligned himself with the Ontario Basic Income network. In October, the conversation around basic income was a part of national lobby days, which is a time where lobby groups meet with MPs across the country to advocate for their issues. Remember, Barbara Borax, 10 seconds on basic income? Well, when lobby days came around, Barbara made sure she was there? Well, technically was on zoom, because it's still 2020. Unknown Speaker 18:35 Working with groups across the country we're reaching out to their MPs within the provinces or local areas to arrange for meetings, all all parties are involved. We had coast, we had sponsors as the sponsors from every party except Block, who were guiding us and helping us. So we ended up getting well over 50-55. I don't have a final account of meetings from MPs from every party across the country. Through half our meetings. One, two, maybe three people from our side took every meeting. And these were conversations. So the content of what transpired is, I think everyone got a from our side, we've got a better grasp of how little is really understood about basic income. And I think from the MP perspective, there's a much greater grasp that we have and again, the community here the royalty, we have a lot of research and evidence that can be utilized to to start creating those very productive conversations within government. on what is the basic income? What does it mean, what does it cost? How can it be adopted and what are the benefits down road? Unknown Speaker 19:45 Despite all the efforts from people like Barbara and Craig, it's still hard to predict how the chips will fall on motion 46. In Ontario, the previous Liberal government had introduced a basic income pilot project in 2017. During his campaign, Doug Ford said that he would keep the project going. When the Progressive Conservative government came into power, one of their first orders of business was canceling the program. This is Lisa McLeod, who was the Minister of Children, Community and Social Services. Speaking in the legislature in 2018. Unknown Speaker 20:15 Ministers. Unknown Speaker 20:16 I thank the the Honourable Member for his question. Look, our government will be doing a line by line audit that will be made available in due course. But let's get back to the point. We had an early days of this government found that we had a patch work dysfunctional system to eradicate poverty in Ontario, which social assistance and basic income should be part of. So we made we made a tough decision, a decision that is going to be right for the people, but it was a difficult decision to make. So over the next 100 days, we are going to develop an affordable responsible plan to help people that are on the basic income pilot project to get back to work, to get back to school, to find themselves an opportunity to lift themselves up out of the cycle of poverty we've seen over the past 15 years. I would point out that as somebody who has raised 10s of 1000s of pounds of food for food cupboards in my home community, there is a greater reliance today on people using food banks, there's a greater reliance of people needing affordable housing, there's a greater reliance of people that need homeless shelters. And that's a result of 15 years of mismanagement. Unknown Speaker 21:19 That fact doesn't discourage Rachel or Craig, who both feel that the momentum around Basic Income means that it's more than likely that Canada will adopt a policy in the near future. Unknown Speaker 21:29 I'm excited about it. And it's been like very nice to see. Even like beyond basic income, just musicians and artists like really, and creatives in general making a fight for it, and like having the energy and the time to put a lot of thought and action into like what we want our communities to be and where we want to stay. I hope, hopefully see some like good news with it. Unknown Speaker 22:02 I think the basic income is coming. There's no doubt in my mind that over time, this is going to become an important part of our social safety net. So here's the thing, what kind of basic income are we going to get? They're going to bring it in eventually. But are they going to strip our other social services in order to make this this new program? Or are we going to have a progressive basic income? So that's what I'm fighting for. I'm fighting for the idea that we can have an income tested, basic income, that sends a check to anybody in need, works the exact same way as the health care program works. If you need health care, you go to the hospital, and you and you get it. You get the care you need. It's universal in that way. If you fall into poverty and you fall below a certain earnings, then you get a basic income. It's universal in that way you get a check if you need it. Unknown Speaker 23:07 While the outcome of motion 46 is still very much up in the air. One of the clear byproducts of COVID-19 has been an increase in people consuming art in their additional free time. From online streaming services for video and music, to old fashioned books, people still rely on art to get them through the tough times. For a performer like Julie Tidle. It showcases how even during a pandemic, art is critical to building a sense of community, and how basic income would not only enhance the lives of artists, but Canada as a whole. It also reinforces why she decided when she was a student at the University of Toronto, there was no other way to live her life than to pursue music as a career. Unknown Speaker 23:43 I would say it is a huge risk. It's certainly not the kind of career I imagined for myself when I was younger or that I thought was possible. I think that's more I think I always if I'm being honest with myself wanted to be a musician, but I just didn't think it was possible or sustainable. So it's definitely been a risk in it. It continues to be but yeah, passion is I guess the only thing I could I could say keeps me in it. And also just like I'm really a lot happier being broke doing this than I think I would be doing anything else. I have just this real intrinsic sense that this is what I'm supposed to be doing. This is so fulfilling for me on every single level. It stimulates my creativity, it stimulates my mind. Like there's just nothing else that's as worth doing for me. Unknown Speaker 24:36 [Music] I don't know where the water rises. We don't know. We don't know when it's time to say goodbye. Unknown Speaker 24:50 Episode three done and dusted with an interesting inside look at artists huge financial struggles with this pandemic. That was Scott McLean and a huge thing. To our executive producer Emily Morantz, associate producer Manuela Vega, artwork by Ben Shelley, theme music composed by John Powers, and of course, a huge thanks to Amanda Cupido, our newest Spotify single, and I've been your host Gracie Brison. Remember, fitting in is overrated.