Women in Burnaby dropped banners from overpasses on Kingsway in Metrotown and Marine Drive reading “#Women Demand Guaranteed Livable Income.”
Alice Lee, one of the women who dropped the banners on Saturday, said COVID-19 has highlighted the need for systemic change.
“Independent women’s groups have advocated for a guaranteed livable income for decades; now is the time to implement it,” said Lee. “The pandemic left women who already had to deal with inadequate incomes even worse off. Many jobs will not come back. It is time to address inequality. A guaranteed livable income will do that.”
The banner-dropping in Burnaby is a part of a province-wide action led by the BC Women’s Alliance.
According to Jacqueline Gullion, an organizer with BC Women’s Alliance, “As the federal and provincial governments plan for economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, we insist on women’s entitlement to better than a ‘return to normal’ since for many, the ‘old normal’ was based on economic and other inequalities of women, Indigenous people, and people of color. Women require monumental, urgent change, including here in B.C. We have a chance to build a just future for women and for all, starting with a Guaranteed Livable Income.”
While the terms Guaranteed Livable Income (GLI), Universal Basic Income (UBI), and Guaranteed Annual Income are often used interchangeably, the BC Women’s Alliance is calling for a specific scheme of GLI that is given to everyone in Canada regardless of citizenship or status, without a means test, without a job search requirement, given to individuals instead of families (this especially protects women from being trapped in abusive relationships) and is a livable amount.
