Quaker Concern newsletter explores guaranteed livable basic income

The winter 2025 issue of our newsletter Quaker Concern is here!

This special edition features four articles that each explore the same theme from different angles. We hope you’ll enjoy learning more about Guaranteed Livable Basic Income (GLBI).

This issue also includes the usual highlights from CFSC’s recent work and travels.

You can read the current issue (as well as past ones) online or download it in PDF.

If after reading this issue you feel inspired to chat about GLBI, we’d love to see you at our online discussion on Wednesday, February 12th.

Guaranteed livable basic income means vibrant communities.

The time for a guaranteed livable basic income is now

By Sandra Wiens

Poverty is increasing in Canada, and income inequality has reached the highest levels in recorded history. These problems are having a major collective impact and as such, require a collective solution. This is an issue that intersects across all areas of Canadian Friends Service Committee’s work, leading us to speak out—in solidarity with many networks, coalitions, and ecumenical partners across Canada—to ask for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income (GLBI). This special edition of our newsletter Quaker Concern will focus on GLBI from different angles. If you’re inspired, the end of this article lists important actions you can take… Keep reading

A fact sheet by Canadian Friends Service Committee corrects myths about guaranteed livable basic income.

Breaking free: a guaranteed livable basic income and
transformative justice

By Karen Ridd

“Darla” is currently incarcerated in a federal institution in Canada. She deeply loves her three children. She also struggles with mental health issues. She’s concerned about her upcoming release from incarceration. She’s not sure how she’ll pay for food and shelter for her family, and is afraid that she won’t be able to access the free medicines for her mental health that she can receive in prison. The city she would call home has a housing crisis. Darla anticipates that she might have to stay in a “tent city.” If she does, her children will be taken from her.

She tells a friend that at least when she is “inside” she can access her children semi-regularly, and when they see her she’s relatively stable and clean. Darla is already considering re-offending or “breaching” upon release, so that she can be re-incarcerated… Keep reading

Multi-faith center at Toronto Airport. Photo: Paulo O/Wikimedia Commons, CC-BY.

Guaranteed livable basic income: a pan-religious case for justice and compassion

By Mel Burns

As a Quaker, I believe that Guaranteed Livable Basic Income (GLBI) has the potential to resonate deeply with our values of equality and the inherent worth of every individual. Rooted in the testimony of simplicity and George Fox’s call to recognize “that of God/Good/Light” in everyone, Quakers are uniquely positioned to champion a policy that addresses economic insecurity and affirms each human life’s sacred and inherent value. However, Quakers aren’t unique in those values, and because Quakerism is so inclusive in its belief, I wanted to briefly examine what other major religions might have to say. Exploring sacred texts from Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, and Buddhism reveals that GLBI could be both a pragmatic solution and a spiritually aligned response to a universal moral imperative. Let’s start with how CFSC is rooted in our Quaker values... Keep reading

“Every One” by Cannupa Hanska Luger. Photo: Peter Burka/Flickr CC-BY

Guaranteed livable basic income as justice: addressing colonial inequality

By Jeremy Vander Hoek

CFSC envisions a world in which dignity, justice, peace, human rights, and harmonious relationships with creation are fostered and upheld. We hold this vision for all Peoples, including Indigenous Peoples. In Canada these have not been upheld equally. It’s worth considering the relationship between our advocacy for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income (GLBI) and this inequality. It’s a matter of justice... Keep reading

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