Basic income: Freedom to say no
Basic Income Earth Network Congress 2026 in Toronto
by Helwig Fenner
Perhaps the most beautiful word is: Yes. To give consent, to affirm, to agree.
The most important word, on the other hand, is: No. To say no to dependency, to poor working conditions, to abusive behavior.
Irina from Latvia had no choice. She had serious health problems; she had to take the cleaning job in an area with high unemployment near the Russian border. Then she won the UBI4ALL raffle: one year of Unconditional Basic Income (UBI), every month 9,600 EUR, or $1,300 Canadian dollars. Irina could hardly believe it. Suddenly, she could afford the medication she needed. With a guaranteed income, Irina would certainly have to work less hard, get better and be there more for her family.
Of course, a UBI doesn’t work that way. However, the raffle attracts many people and gets them talking about Basic Income. In particular, the questions of who would do the dirty work and how it would be financed are the subject of heated debate. There have already been many academic studies on this topic. But politicians are ignoring this. They’d rather tinker with minor details than courageously champion a socially and environmentally sustainable vision for the future.
UBI is not additional income, but rather a basic income intended to ensure a modest and dignified life for everyone. Essentially, introducing it would simply be a tax reform. There’s enough money; it just needs to be distributed more equitably. Many government subsidies could be eliminated through a UBI, leading to massive reductions in bureaucracy.
The next raffle will take place on Saturday, Aug. 22, just as the international Basic Income conference, BIEN2026, takes place in Toronto. Readers can apply here now to win the raffle.
Irina and everyone else living in Latvia are not eligible to participate this time. Those are the rules—this ensures that winners come from other parts of the world. (The so-called UBI Beavers are an exception: They are not only Canada’s national animal, but also represent the diligent recurring donors.)
More than 45,000 people worldwide have already registered with UBI4ALL. The raffle pot is financed exclusively through crowdfunding. Behind UBI4ALL is just a handful of activists who volunteer their time to support this promising concept.
Helwig Fenner is the founder of UBI4ALL, an international NGO advocating for Universal Basic Income (UBI). The UBI4ALL team works on a volunteer basis. Helwig is German and theatr teacher in rural Germany.
A good project to raise community awareness. To be most effective, UBI must be universal, that is to say, globally administered. However, given humanity’s propensity to conflict and the political schisms and complaints of corruption at and associated demands to dismantle the UN or at least parts of it and/or to reform and reorganize it, we won’t like see global UBI before AI impacts income on a massive scale. So, it is up to federal governments to take this on. Karina Gould is the only MP I am aware of who has publicly advocated for a federal UBI. She admitted how quickly bureaucracy is being replaced by AI at the federal government and pitched a plan to support species’ survival with a UBI. But most people think that means communism and a big bite out of their pocketbooks so it is not a political winner. I maintain, though, that if a politician ran on a promise to legislate a Friedman-styled UBI that respects the right of the underclass to the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us, to reform Canada’s welfare system in the path of AI labour encroachment, they’d win at least a decade of majority governments. Provided they could explain how it would work so voters could understand it. Because Helwig Fenner is correct. The biggest cost of poverty is its administration. If we simply give the money to those who need it, without paying six figures to middle class overlords to nickel and dime the poor and keep them essentially homeless and dependent, taxpayers would see a yearly savings of $millions.