organizing activities are currently on hold (2009)
Do you think it is essential to promote the implementation of a universal
Guaranteed Livable Income to save the lives of people, other forms of life
and the health of the planet?
Become a member of Livable Income For Everyone - LIFE
- Before joining, we invite you to read our purposes.
- Decide whether you would like to be a full or supporting member.
Full members will be people who currently receive or have formerly received some kind of income assistance benefits from any province for one year or more as an adult.
Anyone who is a political candidate or who is on the executive or riding association executive of a registered federal or provincial political party is excluded from full membership.
Supporting members (non-voting) are those who support the goals and purposes of Livable Income For Everyone, but do not qualify as a full member. We are grateful to our many supporting members, and hope you will join us too.
To see our reasons for limiting membership, click here.
- Send us an email saying you would like to be a "full" or "supporting" member and include your mailing address.
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Consider mailing LIFE a membership fee ($0-25) or a donation made out to Livable Income For Everyone.
Livable Income For Everyone
Box 8441 - Victoria, BC - V8W 3S1
Coast Salish Territory - Canada
- We will add you to our membership list (confidential to LIFE). Membership runs from January to January.
- We will add you to our email list (unless you request otherwise) to keep you informed about news and events related to GLI and to let you know when new material is added to our website.
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Other things you can do to help LIFE
- Write an article or letter for the LIFE website and we will consider publishing some or all of it.
- Send us ideas for the LIFE Links page.
- Organize a meeting in your community and we'll send you printed material for handouts.
- Mail us copies of any articles in the print media about guaranteed income that are not available on the internet.
- Let us know of potential funding sources (we currently rely solely on membership and donations). Please note that we are not a registered charity, so cannot issue tax deductable receipts for donations. This also excludes us from many funding sources that require a charity number. See more on charities here.
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Request a LIFE presentation
If you are in the Vancouver Island area or the Lower Mainland of BC, you can email us to request a LIFE presentation.
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LIFE Purposes
- To promote the implementation of a universal guaranteed livable income to save the lives of people, other forms of life and the health of the planet.
- To engage in research and dialogue to promote the implementation of a guaranteed livable income as a transition to a socially and environmentally rational and just economy.
- To liaise with other groups who actively support guaranteed livable income.
- To define and redefine the term "livable" through dialogue and research with people who are living in poverty, especially those with disAbilities, those who have young children, with the elderly and others.
- To explore through dialogue and research what other resources, tools, services, and organizations would be necessary to meet people's needs for health and happiness in addition to a guaranteed livable income.
- To explore through dialogue and research barriers to implementation and potential pitfalls after implementation of a guaranteed livable income.
- To explore through dialogue and research the full range of benefits to people and the planet of implementation of guaranteed livable income.
- To investigate, inventory and disseminate information on damage caused by the current job system to people, other species and the planet.
- To promote the re-definition of productive work as only that which produces, maintains and enhances life.
- To explore through dialogue, research and public meetings the specifics of how to implement a universal guaranteed livable income (GLI) when there is agreement by significant numbers of people on the need for a GLI.
Funding: We currently have no on-going funding. We have no staff, no office and rely solely on volunteer labour and donations.
Activities: Due to our extremely limited budget, our current focus is on education and outreach. We publish information via the internet, and when funds allow, we hope to publish printed material. We are sometimes available to provide speakers and make presentations to large or small groups.
Donate: If you support the concept of a universal Guaranteed Livable Income then please help us with our initiative by sending a donation (made out to Livable Income For Everyone).
Please note, however, LIFE is not a registered charity and we cannot issue tax deductable receipts.
Livable Income For Everyone
Box 8441 - Victoria, BC - V8W 3S1
Coast Salish Territory - Canada
Rationale for membership: It is a real effort and huge challenge to do grassroots organizing but we wanted to have something in our constitution that would make this our focus. The voices of low-income people are harder to get but are vital to have.
It is much easier for people with enough time, funds, mobility, etc. to join and volunteer with groups. Thus, LIFE could easily end up with a membership mostly made up of academics for example. Academics around the world have been doing good work on the issue of guaranteed income, but we wanted to strive to have the voice of the grassroots, and we are trying to do this with a limited membership criteria.
Too often public policy is discussed and planned without the voices of those who would be most affected. This is why some disability activists say: "Nothing about us without us."
It is important that those who would most benefit from a guaranteed livable income have a strong and organized voice in determining what a GLI would look like and to determine what is livable.
We are excluding candidates and organizers of political parties from full membership in order to avoid cooption by any political party. However, anyone who supports LIFE's purposes is invited to become a supporting member.
Once the GLI movement starts really growing, which it will likely do over the next few years, then it will be essential that those with experience and knowledge of the welfare system to bring that knowledge to the GLI debate. There is nothing quite like the experience of having to grovel and be demeaned, shamed and broken at the welfare office (by workers who enforce these policies because they are afraid of poverty themselves) to galvanize you to fight for a social policy where people have dignity and opportunity for health and happiness.
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