Ireland is implementing basic income for artists. Could Canada do something similar?

Elinor O'Donovan says Ireland’s basic income program for artists completely changed her life and her work for the better.

The Dublin-based multidisciplinary artist was a participant in Ireland’s three-year pilot program that saw 2,000 artists and creative arts workers receive a weekly stipend of €325 ($528.90 Cdn) between 2022 and 2025.

“It's pretty huge,” O’Donovan told As It Happens guest host Saroja Coelho. “It's been transformative for my work, and for my well-being in general.”

Now, Ireland has decided to make the program permanent, saying its benefits to society have far outweighed the costs to the government.

Advocates for basic income in Canada are celebrating the announcement, hoping it drives momentum to enact a similar — and more widespread — program in this country.

But, despite evidence from the Parliamentary Budget Office that basic income could alleviate poverty, economists are warning Canadians not to hold their breath.

Basic income is any policy in which the government gives individuals unconditional cash transfers to meet basic needs.

In 2022, Ireland launched Basic Income for the Arts (BIA), a pilot program designed to help the arts sector recover from losses sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This scheme is the envy of the world, and a tremendous achievement for Ireland, and must be made futureproof and sustainable,” Patrick O’Donovan, Ireland’s culture minister, told reporters last week as his government unveiled its 2026 budget.

The pilot, while expensive, generated a lot of bang for its buck, the minister said.

Overall, the government says it spent €105 million ($170.8 million Cdn) on the BIA. But an external report from Alma Economics found those costs were offset by a boost in audience engagement with the arts, increased tax generation, a reduction in social welfare payments, and improved psychological wellbeing for participants.

With those benefits factored in, the report estimates the net cost of the pilot was €72 million ($117.1 million Cdn).

“From a financial point of view, it's hugely beneficial,” Elinor O'Donovan said. “But beyond that, I think there’s something intangible that the arts offer to culture and society at large that is harder to measure, but I think it's still extremely valuable.”

Basic income is something that artists in Canada have long been calling for.

In 2020, at the height of the pandemic, 75,000 Canadian artists, writers, technicians and performers, organizations and labour unions launched a campaign and public letter to the federal government calling for a universal guaranteed basic income.

Now, they’re hoping the news out of Ireland can act as a springboard for the movement here at home.

“We're thrilled. What can I say?” said Craig Berggold, spokesperson for the Ontario Basic Income Network, the organization behind the campaign.

"It's harder and harder for people to not only live, but also to get into the arts."

WATCH | The debate about basic income:

The Ontario government is facing a class-action lawsuit after it abruptly cancelled a basic income pilot project, a decision participants say hurled their lives into turmoil. CBC’s Nick Purdon explores the initiative’s impact and why some say a guaranteed paycheque is the way of the future.

While basic income has massive support in creative industries, Berggold says he and his colleagues are campaigning for something more all-encompassing than Ireland’s BIA — guaranteed basic income for all Canadians who earn under a certain threshold.

In a report published this summer, the Parliamentary Budget Office, the federal government's fiscal watchdog, found that a guaranteed basic income program at the federal level could cut poverty rates in Canada by up to 40 per cent.

“Poverty is expensive for people and for the government,” said Berggold, an artist based in Kingston, Ont.

Berggold says basic income reduces spending on social welfare systems that don’t allow recipients to live with dignity and independence.

“It empowers people to make choices so that they can be bettering their lives, rather than having the kind of a system we have now which is surveillance based, which is checking in on you,” he said.

“What we're looking for is a universal basic income that provides a floor that people can stand on. I always like to say I'm not interested in a net, a social safety net that people have to fall into. I want a floor we can stand on.”

Canada’s provinces have experimented with basic income programs with varying levels of success.

In 2017, then-Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne's government launched a basic income pilot for 4,000 low-income participants. While well-received by participants, it was cancelled by Premier Doug Ford in 2018.

P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador have also piloted programs, and advocates and politicians in P.E.I. are calling on the federal government to work with the province to implement a universal basic income program on the island.

Federally, the NDP pushed for a guaranteed livable basic income with a private member's bill that failed to pass through the House of Commons last fall. A similar bill, sponsored by Sen. Kim Pate, remains in limbo in the Senate.

But Mostafa Askari, chief economist for the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy, doesn’t see basic income happening at a national level in Canada any time soon.

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal government, he says, is focused on navigating the ongoing trade war with the U.S. and finding ways to reduce its impact on Canada.

“I think the government is pivoting, at least for now, away from social services and the safety net issues, and focusing more on the economy and growth and the sovereignty of Canada,” Askari, a former deputy parliamentary budget officer, told CBC.

He says there’s also a possibility that basic income would disincentivize work at a time when the economy needs higher employment.

“The timing definitely is not right for the government to consider something like this,” he said.

Berggold, however, disagrees.

“I understand that people are focused on the tariff wars, but I also hear the government saying that they wanted these nation-building programs,” he said. “I think the federal basic income program could be a nation-building program.”