OBIN

OBIN Coordinating Team

Minutes – taken by Caterina

Tuesday, 03 August, 2021. 7:00 - 8:30 pm EST

Present at the beginning, had to leave due to not being able to connect: Joe Foster, Kevin Smith

Present: Jim Mulvale, Kerry Lubrick, Piers Eaton, Adam Zvric, Chloe Halpenny, Richard Pommainville, Caterina Lindman

Regrets: Barbara Boraks, Tracy Smith Carrier, Craig Berggold.

Absent:  Ron Hikel and John Mills

• Approval of Agenda – agenda was approved as amended.

• Treasurer’s Report – Richard 
  • we have received 2 donations during the month of July 2021, for a net $33,38;
  • One  expense incurred during the month,  to cover the yearly renewal from NationBuilder,  Canadian $360.01,  which was US$278.40.
  • in the bank account, after extracting the externally restricted funds, there is a net available to OBIN of $1,742.90;
  • one known expense is coming,  being the renewal of the domain name obin.ca. 

• Content Management Update Piers – Content meeting held Thursday with Barbara, John and Joe.  Changing the introductory video to make it more up to date and relevant to Canada.  Revamping some of the website areas, eg. the quotes.  BI and Senators to be BI and Politicians. 

Roundtable: 

• Tracy had some news to announce… “I’m moving to Victoria, BC!! I received word that my nomination for a Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) has been successful and I will be relocating to Royal Roads University for September. It has been a joy and privilege to work with you all these past two years!! I hope we can continue to collaborate together as I aim to find BI supporters in BC to work with us.”
• Craig reported that 
  1. converstaaions are on-going with multiple cities to organize basic income rallies across Canada on Sept 25th.
  2. also conversations for pre-rally events, including community sign making events in Toronto, Hamilton, Edmonton, (maybe Victoria and Peterborough too)
  3. I will be presenting The Case for BI & the Arts at upcoming BIEN conference in a panel with the Scottish Artists Union and UK's UBI Lab Arts
  4. converstaions with Sheila & others for a new election ready website www.basicincomenow.ca
  5. election campaign slogan agreed to by all national BI groups is Basic Income Now
  6. new logo designs are happenning too 
• Joe is stepping down as OBIN Facilitator for a number of reasons.  The Ottawa group is looking for a leader.  Ottawa is doing a book launch for Jamie Swift and Elaine Power’s new book.  
• Richard reported that he, Barbara and Susan McBroom met about the possible Technology Initiative with the University of Waterloo.  3 areas – can AI help us know who is talking about BI?  The second area is social Media?  Thirdly, can we get a sense of how influential we are after we’ve met with a politician?  
• Adam is stepping down from the C-team in September, as he pursues a PhD.  He is looking for a replacement, and is asking if anyone can recommend someone.  
• Chloe said that the #Basic Income Bought Me campaign is going well.  The criminal justice brief is complete.  BICYN is partnering with BI Hamilton on a webinar on basic Income and Youth. They are also working with LeadNow around election actions.  Melanie Davis will be attending OBIN-C-team meetings instead of Chloe beginning in September.  Chloe is presenting at the BIEN conference several times.  
• Caterina reported that she has a committee for Ontario Lobbying Day, consisting of Kerry, Alan and Heather, who are meeting on August 4th.  The OBIN-Affiliates meeting will be this coming Monday.  B.I. Waterloo Region is partnering with Community Legal Aid to host a virtual rally for Basic Income Week.    
• Piers said his main activity was on content management and the newsletter. 
• Kerry retired in January 2020, after a career with Ontario Works.   This experience led her to get a strong sense that a decent Basic Income is needed.  Jeff Martin stepped down as co-leader of the Hamilton group.  
• Jim reported that he is on the Steering Group for the Green Resilience Coalition.  They submitted an application for a grant from the Federal Government to do community consultations on what is needed for income security and jobs to get to a net-zero economy?  Staff is being hired, this project needs to be completed in one year.  The other project he’s involved in is Basic Income messaging for the election.  Jim delivered a paper at the NABIG conference. The BIEN conference is taking place August 18th to 21st, virtually from Scotland, and Jim is presenting at that as well.  

New Business

• Fact Sheets on Basic Income and Social Assistance; approved for website
• Fact Sheet on Basic Income and How to Pay for it; this is too detailed. Suggestion is to write an op-ed, since a lot of work has gone into this.
• The New Team: decisions on schedule and approach as per the documents distributed, Please provide feedback on the documents by August 17th.  
• AGM timing – End of August deadline to get people to apply for positions, then set AGM date around the 3rd week of October.  This allows us to get the new C-team together.
• Budget Consultation – Coalition Canada put out a statement.  Jim wondered about the ‘adjusting the amount to local conditions’, as he is concerned about whether that makes it too complex.  Jim likes the administrative simplicity of the OAS/GIS, Child benefit, where it is the same amount across Canada.  He believes that the differences in costs should be addressed through other policies around housing, transportation and food security, for example.  Joe countered suggesting it  may be administratively easier to adjust payments using the MBM  poverty line. There are only 3 days left, so there’s not much time to come up with our own submission.  We also thought that there is little value in submitting the same thing as Coalition Canada.  Based on all this, we decided we would post the submission from Coalition Canada on our website. 

Deadline for September Newsletter – We chose September 1st, as Piers had left the meeting.

Schedule for Next Meeting – Tuesday 7 September, at 7 pm.

Adjournment Time – 8:24 pm.