First off, thank you to all who participated in our recent post-AGM Survey. It is gratifying to the C-Team that both initiatives were approved by you and we hope that you will participate in our upcoming surveys as well. In these increasingly perilous times, it is crucial that we keep acting together with the same message about basic income and it's through endeavours like this that we hope to keep all of you informed and educated.

FACILITATOR’S CORNER

Basic Income is actively in the news and in the halls of Government. Most importantly, the business community has now recognized a BI as a potential tool for Building Back Better and Stronger. What is needed is action! While organizations of a wide range have petitioned Government, each of us should also support this by calling or writing our MP. While you're at it, you could copy your local municipal officials encouraging them to make contact as well. Politicians need to hear from us. Organizations don’t vote; individuals do!

As OBIN members, we have accomplished much this past fiscal year but much more remains to be done and we need to continue working together. This is why we have OBIN and why there is a Coordinating Team. For up-to-date information about the Basic Income campaign in Ontario and across Canada, follow us on Facebook and visit our website.

We need to revitalize the C-Team with new members and ideas. If you feel strongly about the urgent need for a Basic Income and the role that OBIN is playing, please submit a brief BIO indicating your interest and skills by November 30 to my email at the end of my report. Please refer to our Basis of Affiliation. If you have ideas as to how the current C-Team can be enhanced by other expertise, suggestions are appreciated. Until approved by members, all positions are open. However, we presently have two outstanding vacant positions: Co-coordinator for External Relations and Co-Facilitator. As others of us have been in our positions for some years, new volunteers are welcome. (We would be delighted to have more than one person competing for a position!)

Finally, it is an ongoing problem to find volunteers with specialized technical expertise. We urgently need to make better use of our NationBuilder software. We would appreciate a special donation to enable us to hire a contractor to help us make use of a number of tools that NationBuilder has which would greatly enhance our outreach. You can make a donation to help with this cause at https://www.obin.ca/donate

I look forward to your replies at [email protected]

Joe Foster

OBIN C-Team Facilitator

External Relations

Lobby week has come and gone but actually, there are still a few more meetings taking place. OBIN, as a part of Coalition Canada basic income, helped to organize and participated in over 50 meetings with MP’s across Canada. We are very pleased that members of the National Farmers Union also joined with us on a number of meetings. We met with representatives from every political party, including 14 Conservatives and 13 Bloc Quebecois. Here are a few things we’ve learned: very few MP’s have an understanding of what basic income means and its implications. One of our reps called basic income a ‘Rorschach test' for MP’s. But – we also heard a lot of MP’s express a strong desire to learn more and to stay in touch. Basic Income really is on the political radar screen! When we go into these meetings, we go in with an ‘ask’ in mind. For example, “Can you help us get the issue of basic income before the Standing committee on which you sit.” Well, we had our first one! On November 3rd, Tracy Smith-Carrier, our Special Programs Coordinator met with the Standing Committee on the Status of Women. 

Now the follow-up. We need everyone’s help, so please consider writing or calling your local MP and tell them: we want Basic Income Now!!!

Barb Boraks

External Relations Coordinator

Internal Relations

I would like to welcome Caterina Lindman to the role of Internal Relations Co-coordinator! Caterina is with the Basic Income Waterloo Region group and I look forward to working with her while we work to formalize a new C-Team through you, our members.

As you know, the C-Team always tries hard to maintain transparency in all that we do and part of that endeavour is to post the Minutes from our monthly C-Team meetings. We have not approved our November meeting minutes but you will be able to find them on our website as soon as they have been approved, likely by early next week.

One of the things that the C-Team is working on is attempting to find out where all of you live and what you might like to do to help make basic income a reality in Ontario and Canada. Among the things that we could use the funding that Joe mentioned in his report is to ask each of you who would like to get more involved to tell us who you are, where you live, and how you would like to contribute. I have received requests from a number of you to point you to local groups that you can become involved with. It's unfortunate that I am unable to help in most cases. I would love to work with individuals to help them form local groups where none exist but that is impossible without knowing where everyone lives. We are in touch with the local groups that we know about but I suspect that there are groups that we don't know about and there are vast swaths of this great province where there is nowhere for people to work together to advance our important cause. Over the next months, we will be working to try to get to know you better. When our technical expertise reaches a point where we can ask you to fill out a form to obtain information, we hope that you will take a few minutes to help us help you. In the meantime, I and the rest of the C-Team look forward to working on bringing our message to the powers that be with and on your behalf.

John Mills

Internal Relations Coordinator

Ontario Basic Income Network
www.OBIN.ca