Sarnia's mayor is asking Lambton County Council to consider re-endorsing its willingness to participate in a guaranteed annual income pilot project.
Mike Bradley said the idea originally received support in March 2016.
"County council did endorse the idea in the past, and I believe it was unanimous, as was the support of the MP and MPP," said Bradley. "We wanted to be a pilot project to see if this social experiment could work and I think we're an ideal community, when I say community of Sarnia-Lambton, with our population, with our diversity, we're not too big, we're not too small, and this time I'm making an approach to the federal level and have been encouraged by them to do this."
Bradley said the last few months have demonstrated the importance of having a basic income program.
"With what's gone on in Canada with the amount of government support there has been for citizens, over eight to nine million people, this is an idea that needs to be revisited and I believe that they're willing to do that in the future. It's not socialism, it's not doing something that we're not doing now. We are supporting people at all times who need assistance."
But, Bradley said the current level of income support, for people with disabilities as an example, is not enough to have a decent life.
"They're prisoners in their own lives and they can not get to a better place. It has been proven elsewhere that when you do have a guaranteed annual income, that people's health gets better, their work habits get better, their commitment to work gets better, and so the best way to prove that to the country is to have a pilot project."
County council will consider the request at its next meeting July 8.
If council moves forward with the re-endorsement, Bradley asks that it be forwarded to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Family, Children and Social Services Ahmed Hussen.
Provincially, a three-year pilot project in Hamilton, Brantford, Thunder Bay and Lindsay, launched by the former liberal government, was cancelled early by Doug Ford's conservatives in August 2018.