To Ontario's Public Servants,
It has come to my attention that you want to provide your citizens affordable housing and are entertaining the idea of a basic income. I have good news: a basic income can make "housing" (land) affordable if it is funded the right way.
It is in Ontario's best interest to implement a basic income and fund it with the market rental value of land titles ("land rent"). To occupy land (that is, to exist) is an equal human right, and Ontario is currently on par with the rest of the world in failing to grant that right equally to its citizens, creating poverty and unemployment, artificially reducing wages and destroying its economy. You can choose the path of continued economic failure, like the rest of the world -- a situation that any other funding mechanism for a basic income will NOT fix in the long run -- or you can serve as a shining example to the rest of the world, making it impossible for anyone to compete with you unless they adopt your model, known as geoism.
The few times this model has been attempted -- making land rent common property, or public property in place of taxation -- it has worked economic wonders exactly to the extent it has been attempted; think of the post-WWII "Asian Tiger" economies, for example.
The quickest top-down way to achieve this is through land value "taxation" (LVT), but this is politically almost impossible because of vested interests and a general lack of education. You may want to consider slower, more politically feasible approaches like location value covenants (link below) or the establishment of community land trusts (CLT's) that operate on geoist principles, which not all do.
http://www.sfrgroup.org/Home/location-value-covenants
However you decide to collect land rent, it should be either (1) distributed as a Citizens' Dividend, or (2) used for the public purse in place of income, payroll and sales taxes. I hope you'll do the right thing.
Regards,
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