Inequality is up. Decent work is down. Free market fundamentalism has been exposed as a tragic failure. In a job market upended by COVID-19-with Canadians caught in the grip of precarious labour, stagnant wages, a climate crisis, and the steady creep of automation-an ever-louder chorus of voices calls for a liveable and obligation-free basic income.
Could a basic income guarantee be the way forward to democratize security and intervene where the market economy and social programs fail? Jamie Swift and Elaine Power scrutinize the politics and the potential behind a radical proposal in a post-pandemic world: that wealth should be built by a society, not individuals. And that we all have an unconditional right to a fair share.
In these pages, Swift and Power bring to the forefront the deeply personal stories of Canadians who participated in the 2017-2019 Ontario Basic Income Pilot; examine the essential literature and history behind the movement; and answer basic income's critics from both the right and left.
The story of the bloody 1917 Battle of Vimy Ridge is, according to many of today's tellings, a heroic founding moment for Canada. This noble, birth-of-a-nation narrative is regularly applied to the Great War in general. Yet this mythical tale is rather new. "Vimyism"-today's official story of glorious, martial patriotism-contrasts sharply with the complex ways in which veterans, artists, clerics, and even politicians who had supported the war interpreted its meaning over the decades.
Was the Great War a futile imperial debacle? A proud, nation-building milestone? Contending Great War memories have helped to shape how later wars were imagined. The Vimy Trap provides a powerful probe of commemoration cultures. This subtle, fast-paced work of public history-combining scholarly insight with sharp-eyed journalism, and based on primary sources and school textbooks, battlefield visits and war art-explains both how and why peace and war remain contested terrain in ever-changing landscapes of Canadian memory.
