OTTAWA - You would be forgiven for having never heard of the Croll Report. The fruit of a Senate committee on poverty, the report was published in 1971. It stated plainly that the structure of the Canadian welfare state was failing.  The report proposed a bold innovation to fix that problem: the implementation of a nationwide negative income tax. The time has come to fulfill that recommendation.

Negative income tax is one of those great ideas whose time has never come. The principle of NIT is simple. Government determines a particular annual income at which someone could maintain a living. Government in turn assures that anyone falling below that income line is "topped up" with a direct cash transfer, literally the opposite of an income tax. The transfer amount would equal the amount of money you would need to reach the minimum income line.

The program was proposed by famed economist Milton Friedman as a simple means of replacing the welfare state. He argued that a simple, direct transfer to allow citizens to reach a basic income line would eliminate the need for complicated welfare programs. It would be an effective way of combatting poverty without the labour market distortions and stalled income mobility caused by welfare dependency.

Suffice to say, the Croll Report was enthusiastic about the idea. Shortly after the Report was published, the Government of Manitoba indicated its interest in testing NIT. The result was the "Canada-Manitoba Agreement Concerning A Basic Annual Income Experiment", referred to more simply as Mincome.

This otherwise hopeful project ended in quiet failure. In 1979, the program was discontinued as a result of altered experimental objectives. The program never published a final report or findings, leading to a haphazard analysis by Canadian academics attempting to make sense of the mass of data that was dropped in their laps. This led to general uncertainty about what, if any, conclusions could be drawn from the Mincome experiment.

Despite the difficulties, there were some positive signs that NIT had potential for success. One of the most serious concerns was that the program would incentivize recipients to reduce their work hours. At its worst, perhaps NIT would lead to otherwise productive Canadians exiting the labour market entirely.

The results were encouraging. Any effect that participation had on work incentives was minimal. Receiving these cheques was not substantially effecting work hours.

Again though, the data was confusing at best. Results suggested a heightened possibility of marital dissolution for participants, but nothing conclusive could be gleaned. Questions abound about the generalizability of such a local program to the national economy. It remains unclear how expensive such a program would be. The possibility remains that a national program of this nature may be costly, and in a time of fiscal belt tightening, such a bold step forward may not be appropriate.

Despite these issues, Mincome was a step in the right direction. What we need now is the political willingness to attempt another experiment with the negative income tax.

It is a policy that is lauded on both the right and the left. Conservatives see an opportunity to replace dated, expensive, and inefficient welfare state programs with a more effective tool for reducing poverty. Negative income tax, to the right wing, is an opportunity to end the worst excesses of welfare: dependency, stagnating income mobility, and a general loss for the labour market.

To the left, a negative income tax stands as an opportune way to end the scourge of poverty. While it certainly will not be a final solution, it is undoubtably a step in the right direction.

What we need is a repeat of the Mincome experiment to really test the feasibility of such a program. This time, we need a willingness to conclude: a final report, with a fair hearing in a parliamentary committee, and a multi-partisan agreement to evaluate the evidence on its merits.

The potential good a negative income tax could do, for the Canadian economy and the Canadian poor, make any attempts well worth the effort. There are only a few issues in Canadian politics which summon a consensus. This should certainly be one of them.