When we introduce such a bill, we try to be as specific as possible. The Conservatives say there is a cost of $10 billion a year. In fact, this is about the cost of their decision to cut the GST by two percentage points which deprived the public purse of $12 billion or $13 billion a year.
In the case of our bill, we were wondering where this was coming from. We asked the Parliamentary Information and Research Service of the Library of Parliament to prepare several scenarios. Here is what the Library of Parliament paper, drafted by an economist, said about the $10 billion a year scenario:
As determined in the light of the provided scenarios, it would take a complete breakdown of pension funds for the proposed legislation to cost more than $10 billion a year.
Would you agree with this statement? For the cost to reach $10 billion, it would take a complete breakdown of all pension funds.