On the Canada pension plan, I'm optimistic. We may be able to move forward here, but there clearly needs to be a concrete proposal put on the table by the federal government, perhaps in co-operation with Ontario.
I do note there was an announcement yesterday that the matter will be discussed at the June meeting of finance ministers. I would have thought it possible, given the work that was done by the federal government and the provinces earlier, for a concrete proposal to come out of that meeting in June, rather than punting it off until next December.
The study we released yesterday really underlines the fact that the RRSP retirement savings of Canadians who don't have pension plans are, for many, grossly inadequate. There's an increased risk of poverty as a result of that. I think the government's commitment to increase the OAS is welcome, and it should be in this budget. The big flaw in that proposal, the way I understand it, is that the way it is set out it applies only to single seniors. At least one in three seniors living at a low income is actually in a couple. There's always a question of whether a 10% increase is adequate. It still leaves a lot of seniors living in poverty, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
I think you start running into problems just in terms of technical design on the GIS. It's expensive to increase it for everybody, but the risk of targeting it too narrowly is that you end up with a super GIS and not-so-super, plain-old GIS at the end. There are some real design issues there that are a problem.