You read about the billions of dollars that can be saved on the consumer side, if such a program were implemented. It's unclear to me exactly how much this would cost the government up front. If there are savings on the consumer side that overwhelm the upfront costs on the government side.... One study out of UBC said you could save up to $8 billion, I think, on the consumer side.
When other countries have gone down this road or when we look at Canada going down this road, to ensure that we don't have red on our balance sheet for a long time, given the upfront savings for consumers, is there a way that other countries have actually captured some of those consumer savings and shared the savings between government and the consumer, to make sure we stay in the black but that overall there are savings?