On your trip down home, as we maritimers would call it, there are two groups that I think you should try to meet with. The first are the editorial boards of the regional newspapers, the Chronicle Herald and the other newspaper boards down home. The other group are those within the universities, including the students. The fourth part of the four-point plan I've just outlined: a federal anti-poverty act or poverty abolition act, a poverty commissioner, who you could in fact appoint on an interim basis before the act is put in place. The cost would be minimal—$1 million annually, or something like that, for an interim poverty commissioner. Then, of course, the Senate will be bringing forward its green paper, and we are encouraging you to look at this citizens income idea. So I'd recommend those two conversation groups, the editorial boards and those within the universities.
The key point they need to know concerns this elastic-band point. This elastic band represents an unequal society. The stress is felt right throughout that society. If you go to Nova Scotia, for example, with an increasingly large senior population, if you reduce income inequality and in fact create an inclusive society, you dramatically reduce health care costs. In B.C., the argument across on the other coast is that the provincial budget will go completely over the top because of the increasing health care costs. There will be no money for roads, or transit, or police, or education; it will simply be covered up that way.
So I'm saying editorial boards, and I would try to meet with the principals and students in the east coast universities.