Thank you very much.
Thanks to all of you for coming here today and for your presentations. They were very well done.
I am Mike Savage. I'm a Liberal member of Parliament from Nova Scotia, from the Halifax area, and I'm pleased, along with my colleagues, to be here in Moncton today.
I want to follow up on what Steve was saying. He quite correctly uses terms like moral fortitude, political will, courage, foresight, and competing interests, and this is really what it comes down to. I believe that Canada has in many ways abdicated its moral responsibility to assist those in need here in Canada and, for that matter, around the world. You mentioned the MDGs; I mean, we could do a lot more.
The bottom line is that we can do a lot of these things.
Auréa, your mentioned your recommendations. They're all very sensible. Each one of these things is something I can support. The issue for us is what to do if we're government. Imagine that you're the government. What do you prioritize? What do you do? Do you do them all?
Canada could do all of these things. I'm not sure what the cost would be to go to a minimum living wage, but on your recommendation 3, “investing funds into creating and maintaining a national universally accessible quality child care system”, I would say an early learning and child care system, or early education. I see Jody Dallaire here, who has been one of the champions of child care not only here, but in Canada, and now is a municipal councillor in Dieppe as well.
We can do those things.
On the EI side, going to 360 hours of work makes sense. It would probably cost anywhere from $500 million up, as the CCPA says. I think Caledon says $700 million. TD says a billion. To go to 60%, according to HRSDC numbers at last count, and according to Ms. Yalnizyan, whom you referenced, it's $1.8 billion and rising every year.
As for going to 50 weeks, I don't know the cost of that. For the two-week waiting period, it's estimated to be about $760 million, so you're looking at $3 billion to $4 billion. Now, keep in mind that it comes from the EI fund, and we've had surpluses for the last number of years.
My point is this: is Canada ready, in your view, to radically reform the way that we provide the social infrastructure of the country? A few weeks ago or a month ago, one of our political leaders mentioned in a forum that we may have to raise taxes at some point in time, and the outcry was immediate and consistent.
There's no question that we can afford these things. I'm going to ask you. Do you think there is political will in this country to do these things, knowing that it's going to mean, in all likelihood, that we will have to increase taxes?