Madam Speaker, to begin I will answer the second question.
I had the pleasure of being in Winnipeg during the meeting on child care services. I believe that is when the minister showed us that he was very serious about the child care services he wanted to provide. Now, I know there were limits to what he could do. He said we needed to start with four-year-olds and up.
Unfortunately, I think we need to start with younger children. I did not provide an illustration. We need to do a tour of Canada, like the minister did, to see if this is applicable in all the provinces of Canada.
In Quebec, the service has been in place since 1997. We are still at the trial and error stage in some areas. For example, you know there is an exodus of families. Young people are leaving rural areas to go to the cities. The needs are certainly not as great in the smaller communities as in the larger ones. Nonetheless, we want to have equally good service in both places. The early childhood centres are a little smaller, but they welcome people the same way.
In certain parts of Quebec, people think nothing of driving 300 kilometres, leaving in the afternoon to visit friends for dinner. That is how it is in certain parts of Quebec. The North Shore is a case in point, and so is the Gaspé, where distances are great. More research remains to be done on this. Efforts must be made to ensure that good programs are in place. But the programs we have implemented so far are the best that could be had.