I appreciate that. While it is a great tactic to deflect from the real issue by making insinuations about federal funding to organizations and so on, you're right--the bottom line here is what this means for Canada, for our future productivity. Is this an issue about children? Is this an issue about parents and their ability to be in the workforce? Is this about Canada's economy? Child care is about all of those things. We know that if we don't invest in Canada's future, in our children, we are going to be in trouble.
I was in Alberta recently. There were signs everywhere; 7-Eleven is offering signing bonuses to people to try to get them to work there. Their coverage for child care is among the lowest of all provinces. They're scrambling to try to figure out how to address this problem. Seventy percent of the parents of young children are in the workforce. That's the reality. We can wish something different; we can try to provide incentives for something different....
On the whole idea of funding the child, let me say that again, despite the fact that we've been characterized in the media and so on as being opposed to stay-at-home parents, the reality is that if you look through our documents over the last three decades, you will see that the CCAC has always advocated for family policy. We have supported expanded maternity and parental leave to support families to be able to stay home during those important early years.
Do we think it's a great idea to fund parents to stay home for the first five years? Sure, why not?
Why not? Because it would cost about $80 billion a year. If we can afford that, let's look at it.
I don't think so. We can't just look at the amount it would cost. If we look at the amount of the maternity and paternity benefit, we also have to look at the reduced tax contributions of those working parents. Those working parents are contributing to our economy, and with our shrinking workforce and our shrinking birth rate, we have to address those issues. We have to do that by addressing it through a very systematic approach to providing early learning and child care, both to support labour force participation as well as to ensure that our youngest citizens get a good start in life, so that we aren't investing money in health care and education to undo the damage done when we don't support families to provide the best start for children.