Thank you.
Ms. Ward, I have looked at the brief that you tabled before us. I am surprised by several comments in it. It seems to me to be a collection of assertions presented as truths, when in fact many of them are questionable, to say the least. If I understood correctly, you would like to see direct financial assistance given to parents to encourage them, I suppose, to stay at home rather than spending that money on public daycare. I find surprising the deliberate attack on public daycare that appears throughout the brief.
I want to quote a few of those assertions so that you can develop your ideas a bit more. I have difficulty understanding how establishing a public daycare system could lead to a need for foreign workers and how daycare can be harmful to children wellbeing. That assertion is a very serious one, in my opinion. Finally, I find it hard to understand how the low birth rate can result from that. You say that there is no evidence that daycare has a positive effect on children. I am sorry, but there are numerous studies that show exactly that. You can tell us that you do not agree with that research, but it is a bit much to claim that there is no evidence.
Finally, our society funds public schools. We do not tell parents to raise their own children and pay if they want them to go to school! Why could we not do the same thing with daycare? Why should it not be free, just like school is?