Yes, because I believe that this deserves clarification.
We can all agree that the Canadian Federation of Independent Business is not against the principle of parental insurance. However, the National Assembly voted unanimously on a bill that sets out the foundations of a system that means we are buying a Cadillac when in fact we can only afford a Volkswagen. And the legislators decided to negotiate the terms of purchase of this Cadillac. That is the kind of parental insurance system that we have established. Later on, there were negotiations with the federal government, but the Quebec government did not obtain the money that it had counted on. It therefore passed the bill onto employers, when we had achieved some savings on complementary pension plans and we had saved money at the CSST regarding preventive leave. When you pass the bill onto employers and salaried workers, I personally find that indecent. It is precisely that aspect of parental insurance that we are opposed to, because we were members of the Conseil de gestion de l'assurance parentale. The CFIB at least deserves credit for one thing: when a piece of legislation is passed, we fall in step and try to adapt and even promote the legislation. But at some point, there is something indecent about passing the bill on to the smallest and weakest, when large corporations and government benefit because they have complimentary systems. But I will not get into that debate.
With regard to child care, I can tell you that within the CFIB, we have over 200 members that are private day care centres. So I am sure you could appreciate that we are certainly not against the child care system that exist in Quebec. However, we have questions right now about the universality of this system and our capacity to maintain it as it exists. When you have a $7 a day universal system, that is all very nice, except that if a CPE is subsidized by the state to the tune of 100 per cent and a private day care centre has to make up for a significant financial gap in order to offer its services; things just cannot work this way. Indeed, a private child care centre has to charge the same price, but it does not have the same income as a CPE.