Thanks, Madam Chair.
The first question is more to Mr. Dinsdale at this point. From what I understand, there is an amendment coming forward on the aboriginal issue, more specifically. One of the concerns I've had is this. I've heard recently there are potentially going to be cuts and rollbacks to the ECIP, or early childhood intervention program, and the head start program, combined with the lack of child care spaces currently out there. I'm hoping the amendment will speak to some of these concerns.
The issue I hear from my community and across Canada is that the aboriginal population is the only population that's having a huge baby boom, and there seems to be a choking of resources--I don't mean that intentionally. It is really bottlenecking. Less and less funding is going into providing early childhood spaces, and there are potentially some rollbacks from Indian Affairs and from Health on Head Start, Brighter Futures, and ECIP.
What do you think the impact will be? Dr. Shanker talked about the long-term impact, not just psychologically but for all these others, because of that lack. To me, it's potentially very detrimental if those investments aren't immediately channelled into this baby boom. I wonder if you can expand a bit more on your five points, very briefly, on why that investment is so necessary.