I'll have to get my points in quickly. I didn't realize there were just three minutes.
To start, someone mentioned there were no new child spaces created since the government took office. I'd note that recorded so far in Nova Scotia there are 1,550; in Saskatchewan, 500; in Manitoba, 500. The recent Ontario budget committed 15,000 spaces, and obviously there are going to be more provincial budgets coming out. Those are the data in four provinces. It's exciting to see some progress happening.
I'd note that in my native province of Ontario the government there was given $97.5 million from the Government of Canada--for those who might be confused about governments. The Government of Ontario chose to spend only $25 million because they believed that was enough in terms of the needs of child care.
So I have some concerns about assuring that child care dollars are spent...and I worry that this bill may actually freeze child care money, because we are going to have provinces that don't support terms of universality. For example, in Quebec, we understand, their model is about 50%. Ms. Savoie said 54% should be the benchmark. So I do have some concerns about that.
A larger concern with the bill is that it sees the solution as requiring no new resources. That's something that I think some of the people making suggestions today would have concerns with.
Where the problem started in Canada, and I think most of us would agree, was back in 1993, when many Canadians believed there was an issue of child care. The Liberal Party made a platform commitment, and then they cut child care funding. They cut social transfers to the provinces by $25 billion. My concern with no new funding is, what happens if we see the Liberal Party elected again and they look for ways, as they did in 1993, to take away from child care? Could they use this act to limit child care funding?
The question I want to get out is whether you agree that no new funding...as Ms. Savoie has outlined and as seems to be supported by the Liberal Party, and certainly the premier, who's searched for opportunities in Ontario to cut funding for child care. Do you agree with the sentiment that no new funding is required?
I'm excited about the mood we've had in Ottawa of late, where the Conservatives have tripled funding for child care--tripled in terms of what the Liberals actually promised--and that's a fact, $5.6 billion.
Are you in favour of the Conservative model of increasing funds in child care or are you in favour of the status quo argument, which is to say no new funding is available, let's forget about the Conservative course to triple it, as we have?