Thank you.
Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to talk with you today.
Campaign 2000 is a broad anti-poverty coalition. It's a cross-Canada coalition, founded in 1991, of more than 120 organizations to promote and secure the full implementation of the unanimous 1989 House of Commons resolution to eliminate child poverty in Canada. Clearly we've not achieved that by the year 2000, but we continue to urge all governments to keep their commitments and meet their obligations.
We're a diverse range of partner organizations in every province and territory, including low-income people's groups, parents' groups, child care providers and advocates, housing and health care providers and advocates, unions, women's groups, social planning councils, food banks, teachers, social workers, faith communities, aboriginal groups, and groups representing immigrants and refugees. Our partners in early learning and child care services include the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada; the Canadian Child Care Federation; the Childcare Resource and Research Unit; SpeciaLink, the National Centre for Child Care Inclusion; and the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, to name a few. There will be a list of partners with the brief we submit.
Since our inception we have been committed to a balance of income supports and high-quality community services that are essential and that evidence indicates are needed to significantly reduce and eradicate child and family poverty and improve the life chances of all children. We seek to raise public awareness and to bring to light evidence-based and reasonable policy solutions. We meet with all levels of government, and we're non-partisan.
Martha is going to address some other aspects of the situation.
We're here to support the legislation, Bill C-303. We're very much in agreement with the perspective that child care services must be accessible for all children, not only low-income children. At the same time, a real system of high-quality and accessible child care services is an essential cornerstone of a poverty reduction strategy. I might add that the experience in Quebec, the only province where the child and family poverty rate has continuously gone down since 1997, is illustrative. I think we have to look at it. Perhaps we can talk about that later.
From our point of view, universality means that when a full system has been developed, all children will have access to good services if their parents choose it, whether they're urban or rural, low income, middle income, or well-to-do, have a mother in the paid labour force, or they're aboriginal, Québécois, or a newcomer to the country.
There are a number of reasons we feel that the best way to meet the early learning and child care needs of low-income children is within a universally accessible system. Martha is going to address that.
Thank you.