Thanks, Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for coming today.
I want to start by commenting on Ms. Dhalla's assertion that the $100 per month is actually $60 after tax. Of course, as Ms. Dhalla knows, the amount is taxed in the lowest-income earner's hands, so her numbers reflect a circumstance where the lowest-income earner in a family is in a 40% tax bracket, and of course most low-income families that I know of are nowhere near that circumstance. But it's typical of the Liberal spin. They had 13 years to implement something, anything, on child care and did absolutely nothing—not a single child care space created in 13 years. They did fund the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, I think, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $6 million. That was basically to be a PR arm of the Liberal Party, spinning the Liberal idea that it actually cared about child care, but for $6 million not one single space was created. Not surprisingly, the former executive director is now a Liberal candidate, so I guess that's typical of the Liberals' approach.
What I'm curious about, though, is actual results, so could you comment on how much we have invested in child care this year? Second, how many spaces have been announced by the provinces and territories? Third, how many families currently receive the universal child care benefit?