We did a study about the accountability in the previous child care agreements that were signed. We found that when you required the provincial governments to be accountable to their publics, because that was the requirement under the previous agreements that were signed, there was no accountability from the provinces to the federal government. The provinces needed to account to their publics.
We found there were inconsistencies. Sometimes there was a baseline established, it was reported on, and then the following year there was a report done, but it didn't report on the progress on specific programs and how they were meeting children's needs. What we need are specific targets and timelines, such as how many child care spaces are in a province to date, as a baseline. In year one, how many additional spaces have we created? Has the provincial government capped fees as they're making funding available to the program? We need clear benchmarks and timelines that the provincial governments do report back to the federal government. Ideally, that would be enshrined in legislation.