I started out by saying that certain groups of course have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic so far. We know for a fact that women are bearing most of the burden of the child-rearing responsibility. Those who have been in the workforce and who have been locked down for this entire period, of course, are struggling with that reality.
We believe that if we really want to reboot the economy, this is going to be a critical component of that rebooting. We need to make sure that parents are able to put their kids in proper care as they go back to work. If there's an absence of that, they're not going to go back to work. As I speak to you today, women are more than half of the workforce, but, equally so, families in general rely upon child care to ensure that they can all go to work. If we don't have an adequate child care component in the reopening of the economy, I think we're going to see a disproportionate re-engagement of those who are not going to get there.
We believe the child care sector is a critical part. We also know from history, in terms of the Quebec child care system, that the system actually pays for itself over time by that investment. We need to work with the provinces and with municipal governments to ensure that, as we are reopening the economy, child care is going to be a critical component. We believe the business community supports this idea.
As a matter of fact, with Goldy Hyder and the Business Council, we co-authored an article you'll see published sometime this week, calling on the federal government to work with provinces and territories, but also with municipal governments, and take steps to ensure that child care will be a critical component as we reboot the economy and, critical to that, to recognize the disproportionate responsibility that women are taking on in this recovery period. We don't want to burden them further by not having child care, and we want to make sure the funding and support are there for them going forward.
I want to thank the government for whatever they're doing. We're going to continue to push to make sure this happens as we enter into the recovery.