I greatly appreciate the question. I recognize that my comment is controversial in the context of jurisdictions. I tried to make my case as to why I believe this is necessary in the pandemic period, because in most jurisdictions, schools are not open and child care centres are closing.... Consequently, to maintain critical social infrastructure that needs to exist across the country, my view is that the federal government needs to step up to the plate, not just on physical infrastructure but on social infrastructure as well. Of all the social infrastructure, this is the most critical to regaining recovery for men, for women, for households and for the entire superstructure of businesses that rely on household purchasing power.
I don't see how we're going to do it province by province. I think too many provinces are going to be cash-strapped in the wake of this jurisdictional.... Our ecosystem of child care support is...in some measure—and we don't even know which measure, because we count the system so poorly in Canada. It's delivered partly through not-for-profit private sector organizations and partly through for-profit private sector businesses. It's unclear which of these are going to survive. Without federal support, I do not believe it is going to be possible to sustain the infrastructure. As I mentioned, better measurement is done in the United States, and there they estimate they are going to lose 50% of their capacity.