Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon. Good afternoon, colleagues.
Thank you to our witnesses this afternoon, and thank you for your work on behalf of all Canadians.
I ran in 2015 to be part of a government that delivered transformational programs. Whether those programs were the Canada child benefit or the housing benefit or the workers benefit or what have you, they're transformational. They are there to have a major impact on the lives of Canadians. There's absolutely no question that the child care agreements that were signed across the country will do that.
I don't think it's any secret that in the last election the Conservative Party actually ran to scrap that program. I heard at very many doors from concerned parents who were saying we were coming forth with a program that was going to cut their child care costs in half, down to $10, and the Conservative Party was running to scrap it. That was in their platform, actually.
For those Canadians who are watching or listening today, can you give us, at 20,000 feet, how important Bill C-35 is? We all know about the bilateral agreements. We all saw the pictures with the premiers and the minister and things like that, and they were wonderful, right across the country, but can you just speak at a very high level to people listening in about how important Bill C-35 is and what that means?