Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before I begin, I have a kind of side point that follows on Mr. Bélanger's comments, I suppose.
I recognize there is a lot of pressure. I hope you won't break this up so that we have two sessions of an hour each. I find when you do that it doesn't give members of this side—and I expect with the official opposition it's the same—time to properly ask questions of an individual we might want to focus on.
I hope you will keep that in mind as you move forward.
Welcome and thank you for being here today.
I have a quite simple question: why are child care services and early childhood services important for you as representatives of minority francophone groups? I would really like to know why these programs are important for you.
I ask the question because there was an election six years ago and there were two ideas on the subject at that time. This may be a simple matter for you, but our government had a program. The former government had promised a program of 15 to 20 years, but it never implemented it because it was defeated. So I would like to know why it's important for you.