Okay. We probably won't even take the full 10, though I've said that before.
Good afternoon. My name is Monica Lysack. I'm the executive director of the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, and with me today is Emily King, an economist and policy analyst with the CCAAC.
It's our pleasure to be here today to speak on behalf of our organization and indeed the four million Canadians affiliated with the CCAAC. This year the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada celebrates 25 years of advocacy for quality universal child care. We're a non-profit, membership-based, and regionally representative organization dedicated to promoting quality publicly funded child care that is accessible to all. Our membership reaches more than four million Canadians, including parents, caregivers, researchers, and students, as well as women's anti-poverty, labour, social justice, disability, and rural organizations at the provincial, territorial, regional, and pan-Canadian levels.
We envision a Canada where families are supported in their very important role of parenting by community-based quality child care services that are publicly funded and are a natural and expected part of our neighbourhoods, available, accessible, and affordable for all those who choose to use them. A pan-Canadian publicly funded, universal, non-profit child care system is fundamental to the advancement of women's equality and has been a central demand of the Canadian women's movement since before the Royal Commission on the Status of Women 35 years ago.