Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for coming and sharing your insights with us this afternoon.
This is to Noreen and John, first of all, on the question of the child care benefit. In the course of your discussion, you talked about even upwards of 200,000 day care spaces being advisable. You talked in terms of your displeasure with the $1,200 per year. I assumed from this—maybe you didn't say it outright, and correct me if I'm wrong—that you would consider that the public sector should in fact be paying more fully the cost of someone attending a day care centre, vis-à-vis the Quebec example, where day care is fully subsidized. So I drew that conclusion from your comments.
In terms of moving to that, in budget 2007 the government embarked on a program to bring fiscal balance to the provinces. This involved some $35 billion in transfers to the provinces for services that are within the provinces' control. Would you be aware that the provinces can in fact bring those kinds of services if they wish? This is child care services and the day care realm, albeit the government has played a role. Would you realize that in fact provincial governments can do this if they wish, as Quebec has?