Day care costs $35 a week in Quebec. Elsewhere the cost is almost $300 per month per child. So then, $100 doesn't get you very far. What's needed is a national day care program, like the one in Quebec, and a national EI program for women, like the one in Quebec. If we use Quebec as an example—a very good example, I might add—such programs are already in place. I'm here today not to fight for Quebec women, but for other women in Canada.
When interviewed recently, Mr. Harper said that not only do we need immigrants, but that a real effort will be made to welcome them, because of Canada's declining birth rate. However, since both of these programs were introduced in Quebec, the birth rate has increased, the child poverty rate has decreased and more women are now working.