Thank you.
A number of national and provincial studies have been undertaken around the economic benefits of government investment in early learning and child care. It Is very clear that for every dollar invested in a system of public and non-profit high quality early learning and child care, there is a $2 to $6 return. This has been demonstrated in three separate studies by three separate economic researchers, so we do know.
We need only look to Quebec to see that in that province, investment in $7 per day child care has actually brought the poverty rate down by 40%. In particular—as I also know from my own experience—women who are trying to get off social assistance and trying to get into the labour force really find the costs of child care exorbitant and a barrier to their involvement in the paid labour force. If you bring down the costs of early learning and child care and make them affordable, more women will end up in the paid labour force.
We know there are economic benefits in the tax revenue that comes from women's earnings in the paid labour force, which does benefit Canada and the provinces.
I want to go to a comment that was made a little earlier about the men who drop out of high school ending up in trades or construction and women or young girls who do the same ending up in the caring professions like home child care. To go back to Linda's comments, I think valuing the work that women have historically done in their homes—the caring work, the care that goes into education, the care that goes into help—really valuing those kinds of things that women have historically done in society and valuing them through economic compensation will also improve Canada's economy. I think that instead of trying to trying to get women into non-traditional jobs simply as an economic strategy, it's time that our country valued the work that women do.
Thank you.