What we're hearing is that women of various classes and class distinction need to be recognized in terms of support for them to access opportunities in the training or business field. We're understanding that perhaps ACOA's mandate right now is too narrow to do that. I wanted to raise that with you.
Turning to the Business Development Bank, in 2002 the Prime Minister of Canada created the task force on women entrepreneurs to ascertain the contribution and needs of Canadian businesswomen, citing that it's very easy for government to develop a gender-biased policy that could benefit men, or worse, actually hurt women. One of the recommendations made by this task force to the Canadian public sector was to increase access to the social safety net, including child care, maternity, and paternity benefits.
We know that the government has scrapped plans for a national child care plan. From the perspective of the Business Development Bank and based on what you hear from women entrepreneurs that you work with, is child care an important issue? Is it something on which we need to see national action?