Thank you, Madam Chair.
This is something we've discussed a lot in this committee, as child care is obviously such a huge part of women's work and women's lives.
I was interested to go back to the idea of the three-pronged approach that you were speaking about, Ms. Bezanson.
We've seen that the government has announced a commitment to the national child care secretariat—we haven't seen the actual dollars yet; I think it was just announced—which is what child care advocates and stakeholders have been asking for, absolutely, in terms of that one piece. However, there are the other two. The piecemeal approach that has been continued has a lot to do with consistency of funding.
Could you comment on the impacts of that underfunding of a piecemeal system and what that has done? I know that the national advocacy groups have called for $2.5 billion immediately just to stabilize the child care sector and then an additional $10 billion over the next four years to be able to do the work and provide those spaces.
That money hasn't appeared. Could you talk about the impacts of that?