Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.
The situation in rural communities is very similar to that in some larger centres. It's just a question of quality access to care. Simply, in rural communities there aren't child care providers, for one thing. This means that families have to leave their community to bring their children to reliable child care.
Some of the recommendations that BGC has regarding the national child care program include really thinking about it holistically and including all ages. It's not just zero-to-five, but also school-age children who need to be able to access child care. This is really challenging rural communities.
Then, our key issue is the fact that we do not have enough staff. There are some pretty regulated circumstances in which you can hire staff for child care, which relate to quality in hiring early childhood educators. We simply don't have enough staffing resources. That's compounded in rural communities. We are thus really interested and want to work with the government regarding their plans for the universal child care program.