With regard to parents and mothers and fathers at home making choices around their child care, I think that even large sums of money to parents for them to be able to make those choices is a more effective policy decision than creating a bureaucratic system where the money doesn't ever reach the majority of children.
If we're going to look at models—for example, we talk a lot about Sweden—I would like to raise the model of Finland, which does fund spaces but also gives a sizable chunk of money to parents, and for a child under the age of three, they can decide which they prefer to use. That's choice as well. It's not saying that we are giving money only to spaces, and you, Parent A, get money for your child care choice because you chose that particular type of care, and you, Parent B, get nothing because you don't prefer that form.
Parental preference is so key on this, and I just fear that we are not getting enough of the polling and stats out there on parental preference. There is a University of Saskatchewan public policy analyst, Rick August, who has written on and coalesced the years of polling data on what parents prefer, and they don't prefer centre-based spaces. That's the type of care we get when we fund federally a universal so-called system. We need to move away from that and offer parents the preferences that they say they choose and they prefer. I'm really strong on that as well.