I have a bit of an issue. I wear hearing aids and I'm getting feedback. I can't hear myself. I'm going to try again.
I concur with something Ms. David was saying. I started a neighbourhood association several years ago focusing on small businesses. Two of our most popular business owners are women married to each other. What hurt them the most in the pandemic was that they were not able to afford to pay their staff. It was women helping women. That's something I can certainly see.
I'm addressing my comments to the Liberals, who are once again trying to bring in a national child care system for Canadians, a system that is as wrong now as it was last year and the year before that. I instead stand for strengthening our Canadian child care network currently in existence, in which parents have successfully been choosing their own care for the past 40 years.
The studies you are being presented by your hand-picked advisers in favour of such a system are based on research from years ago that never supported the claims they make. Renowned think tanks, such as the EPPI-Centre at the University of London, state, “Politicians and policy-makers should stop basing the case for expanding early years provision on old, inaccurate and decontextualized data about long-term economic benefits.” The recognized leading expert on child care cost-benefit analysis, Nobel laureate James Heckman, says, “I get the impression that early childhood advocates feel the need to put forward an appearance of unanimity, which in reality is an illusion. We need programmes openly competing with each other.”
Why are you proposing this program? I ask because so many of your reasons are hugely problematic. You say you want to help low-income women in particular. Do you really want to provide child care for these women just so they can go out and work minimum wage jobs for grocery chains that refuse to offer enough full-time work and have eliminated COVID pay, even though they saw profits rise during the pandemic?