Thanks so much for the question, Sonia.
I like to think that my riding of Toronto Centre is a good microcosm of the country. I say this because during the pandemic, a lot of the people in my riding—I'm thinking of St. James Town in particular, which is one of the densest neighbourhoods in this country and happens to be where I come from as well—worked on the front lines of this pandemic. They did not stop. Many of them had kids at home. It was really very hard.
To have $10-a-day child care, to have dental and rental benefits for a family, for a single mom to be able to take her child to the dentist—these are big things where I come from. To have a grocery benefit is a big thing where I come from. There are those who might say, “What's a couple of hundred bucks? What's 300 bucks? What's 400 bucks?” Where I come from, the women in my community in particular can make $50 go a long way.
When it comes to women joining the workforce, when it comes to women being able to make decisions based not just on their family's needs but also on their own needs to achieve their goals, child care is huge. Again, rental and dental benefits are huge.
There are stats that show a huge percentage—I believe it's an 85% increase—of women who have returned to the workforce since child care was introduced. That is not insignificant. That is huge, because we know who the caregivers are predominantly. What this means is that women, those who choose to work outside the home, can do so knowing that their kids are taken care of. That's huge.