Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a question, specifically in respect to the national child care framework being proposed by the government. I noted the member mentioned statistics, that there were working mothers with 3 million children and that there were approximately 500,000 daycare spaces, which left about 2.5 million government approved daycare spaces that needed to be created.
My specific concern is that my riding is primarily a rural riding. I would like to use the quote from J.S. Woodsworth of 1922. As he said, is this just a program where one group funds it but gets none of the benefits? That is what many rural Canadians feel about the national daycare program, which creates spaces in large cities but gives none of the benefits to rural Canadians.
There are many examples of that kind of disparity. I know the member rode his bicycle to work. In rural Canada, where work is sometimes 30 to 40 miles away on a gravel road, it is a tough thing to do.
However, I want to focus just on the child care. How do we help rural Canadians with those specific needs?