Mr. Speaker, a number of years ago I attended a meeting and had the opportunity to sit beside Barbara Hall, who is a former mayor of the city of Toronto. We were talking about child care issues. It was about seven or eight years ago.
I remember saying to her that it bothered me that the wages of child care workers were so low, that a person could make more by working at McDonald's. She said that I was absolutely right but that I had to understand it was part of the employment initiatives for women. Is child care for the benefit of children or for the benefit of women to get jobs? The reality is that there are competing interests.
Today we are talking about the care of children. The minister is doing his very best to collaborate with the provinces to find out how we strike that appropriate balance.
If we have the problem, as the minister laid it out in his speech, that it is glorified babysitting and the workers are not properly trained, how long is it going to take to get the system up to a quality of care which would also deal with the problem of ensuring there was secure consistent attachment with an engaged committed adult? That is in fact the recipe for a good learning environment for a child, whether it is the child's parent or some other person, as long as there is consistent care.