Mr. Speaker, I am the mother of three children so I know how important child care is. I was a working mom and I wish I would have had the benefit of a lot of the things the government has committed to providing under the national child care program.
The member is in error when he thinks this will only help large communities. We are trying to help families by providing quality, universality, accessibility and development for our children. I know that across Canada, each province will be able to negotiate their agreement with the federal government. There is not one solution that fits all but this is a beginning. It will provide for those families who are not able to afford nannies or professional day care or have the ability to have someone look after their children. This tries to put people on an equal footing.
I am so proud of this women's caucus and their input into this day care program because we have ensured that we are not going to have large American corporations come here and deliver child care the American way. We are going to ensure that child care is delivered by community organizations and that is where communities will have a say.
I applaud the government and all of my colleagues in the women's caucus who have worked long on this file, well before I came here in 1997, to finally make a national child care program a reality.