Madam Speaker, Bill C-22 is an act to establish the Department of Social Development and to amend and repeal certain other acts. The member has given a good speech, quite frankly, on the whole subject matter of early learning and child care which we spoke about and debated last night. He was here for some four hours and we spoke about some of the nuances.
There are obviously negotiations that must be held with every province. There is only so much that we can do and we cannot have one model that fits all because every province has a different base to work with. I am a little concerned and I am hopeful that the member would maybe want to reconsider hist position on the bill to create the department and not have his position affected by a measure which is included in the budget bill, Bill C-43, which his party supported.
I do not want to get into a debate about child care because that is not the bill we are debating, but I would say to the member that this is a first step. It is $5 billion over five years with $700 million in the first year. The premise is that putting the interests of children first is very important and that to deal with one aspect, being quality child care, is important regardless of how it might be delivered. We know that it really costs much more to set up a true, effective, quality national program, but we should work together to build on a starting point because there is only so much we can do with $5 billion over five years.