Madam Speaker, my colleague and I share a common vision on the importance of quality early childhood education. I can relate to almost everything she said. I particularly appreciated her point about the 1.2 children per family. She would be pleased to know that 2.0 children just left the gallery.
It makes an important point about socialization. I come from a family of five and my wife from a family of seven. We have four children. One of those children has three. Another two have two and one has one. The size of the family is getting smaller. The socialization aspect, particularly if it is a family with 1.2 children, is really quite difficult. Socialization is very important for children at an early age, and in a family as small as that, it makes it more important than it would have been some generations ago.
The member and I obviously disagree on the role of the federal government. With respect to the federal government one of my views is that the great strength of a Confederation is the possibility for experimentation. The Confederation is made up of a group of jurisdictions, each of which is independent and powerful in various ways and it can experiment.
Sometimes a part will do something well and sometimes it will do it badly. If something does not work out well in one region, the federal government can take note of that and can make sure the rest of the country does not follow through with it. Sometimes, very often, a jurisdiction will do something wonderfully well, which is what has happened in Quebec at this time. I believe the duty of the federal government in a Confederation is to see the quality that has been done in one region and to introduce that quality as far as is possible to the rest of the Confederation, not with a formula but to introduce it to them and give them the resources so they too can develop their early childhood development system, as it is in this case.
I know hypothetically perhaps my colleague would not agree that a federal government has the duty to take good things in Confederation and introduce them to the rest of the country.