Mr. Speaker, if that is the hon. member's understanding of finance and history and he is in charge of the Treasury Board, that is like asking Colonel Sanders to take care of the chickens.
Clearly, history will prove that in 1993 the reason the child care program could not begin was because of the very sorry state of affairs the country had inherited. It took that many years to get out of that. The fact that we can get into a situation in our country where we are the leader of the G-7 is very significant.
For my riding, clearly child care spaces, which would have been created from the money that came from the federal government, is now being used by the provincial government to take care of the existing spaces for the next four years. It is essentially an uploading of that program.
Make no mistake about it, all municipalities are keenly aware of the hit they have taken in terms of early learning and care. They understand that those which had needs and backlogs which would have been addressed this year, in fact in January because the deal was signed, would have had those children in place. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and all people in every municipality understand what kind of hit they have taken.
In four years, after the money provinces are using to carry this through runs out and property taxes go up again, there is only one government that will take the full blame for hurting early learning and child care.