Mr. Speaker, the member mentioned 1,400 child care spaces in his region of the province of Ontario. He claims that those spaces will no longer exist. In truth, they never did exist. The reality is that after 13 years of Liberal government promises, of which he was a part, not a solitary child care space was created and billions of dollars were spent. There were no results, zero, zip and zilch, in that order.
Today we are confronted with a new debate. Do we continue with the path of the last 13 years where the Liberal government had promised $1 billion a year to create day care spaces, which 19 out of 20 children would not have received a solitary space? Let us do the simple math of one child care space costing $40 a day and multiplying that times the number of business days in an entire year. If one plays the math out, there would be enough money for about 1 in every 20 kids to have a day care space.
Automatically all the families who have a stay at home parent, or who rely on a family member to take care of children, or who send their children to a religious-based child care option, or who have a neighbourhood nanny, all those options, which polls show are far preferred by parents, would automatically have been excluded by that plan.
We have a choice that is very simple: a 1 in 20 chance at a government day care space for one's child or a 100% chance at a $1,200 a year choice in child care allowance. The choice is a universal system of $1,200 for every preschooler or an exclusive government run option, which gives a child care space to 1 in every 20 children.
Why does the member oppose the universal option of giving every child the opportunity of the $1,200 choice in child care allowance? Why is he—