Mr. Speaker, in many ways our children are our greatest natural resource.
Our program is designed to provide three things: support, choice and spaces. It is not the role of the federal government, constitutionally, to provide 100% child care.
We believe that our role is to provide the parents with the support they need to get the choice that meets their needs, the choice in child care, and we will do that in two ways. One way is through a $1,200 a year universal child care allowance for parents of every child under the age of six. That will help them with affordability to access programming.
As Leslie Wilson, who is the vice-president of the large Canadian day care program, Wee Watch, said the affordability of licensed care has always been a sticking point. For parents currently planning day care for their children, that $1,200 appears to be bridging the gap between the cost of our services compared to unregulated care.
We are talking about spending more than twice as much on our child care program than any previous government has even promised, much less delivered. There is a lot more money going into the system. That money will be there to support the choices parents make. Whether it is formal day care or stay at home, the money will be in the system to make it happen.