Mr. Speaker, I must agree with my hon. colleague on a couple of points she made in her speech. Funding for education and for the environment has been cut. I must agree with her comments with respect to the issue of child care not being a national program, but basically being a family allowance for the children of Canada.
However, I have to shake my head a bit at some of her logic. I heard her hon. colleagues speaking in the House the other day and they were saying that every child in Canada had the right to an affordable national child care program. I have to wonder about their comments because we heard promises being made by that side of the House for 13 years. My children grew up without the benefit of a child care program.
There were many surpluses over the years. In fact, she said that in the last Parliament there was an $8 billion surplus. I am just wondering why the Liberal government did not provide a national child care program. Why is it that at the behest of the NDP the Liberals actually started on that road?