Mr. Speaker, I did notice that my colleague referred to the whole issue of Canada supporting its children. I think she encouraged Canadians to have more children. I do not know if I misunderstood her, but I think I am correct that she was encouraging Canadians to have more children. Children are good.
However, she also focused on what she alleged to be a shortcoming in our government's approach to serving children. She decried the fact that we do not have a national day care program, institutionalized day care funded by the state.
My concern is this. The hon. member well knows that the large majority of Canadian children do not take advantage of day care. They have other models of care. For example, in my riding there is a large Indo-Canadian community. Many Indo-Canadian families have an intergenerational model of care, where the parents live with their children. The children go to work. The grandparents take care of the grandchildren. That is a different model. Others have stay at home parents, like we did. My wife was able to stay at home.
Yet the model that the member's party, the NDP, has promoted for many, many years is one which essentially has excluded those other models of child care. The NDP just like the institutionalized day care.
Why is it that for so many years her party has focused on that one group of children, but have omitted to address the needs of the majority of young children in our country?