Mr. Speaker, we know that 70% of mothers work. As a result, their kids, the children of working families, need to be taken care of by someone. Yes, there are some grandparents who can take care of the kids. My mother, for example, still lives in the house and when our kids were young, she occasionally assisted.
However, not every family is blessed with grandparents. Grandparents also from time to time have other needs. Grandparents also need support, which is why part of the child care program that we have been talking about is not just about child care from 9 to 5; it is also about a drop-in centre, a resource centre, so that the grandparents can meet with other grandparents with their grandkids in a school setting, for example. There would be a toy library, a place where they could share some ideas, where the kids could sing songs together and grandparents could talk to each other.
That kind of community based support is critically important, but it requires funding. Funding is needed to buy toys, funding to have a coordinated effort, funding for the grandfathers and grandmothers, for example, when they need to do something else so there would be some other kind of support.
Right now that choice is not available. There are thousands of families waiting for high quality, affordable child care. Your party recognized that because you said that you wanted 125,000 spaces created.