Mr. Speaker, I do not want to be disrespectful and I do not want to accuse the member of being sexist in his insistence that we are talking about waitresses. I would think in this day and age we would be talking about servers, but since he clearly means women, let me talk about women who are working at very inadequate wages.
They are desperate for universal child care programs because they understand that the child care program is not only essential to ensure the safety, health and security of their child but it is early childhood development. It is early learning that is critical to the development and well-being of the child.
Let me talk about women earning very inadequate wages. It means that they are hurting because the government has not done anything about affordable housing, especially special needs housing, in some cases for single parents, and in some cases for older women who find themselves widowed or divorced and with inadequate incomes.
We know there are older women working as waitresses these days because they, in many cases, have the need for prescription drugs, either for their own illnesses or because they are supporting, with no help from the government thank you very much in terms of a universal home care program, and trying to provide desperately expensive prescription drugs for a family member or spouse who is ill.
I think if the member could just raise his sights a little bit to see the bigger picture, he would understand that most hard-working family members or single women, whom he has in his sights here, would rather have seen the investment in these kinds of programs. That would lift those in deepest poverty up out of poverty and give a break to hard-working families and individuals who are suffering because of the increasing gap between the haves and have-nots in our society.