Mr. Speaker, the hon. member's question is a very important one. We keep on hearing that the rural communities can look after their own and that we Liberals were trying to impose solutions for child care on them.
However, an interesting study has just come out on farm communities and how it is important that in the farming communities, to get economically viable, women must have proper child care. Child care spaces are essential.
In fact, in one of the reports on the farming communities, a report released in 2006, women who came before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women stated that it was the lack of proper, affordable child care spaces that was their biggest problem. That is from a rural perspective.
On the rural divide, we keep hearing from the Conservatives that rural women stay at home and that is what they do, but no, they want to go out and be part of the working environment so they can support their farms.
The second aspect is that $2 a day is an insult to the urban communities. In my riding of Don Valley East, child care costs $1,500 a month. That tax deductible $100 does nothing for them but keep on making them poor.