Mr. Speaker, I want to salute child care workers in my riding who are doing outstanding work in difficult circumstances with poor pay and no benefits.
While the Prime Minister recently recognized extraordinary teachers like Kim Atkinson of Victoria and others, his government is undermining their work by offering a piecemeal approach to the national child care crisis. In Victoria alone, 13,000 child care spaces are needed. Across the country, waiting lists for day care spaces are years long. Meanwhile the government's inaction is opening the door to big box child care.
How can the government justify the hypocrisy of recognizing the excellence of well trained teachers, yet allow big box operators to enter Canada and specify in their ads that people without training can apply, as one company is doing in Air Canada's May issue of enRoute magazine?
What Canada really needs is a national child care system with standards that protect our children and ensure workers have decent working conditions.