Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to ask the hon. member a question that concerns me a great deal. I think it would concern her a great deal as well. There is the very dire absence of adequate child care opportunities available to children to get the best possible start in life from such early learning experiences and for parents who are desperate to work in jobs with decent incomes and to raise their families and provide their children with the best possible start in life.
This never comes from the province of Quebec. To its credit, the province of Quebec has done very well. It does not have universal child care available to every family that needs it, but it has a universal program available that can be accessed and that provides the best child care in the country.
As a woman, as a parliamentarian, as someone whom I know to be concerned about family, does the member not recognize the complete failure of the Conservative government, the government in which she sits, to provide the kind of child care that working families, low income families and modest income families need? This is a serious contribution to the crisis being experienced by so many parents and working families in our country. Why has the federal government abandoned those families because they do not happen to live in the province of Quebec?